I’m delighted that my sports essay ‘Possession’ was published in the 2021 version of The Winter Papers. The Winter Papers is one of the highlights of the year in the world of Irish literature and it’s wonderful to be part of it. Thanks to Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith for this great honour. The Winter Papers is now on sale in all good bookshops or here.
I’m delighted that my sports essay ‘Possession’ was published in the 2021 version of The Winter Papers. The Winter Papers is one of the highlights of the year in the world of Irish literature and it’s wonderful to be part of it. Thanks to Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith for this great honour. The Winter Papers is now on sale in all good bookshops or here.
I was delighted my essay on sport in Irish fiction was published in the Irish Times in October 2021. The piece describes the dearth of sport in Irish fiction but also how that has changed this year with books by Adrian Dunbar, Rónán Hession, Eimear Ryan and Paul Howard all featuring sport. You can read the article here.
I’m walking down the Ennis Road in Limerick. It is the summer of 2019. Cork have just beaten the All-Ireland champions, Limerick, and I’m feeling good. The Cork fans are buzzing – it doesn’t take much for us to roll back out our cocky strut. A lone and drunk young Cork supporter is taunting some Limerick people nearby. He sings (badly): ‘We’re from Cork and we’re better than you, We’re from Cork and we’re better than you, We’re from Cork and we’re better than you.’ Over and over again he sings it, smiling, pointing his finger at the Limerick fans, walking down the Ennis Road.
I wrote an essay, ‘Five Moments in Sport’, and the lovely people at The Stinging Fly published it in May 2019. In July 2019 they kindly put the essay online on their website
What time should we hit the road on Sunday? The bloody road works in Naas still aren’t finished. Before we get to that, I’ve a bit of news. Oh. Is it the prostate again? The prostate is fine. It’s this: I love Kilkenny. Jesus, keep your voice down. What are you on about? I’m reading a brilliant book at the moment called Amateur. It’s by Thomas Page McBee and he’s a transgender man who took part in a boxing match in Madison Square Garden in 2015. In the very first chapter of the book, he describes the fight and his opponent. He writes: ‘The truth was, I loved him even as I danced around him with my hands in the air.’ The purity of revelation in that statement floored me.
