Making love to the sound of ‘Sunday Miscellany’Maybe that’s why so many people enjoy the radio show: so they can make love to the sound of poets intoning their verses in the distanceThu Oct 10 2013 - 01:00
I’m not sure if I’m praying or just sittingThere are plenty of churches in Warsaw; I usually sit for half an hour at a time, thinking about God, and Mary, and what I’ll write in my next columnThu Oct 03 2013 - 01:00
Suddenly a Monaghan woman started singingAt Park Hotel Kenmare, a clatter of Americans were delighted to find a roomful of Irish peasants with full bellies singing away to their little Irish hearts’ contentTue Sept 24 2013 - 01:00
The woman who put me off golf for lifeLooking out over Galway Bay in the autumn sun reminds me of encountering a furious Connacht mammy with my lovely American girlfriendTue Sept 17 2013 - 01:00
Iron masks, sunglasses and other evidence of tortureShe looked as fragile as a woman on a cliff, as if she were about to fall into the wind. Then she put on sunglasses to make herself invisible. It didn’t workTue Sept 10 2013 - 01:00
Ireland has united without me noticingThere’s no sign of a Border any more. Just a few signs saying ‘Welcome to Fermanagh’, or ‘Welcome to Cavan’Tue Sept 03 2013 - 01:00
Anne’s head got sliced off as I landed in GatwickIt’s funny the way people always fear that the person sitting beside them might be hiding somethingTue Aug 27 2013 - 01:00
Going Coastal: youthful dreams in DonegalOur series continues with a walk back in time along the windswept shores of the Atlantic in west DonegalThu Aug 22 2013 - 01:00
The war is over. Feral boys are everywhereAt the vibrant Féile an Phobail, it was hard to imagine that the Falls Road was ever a war zoneTue Aug 20 2013 - 01:00
Sexual tension in a midlands saunaThe intensity I witnessed between a human woman and a divine male was so extreme I had to leave the roomTue Aug 13 2013 - 01:00
Let us eat cake (and soda bread) while we canI am 60 today. I will go to the woods and consider the shortness of lifeTue Aug 06 2013 - 01:00
A red hat, a lost love and an irritable bowelNo matter how much women complain that men don’t share their feelings, the fact is that women really don’t want to know everythingTue Jul 30 2013 - 01:00
Judgment day in the kitchenA man’s righteous anger over abortion stirred up a partyTue Jul 23 2013 - 01:00
A man bitten by the acting bug – and Leitrim midgesThe General was disappointed with how his turn in a film turned outTue Jul 16 2013 - 01:00
The unbearable rightness of being alive in LeitrimI used to get carnal urges mowing the lawnTue Jul 02 2013 - 01:00
A life of quiet desperation under the Portuguese sunOne day I was in Cavan buying paint, the next I was in the AlgarveTue Jun 25 2013 - 01:00
Grow old, know less, say nothing and hear moreWhen meeting old friends, there are times when things are best left unsaidTue Jun 18 2013 - 01:00
Married golfer pays the price for straying from the fairwayThere’s a good way and a bad way to deal with the frustration of a flattened marriageTue Jun 11 2013 - 01:00
The fear of illness haunts me after darkMy fears keep me awake at night, but I’ve learned that patience is the key to keeping them in checkTue Jun 04 2013 - 06:00
I wrote a sweet little affirmative note, as people do on FacebookI wanted to say, ‘Maybe you should just leave him.’ But I didn’t dare commit that idea to the cyberarchive of the universeTue May 28 2013 - 01:00
The only thing I have to say about sexual morality is this . . .. . . I wish that love could take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of fleshTue May 21 2013 - 02:00
I made a mental note to give up alcohol. AgainAn actor from the US told me to go wild, so I found myself at an Athlone drama festivalTue May 14 2013 - 02:00
Penetrated by the wounds of a woman’s heart at CúirtBehind the scenes and in the audience at CúirtTue May 07 2013 - 07:00
