‘Ireland’s lost political experiment’. Here is link to a review I wrote of a book on the All for Ireland League, a political party that flourished in Cork from 1909-1918. It was devoted to the cause of reconciliation betwen nationalists & unionists. www.irishpost.com/features/ire...

At times I see it, present As a bright day, or a hill, The only way of saying something Luminously as possible. Not the accumulated richness Of an old historical language - That musk-deep odour! But a slow exactness Which recreates experience By ritualising its details - John Montague

Here is a link to my contribution to this week’s Sunday Miscellany programme on @rteradio1.bsky.social - ‘The Man from County Buenos Aires’ www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Brightness was drenching through the branches When she wandered again, Turning the silver out of dark grasses Where the skylark had lain, And her voice coming softly over the meadow Was the mist becoming rain. Austin Clarke, The Lost Heifer

Obituary - Moya Brennan: the first lady of Celtic music. I met her a number of times in London & Berlin. A wonderfully warm and hugely talented women. www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

Here is a link to my contribution to this week’s Sunday Miscellany programme on @rteradio1.bsky.social - ‘The Man from County Buenos Aires’ www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Check out @rteradio1.bsky.social’s #SundayMiscellany at 9.10 am tomorrow morning which will feature my essay on The Man from County Buenos Aires’

The six-book shortlist for the Dublin Literary Award 2026 has been announced. It was a privilege for me to be one of the five judges for this year’s award and to read so many wonderful novels. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in #Dublin next month. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

There’s not a place, stream or bush, however remote; … that we shouldn’t consider with affection & sympathy. No matter how far South Africa, no matter how distant the moon, they’re part of us by right: there’s not a single spot anywhere we’re not part of. We issue from everywhere. Greg Delanty

The wind orchestrates its theme of loneliness & the rain has too much glitter in it, yes. They are like words, the wrong ones, insisting I listen to sense. … What I am after is silence in proportion to desire, the way music plumbs its surfaces as straight words do the air between them Vona Groarke

The wind orchestrates its theme of loneliness & the rain has too much glitter in it, yes. They are like words, the wrong ones, insisting I listen to sense. … What I am after is silence in proportion to desire, the way music plumbs its surfaces as straight words do the air between them Vona Groarke

“US gas prices hit $4 per gallon…” . This will pile pressure on for a quick end to this war. Even MAGA enthusiasts will not be happy with this development or with a further escalation. edition.cnn.com/2026/03/31/w...

One more time, call the earth female, as of old. She needs to be placed pronto in the recovery position, gently hold her chin up, bend the left arm at the elbow, hand above the head, palm facing down —waving goodbye or hello? Greg Delanty

It was always those with little else to carry who carried the songs to Babylon to the Mississippi- some of these last possessed less than nothing did not own their own bodies yet, three centuries later, deep rhythms from Africa, stowed in their hearts & bones, carry the world’s songs. Moya Cannon

It was always those with little else to carry who carried the songs to Babylon to the Mississippi- some of these last possessed less than nothing did not own their own bodies yet, three centuries later, deep rhythms from Africa, stowed in their hearts & bones, carry the world’s songs. Moya Cannon

The reprieve from danger Cast a halo around Sunlight on dewy grass, Purple shadow thrown By mountains, the carnal Pink of sunset, a green Glade amid blitzed woodlands Above the Isonzo. We Hear the din of battle In the white silence Around his words. Michael Longley #Irish #Poetry

The strong geese claim the sky again & tell us … of the many shifts & weathers of the long-boned earth. Blind to their huge, water-carved charts, our blood dull to the the tug of poles, we are tuned still to the rising & dying of light & we still share their need to nest & to journey. Moya Cannon

Long after my dead time I survive To see snow melt on the lifeless icicles Off the coast of Atlantis The ocean has shrunk to expose The bleak creatures of coral animation. Thoughts roam in aimless shoals with giddy dolphins There are visions & revisions. I remain in the Land of Doubt Hayden Murphy

As a vetrran of #Stuttgart 1988, I will be watching tonight’s game with fingers crossed that #Prague 2026 will come to be remembered as another epic day for Irish football. www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...

It’s hard to think of a more brilliant Irish family in modern times than the Yeatses. 👇 www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...

Sing carnival when the mind freezes Then turns on its own meat, carnival Before the long fast, carnival that we turn To drink at the blood wells of memory. Savage simplicity, in the bleached palms Of the self-regarding dancers; Savage & clear, the energy Of the self-disclosing dancers. Theo Dorgan

It’s hard to know what the believe at this stage as the narrative from Washington keeps changing. My best guess is that the end is nigh for this war, but that the future for the region will remain highly uncertain with a continuing stand-off between Iran & Israel.

As you plaited the harvest bow You implicated the mellowed silence in you In wheat that does not rust But brightens as it tightens twist by twist Into a knowable corona, A throwaway love-knot of straw. Seamus Heaney ‘The Harvest Bow’

Water was the first mirror, drinking images of beauty, showing their wrinkled future in the mildest breeze. Water clings to its neutrality, changes state at boiling point, finds the level at which tensions cool, limbs relax. Dennis O’Driscoll ‘Water’ #Irish #Poetry

I will be on BBC Northern Ireland’s The View at 11 pm reviewing a busy Irish week in Washington for #StPatricksDay.

