This is my last post of 2018 and it’s been some year. My first book The First Sunday in September was published in August by The Mercier Press.

I’ve been busy, finishing the editing process for the book and reading and writing as much as I could. Thanks to everyone who supported me, I’m so grateful.

Thanks to everyone who read my blog over the year and special thanks to those who took the time to follow, like and comment on the posts. Not to mention those who bought my book and read it. Some who read it were even good enough to contact me with kind words. You have no idea how much that means.

Onward and upwards to 2019. I’ve a draft of a crime novel on the go and I’m now working on a book of essays on sport. The next few months will see a lot of progress on that, I hope.

The response to The First Sunday in September has been surprisingly good. It’s the first of its kind – a book of Irish sports fiction with hurling at its fulcrum – so I didn’t know what to expect.

I gave an overview of reviews in an earlier post, they were amazingly positive – click here for that.

Following the publication there’s also been a series of articles, interviews, readings and events for which I’m grateful.

Here are some articles and interviews (the ones I can remember, anyway) with links:

Sue Leonard interviewed me for her column in the Irish Examiner, Beginner’s Pluck.

I did an interview with the brilliant Cork-based author Anne O’Leary, for her Blog, Wordherding.

I did a brief interview with Lisa McInerney for the RTE Radio 1 Bookshow. Lisa spoke with six writers from Cork. I’m at about 11 minutes. This coincided with my reading at the wonderful Fiction At The Friary.

I featured in the UCC Alumni Spotlight series – they have a graduate every month or so.

Cork Institute of Technology (where I worked for over 30 years) were good enough to put something about the book launch on their website.

Patrick McCarry of Sportjoe.ie interviewed me for the sports news website.

Julie Crowley from UCC’s Motley Magazine interviewed me, some very interesting questions here.

Barry Roche of The Irish Times interviewed me and included some embarrassing quotes from my old pal and team-mate Nicky English

Kieran Cunningham of The Irish Star interviewed me. He’s very interested in sports fiction and we had a great chat.

Main Photo: my book behind the wire in the front window of Hodges Figgis, Dublin. Did we every think we’d see the day? Other photos of the book in august company sent to me by friends and family from various bookshops all over Ireland, from Belfast to Cork, from Lahinch to Waterford. From Galway to Dublin. It never gets old. Míle buíochas.