Searching for my soul among my abandoned saplingsGetting back to nature in search of my better natureTue Apr 30 2013 - 07:00
‘Raglan Road’, a song that has served me well'I had a chat with the ghost of Patrick Kavanagh...He warned me against being inflated after my television appearance'Tue Apr 02 2013 - 06:00
A long day’s journey into the lives of three women‘I’ve had a very interesting day. I met three wonderful women’Tue Mar 26 2013 - 06:00
Dark notes embedded in the beautiful melody of lifeLast week I met a woman whose two grandfathers were musiciansTue Mar 05 2013 - 00:00
Rehearsing in front of the mirror for a radio showOpinion: I spent half an hour rehearsing at the mirror in the bathroom one morning last week before going to RTÉ for a radio…Tue Feb 26 2013 - 00:00
Clear vodka, red lights and black balloonsMy memoir Staring at Lakes is being launched in Cavan Library on Thursday evening, so last week I drove over to Cavan to see …Tue Feb 19 2013 - 00:00
I cried for a yearIn this extract from his new memoir, 'Staring at Lakes', the 'Irish Times' columnist reflects on the light and dark in his life…Sat Feb 16 2013 - 00:00
I'd love to lose god, and I've a perfect alternativeOpinion: It’s almost St Valentine’s Day and my beloved has gone off to DublinTue Feb 12 2013 - 00:00
Some ring the Samaritans. I prefer to call MumbaiSome people call the Samaritans when they’re depressed. Other people call their relations for a chatTue Feb 05 2013 - 00:00
A pilgrimage to Lodz, and a glimpse of the ghettoI am not a Jew, but I went to Lodz on pilgrimage, just to walk around the old Jewish ghetto in the snow and to watch the full…Tue Jan 29 2013 - 00:00
I gazed too long. She asked what I was thinkingLast week I met Páraic Breathnach in Galway, a big, sculpted figure whose eyes are dark and mysterious, like small lakes in Connemara…Tue Jan 22 2013 - 00:00
I will arise and go now, and go to PolandI said, “I’m going to Poland.” The General looked at me like I had two heads. “The flights are cheap,” I explained.Tue Jan 15 2013 - 00:00
Pyjamas and Pentecostal theology in the MidlandsThe price of mince pies got up my nose in a fancy bun shop on New Year’s Eve: €5 for a coffee and one little pieTue Jan 08 2013 - 00:00
A baby born out of the poetics of a domestic warIt wasn’t really the crows that caused the argumentSat Dec 22 2012 - 00:00
I have lost that terrible sense of forebodingTwo years ago I was in the study of Shandonagh House, a large 19th-century homestead near Mullingar, writing my diaryTue Dec 18 2012 - 00:00
The horse looked me in the eye and said . . .The house has been emptied in readiness for decorations and Christmas lightsTue Dec 11 2012 - 00:00
Gathering thoughts in the great silence of cyberspaceI love the way Americans make private things public, and the way Barack Obama cries, and the emails I get from Laura in Montana…Tue Nov 27 2012 - 00:00
The mechanical guts of the universeMETEOROLOGY: Illustrated Weather Eye, By Brendan McWilliams, compiled by Anne McWilliams, Gill & Macmillan, 184pp, €19.99…Sat Nov 24 2012 - 00:00
The unbearable shame of being an Irish maleA few years ago I got a letter in the post with photocopies of newspaper cuttings from a woman who felt that Stone Age religious…Tue Nov 20 2012 - 00:00
Talking of the trees and the bees by the pale moonlightSometimes at night, in the garden, I talk to the treesTue Nov 13 2012 - 00:00
I am choked with emotions that are not allowed outYears ago, when I met strangers in bars I always got an urge to tell them everything. But I never did. I just got drunk.Tue Nov 06 2012 - 00:00
I've almost given up on theatre and church. I don't belongWhen I was a teenager in a duffle coat and only shaved twice a week, an older man said to me one night that I looked confused…Tue Oct 30 2012 - 00:00