Ireland needs to grow up & get serious about its interests Interesting reflections by ex-Irish Ambassador Bobby McDonagh & Prof Emeritus Brigid Laffan on the clouded horizons for Irish foreign policy. A wake up call for us to get serious about our future security www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Here is a link to my interview @rteradio1.bsky.social’s Morning Ireland reviewing the Taoiseach’s meeting with President Trump. The Taoiseach came through it all with great credit for his defence of Keir Starmer & the EU. www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Waif of the afterglow On summer nights you meet your mate & jink Over sea-cliff & graveyard … To hatch an egg in a hermit’s skull. Pulse of the rock You throb till daybreak on your cryptic nest A song older than fossils, Ephemeral as thrift It ends with a gasp. Richard Murphy ‘Stormpetrel’

A cast of characters: Hamnet, Hamlet, William Shakespeare and James Joyce On a big day at the #Oscars for Jessie Buckley & #Hamnet, a reminder that in #Ulysses James Joyce wrote about the Hamnet/Hamlet link that runs through the film. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...

… His thoughts altered the deepest enmities. Like a woman who gathers her husband’s arrogance into a basket of love, he took our wars into the palm of his thought and stroked the poisons from where we had fought. Thomas McCarthy ‘The Wisdom of AE’

A cast of characters: Hamnet, Hamlet, William Shakespeare and James Joyce On a big day at the #Oscars for Jessie Buckley & #Hamnet, a reminder that in #Ulysses James Joyce wrote about the Hamnet/Hamlet link that runs through the film. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...

Good point.👇

Her eyes are pebbles. Her dress is seaweed. Her legs are driftwood that needs to float, but for now she keeps wading, slicing the waves that keep on offering their myriad loves. Matthew Sweeney ‘Wading’ #Irish #Poetry

A preview of next week’s White House visit by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin @theguardian.com to which I contributed. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

A preview of next week’s White House visit by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin @theguardian.com to which I contributed. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

My Irish Diary from this morning’s @irishtimes.com. ‘A cast of characters: Hamnet, Hamlet, William Shakespeare and James Joyce’ ‘Hamlet, the black prince, was Hamnet Shakespeare’ (#Ulysses) www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:    That you were beautiful, and that I strove    To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown    As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. W.B. #Yeats ‘Adam’s Curse’ #Irish #Poetry

Where we stood footloose, at home beyond the tribe, More scouts than strangers, ghosts who’d walked abroad Unfazed by light, to make a new beginning And make a go of it, alive and spinning, Ourselves again, free-willed again, not bad. Seamus Heaney #Irish #Poetry

My Irish Diary from this morning’s @irishtimes.com. ‘A cast of characters: Hamnet, Hamlet, William Shakespeare and James Joyce’ ‘Hamlet, the black prince, was Hamnet Shakespeare’ (#Ulysses) www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...

The leaf-green scurf of pollen on the meadow pond blizzard of bridal-white blossom in breeze-gust two redtails idling high on a thermal and higher in widening circles till they must be near out of each other’s sight but not sound as one lets out a cutting screech … Eamon Grennan

On the water the accumulation of spume, The hiss and purl of spiralling waves, the skid And visible snarl of wind, horizon’s disintegration, The glower and sharp glint of a tired sky. … Now for the decisions of the night, the heart’s undoing; The time where reason & emotions meet. Valentin Iremonger

We covered a lot of ground on this morning’s newspaper panel @rte.ie’s Brendan O’Connor programme. The war in the Middle East, the evacuation of Irish citizens from the Gulf, the Taoiseach’s White House visit etc.

Early start this morning. On the way to @rte.ie to read the Sunday papers ahead this morning’s newspaper panel on the Brendan O’Connor programme.

Good economic news for #Ireland. Domestic economy grows by an impressive 4.9% in 2025, exceeding expectations. www.rte.ie/news/busines...

I was given a copy of Valentin Iremonger’s poems some years ago but didn’t pay much attention to them. The more I read him, to more I rate his poetry. He was an accomplished poet & an Irish diplomat with several Ambassadorial postings. Here is his @DIB_RIA entry www.dib.ie/biography/ir...

On the water the accumulation of spume, The hiss and purl of spiralling waves, the skid And visible snarl of wind, horizon’s disintegration, The glower and sharp glint of a tired sky. … Now for the decisions of the night, the heart’s undoing; The time where reason & emotions meet. Valentin Iremonger

My interview on this evening’s The Hard Shoulder on @newstalkfm.bsky.social in which I discuss the dilemma facing European governments in the wake of the US/Israel assault on Iran. music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/7a4...

Should I join them The old fellas Above Troy’s gate Demobbed by age Their fighting days Long behind them Good talkers still Conversation Like tree-crickets Or grasshoppers Settled on branches Deep in a wood Voices gently Lilting lily-like? Michael Longley #IrishPoetry

My interview on this evening’s The Hard Shoulder on @newstalkfm.bsky.social in which I discuss the dilemma facing European governments in the wake of the US/Israel assault on Iran. music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/7a4...