Perhaps I could have treated my mother betterMaybe I could have loved her more, or at least said ‘I love you’ more often, I realised too lateThu Jan 23 2014 - 01:00
I’m a changed man, said the General with a faint smileNot another bungled affair at 3am with some unfortunate actress in the foyer of a five-star hotel, I thoughtThu Jan 16 2014 - 01:00
Happiness eludes me, so now I’m looking for meaningI confessed to a man with a heart of stone in a midlands bar that I’m rarely happy nowadaysThu Jan 9 2014 - 01:00
Message to a heartbroken widow: embrace your griefThe house where my mother lived became a shell where she protected herself after her husband diedTue Dec 31 2013 - 01:00
Ghost of Christmas past breathes in, breathes outMy Christmas was always focused on mother. And even though she is no longer walking on the Earth, nothing much has changed. She is with me in other waysThu Dec 19 2013 - 01:00
When I was a child I played with the baby JesusIn winter I am overwhelmed by darkness, because the dark is the only thing that remains unchanged in a thousand Leitrim wintersThu Dec 12 2013 - 01:00
If I were a woman, I’d have fallen in love with the manIs it because men are afraid of naked emotion that they seek to cover women?Thu Dec 5 2013 - 01:00
The dinner: quintessential sign of mother’s loveThe cult of the Great Mammy endures, as young women in filling stations and Centra cafes all around the country feed dinners to large, rugged truck driversTue Nov 26 2013 - 11:23
God’s Labrador and a turbulent priestThe attempted silencing of Fr Tony Flannery was tragic. The censure of Brian D’Arcy verged on the ridiculousSat Nov 23 2013 - 01:00
This country is too small to find a strangerI can never get a sense that I am away from home. Even in the most remote Centra filling station, I always end up talking to someone who knows me, or knows someone I knowThu Nov 21 2013 - 01:00
November: even the cat is thinking of deathIt’s a dark month, as nature holds its dying breath and the light fails. But it’s a time I love, because the other world seems closerThu Nov 14 2013 - 01:00
A powerful chemistry in intimate IrelandThe General considers himself to be strong, especially since his recent success in the art of love. But there’s something he doesn’t knowThu Nov 7 2013 - 01:00
I believe in angels – and I saw one recentlyHe was disguised as a homeless man in a Warsaw restaurantThu Oct 31 2013 - 01:00
Explaining Cavan to a boy from BangladeshI felt close to the boy, whom I met in Warsaw, as exiles feel with others who are far from homeTue Oct 22 2013 - 01:00
I’ve never been comfortable with real menI never played football as a boy. I wrote poetry on Saturday afternoons. I wore pastel-coloured clothes and I had long hairThu Oct 17 2013 - 01:00
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 3 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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 3 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 6 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 2 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 4 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 7 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 2 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 5 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