Behold this box of jumbled varicoloured lives I once held daily office with; each a repository for an imagined soul I would heap into piles of the damned and the saved. I watched them suffer many deaths, many resurrections. Not all were assigned the daydreamt saga of a hero … Patrick Cotter

As he often does, Tom Friedman gets it right here:”If you are a hoping person,hope that this time will be different.If you are a praying person,pray that everything you know about this region,its current leaders & the poisonous legacy of the Gaza war will be overcome” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o...

Behold this box of jumbled varicoloured lives I once held daily office with; each a repository for an imagined soul I would heap into piles of the damned and the saved. I watched them suffer many deaths, many resurrections. Not all were assigned the daydreamt saga of a hero … Patrick Cotter

Sad to learn of death of Martin Mansergh. We first met when I joined Foreign Affairs in 1978 & we shared an office. Martin made his name during the late ‘70s oil crisis & was hired by Charlie Haughey as advisor. He loyally served 3 FF leaders & helped bring peace to NI. www.rte.ie/news/2025/09...

Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? W.B. Yeats

When I come to mind don’t recall how, feisty, I knocked nests of words over the edge, splattering on the rocks to the crude squawks of other ravaging, wing-elbowing birds; rather think of the winged poems I hatched, seen, regardless of time & place, gliding & gyring with their own grace Greg Delanty

Against her choice, I still affirm That nothing dies, that even from Such bitter failure memory grows; The snowflake’s structure, fragile But intricate as the rose when Snow curls in on the cold wind. John Montague

The ‘World Cup of Diplomacy’ begins today at the UN as key countries are increasingly playing by their own rules. The tragic plight of #Gaza will hang over the proceedings. Recognition of Palestine’s independence by UK, France & others will make a difference. www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

The nights midweek are secrets kept. No soul on site,no signal/bars, and zilch for company except a zillion bright disarming stars. I’ll flit through ambers,quicker, higher. I’ll break each hamlet’s Stop & Yield. I’ll fix some noodles, start a fire & climb up to the topmost field. Conor O’Callaghan

A high stakes visit to UK by President Trump. UK govt. has done well in cultivating Trump but there are yawning gaps on Ukraine, Gaza & political ideology. Those issues are bound to surface during this State Visit. Thursday’s press conference will be one to watch. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx...

His oil-wrinkled hands tug the engine cord, coaxing our boat out of the cliff-shaded cove. We withdraw into the distance, leaving a disgruntling sense that we’ve only touched the tip of these dark icebergs. Greg Delanty #IrishPoetry

In cabin and field, they still speak the old tongue. You may greet no one. To grow a second tongue, as harsh a humiliation as to be twice born. Decades later that child’s grandchild’s speech stumbles over lost syllables of an old order. John Montague ‘A Grafted Tongue’

In cabin and field, they still speak the old tongue. You may greet no one. To grow a second tongue, as harsh a humiliation as to be twice born. Decades later that child’s grandchild’s speech stumbles over lost syllables of an old order. John Montague ‘A Grafted Tongue’

Russia seems intent on testing NATO’s resolve with 19 drone incursions, which means that it cannot have been a rogue drone. The let will be what view of Russia the US ultimately takes. www.rte.ie/news/world/2...

The West a fiery complex, the East a pearl, We gave our frail skiff to the slow-moving stream, Ruffling the waters. And steadied on a seam Of calm & current. Together, both as one, We lifted our dripping blades in the dying light And thrust ourselves forward … Thomas Kinsella ‘Downstream’

Our scattered tribe began gathering itself & trudged off onto a gravel path after it. By their own lightness 4 girls & 3 boys separated themselves out in a ragged band from our full custom & moved up close after it, in front, all shapes & sizes, grandchildren, colourful & silent. Thomas Kinsella

Curving back by the northern cliffs, where a pale scar shows that another slice of mountain has succumbed to this century’s hard seas & grey storms, we halt at a rim, & far below us, in June sunlight, blows the big,elongated O of Lough Bunnafreva, ringed,in this summer’s long drought … Moya Cannon

Standards have certainly dropped. Salty invective now a norm in some quarters.

Last night, Russia launched one of the largest drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, targeting government buildings and civilian homes alike. Once again, the Kremlin is mocking diplomacy, trampling international law and killing indiscriminately.

If you want something to listen to today, here is a podcast I did with Conor Faughnan for the Senior Times magazine in which I talk about aspects of my 44 years in diplomacy & being Ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, London & Washington. seniortimes.ie/driving-life...

