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(Originally broadcast on Sunday Miscellany 2013)  Summer 1979.  Ireland had a postal strike that lasted four months, 200,000 people took to the streets to demand changes to the tax system and protesters battled to save the Wood Quay site from development.  Brendan...

The first thing I thought when I heard of Pat Kenny's move to Newstalk was that I hope they have somewhere for him to park his motorbike with a roof.  I then hoped that the arrival of such a radio superstar might nudge the station into providing decent coffee. It is...

I was asked to East Coast Radio to come up with some book suggestions for summer reading.  I was wondering why summer reading should be any different from reading at any other time of year.  I mean, the books you like are the books you like... you're hardly going to...

Last night I toddled off to bed way too late after staying up to watch ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ followed by Primetime on RTE.  Both programmes were on much later than usual to give us an insight into the workings of our Parliament as the Protection of Life During...

I am writing this on the 26thof June; an auspicious date in Irish history.  It was on the 26th of June in 1963 that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America touched down in Dublin Airport to begin his four day visit to Ireland.  It...

It’s a beautiful Tuesday in suburban Dublin.  My neighbourhood is humming with the sounds of lawn mowers but as it nears lunchtime that sound is punctuated by the regular buzzing of helicopters flying slow circuits a couple of miles away.My twitter stream is full of...

There is a saying, usually attributed to African culture that says “it takes a village to raise a child.”   Hilary Clinton borrowed it for the title of her book published in 1996.  In it she says “All of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, are responsible for...

Way back in 2006 my eldest daughter, Carla sat her Leaving Cert.  I wrote this letter which was published some years later in the Irish Times.  I am reproducing it here with my best wishes to all the mammies and daddies who are currently watching their offspring...

I am not a big fan of science fiction.  I don’t like Dr Who or Star Trek.  I don’t understand black holes and the concept of a huge infinite universe melts my brain completely.But a fiery sunset can take my breath away.  A rising creamy moon spills magic onto my...