For those who didn’t get to the Electric Picnic last weekend, here is a link to the @historyireland.bsky.social recording of my interview there in which I try to make sense of #Trump’s #America. historyireland.com/hedge-schools/

For those who didn’t get to the Electric Picnic last weekend, here is a link to the @historyireland.bsky.social recording of my interview there in which I try to make sense of #Trump’s #America. historyireland.com/hedge-schools/

The sounds of Ireland that restless whispering you never get away from, seeping out of low bushes & grass, heatherbells & fern, wrinkling bog pools, scraping tree branches, light hunting cloud, sound hounding sight, a hand ceaselessly combing & stroking the landscape … John Montague

Imagine that. A feature film about Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane battling it out in Saipan. Game of Thorns? www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

I bent down, my face so close it grazed the surface of the water. My kingdoms hovered above, below, and in a slight breeze blew ripples of light that quaked as the wind rowed them toward me. Ethna McKiernan

If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels and distance, Here and there, and now and then, a stance. Seamus Heaney

They are moving off in all imaginable directions, each according to his own private belief,&this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal: that everyone is right,as it turns out. You go to the place you always thought you would go, the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head B Collins

I will be reviewing the Sunday papers @antonsavage.bsky.social @newstalkfm.bsky.social at 10 am. Plenty to talk about as always.

The sounds of Ireland that restless whispering you never get away from, seeping out of low bushes & grass, heatherbells & fern, wrinkling bog pools, scraping tree branches, light hunting cloud, sound hounding sight, a hand ceaselessly combing & stroking the landscape … John Montague

On my way to the Electric Picnic festival in County Laois this morning. Speaking there this afternoon - ‘Making Sense of Trump’s America’. Mindfield’s Leviathan at 3.30 pm. See you there.

Spending the weekend at the Electric Picnic in Co. Laois. I am due to speak at two events there. Tomorrow at 3.30 pm on the Leviathan stage talking about #Trump’s America @historyireland.bsky.social and on Saturday at 6 pm on the EU’s international role. www.electricpicnic.ie/news/mindfie...

When the plane rose into the night trailing from its great wing Nantucket, the Cape, and farther in a massive web of light, the pilot prompted us to look left, and find the moon in eclipse, charting our route north and east along the coast of Maine. Catherine Phil MacCarthy

What will we say, what will we know. Separate, together, will we find the right way, the dream neither of us can explain. I pull the living room curtains together. The garden is around us, still above us are the stars, light and indestructible. Joan McBreen #IrishPoetry

Looks interesting. 👇 Need to check it out.

A reminder that I will be at the Electric Picnic Festival on Friday (3.30-4.30 pm) at the festival’s Mindfield talking with Tommy Graham @historyireland.bsky.social about Trump’s America & how the present incumbent compares with past US Presidents. www.electricpicnic.ie/news/mindfie...

In the ordinary house of love We move quietly from room to room. Here you are pensive at the window, Your cheek flat on the green pane, And the oak outside marks A corner of silence in a summer room. Theo Dorgan #IrishPoetry

Well done to @irishrugby.bsky.social on a great start to the #womensrugbyworldcup with a big victory over Japan. www.rte.ie/sport/womens...

Now it is Easter & the speckled bean Breaks underground, the liquid snail Winces and waits, trapped on the lawn’s light green; The burdened clothes-line heaves & barks in the gale, And lost in flowers near the garage wall Child and mother fumble, tidy, restrain. Thomas Kinsella

When we are gone, the house will close over us as though we’d been swimmers in an unmoved sea. The cisterns will unruffle, the fridge will wheeze on, and the shape we made in the bed will pucker out. The house will replace us with sounds of its own: Vona Groarke

My interview with Brendan O’Connor on @rteradio1.bsky.social this morning reflecting on how diplomacy has changed since I started in India in 1980 & the manner in which Donald Trump has personalised diplomacy during his 2nd term. www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

I will be on @rteradio1.bsky.social at 11.30 this morning with Brendan O’Connor discussing diplomacy & how it has changed over the decades.

My review @irishtimes.com of @philipstephens.bsky.social book, on the fraught history of Anglo-Irish relations, ‘These Divided Isles’. www.Irish Times.com/culture/books/review/2025/08/23/these-divided-isles-ireland-and-uk-shared-history-told-with-reliable-pithiness/

He plays Tracy Chapman really loud in his mobile home near the motorway, so that he can’t hear the noise of the cars or the screech of his loneliness crashing into him from every side. Rita Ann Higgins

‘UN-backed organisation confirms famine in Gaza.’ Our common humanity demands that this situation cannot be allowed to continue. www.rte.ie/news/world/2...

He plays Tracy Chapman really loud in his mobile home near the motorway, so that he can’t hear the noise of the cars or the screech of his loneliness crashing into him from every side. Rita Ann Higgins

“UN Secretary General calls for an immediate Gaza ceasefire”. Sadly, we live in a world where this call will count for far less than it ought to. Multilateral diplomacy occupies a back seat at present. www.rte.ie/news/world/2...

Love this!

More, though, than all of this, It’s the architecture of the spirit; The old thin ache you thought that you’d forgotten - More smoke, admittedly, than flame; Less tears than rain. And the whole business Neither here nor there and therefore home. Bernard O’Donoghue ‘Westering Home’ #IrishPoetry

The #Carlichauns & Ireland’s last leprechaun whisperer, Kevin Woods, have made it into the @nytimes.com. The #Carilichauns is a children’s entertainment brand based on Carlingford’s leprechauns. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/w...