I was delighted that my personal tribute to Canon Michael O’Brien was published in The Irish Examiner. ‘The Canon’ coached me on six teams between 1979 and 1984. The tribute revolves around The Fitzgibbon Cup of 1983 hosted by The Ulster University at Coleraine. You can read it here. Photo taken in Bellaghy after the win, courtesy of Mick Lyons. That’s me behind the cup.
It was lovely to see my next book, The Game: A Lifetime Inside and Outside the White Lines listed in TheJournal.ie and The Irish Times as one of those to look out for in 2022. In such good company, it’s going to be an amazing year of writing.
I was delighted to have my short essay: ‘Celebrating the Return of Hurling in a Strange Time’ in Cork Words 2: An Anthology of Contemporary Cork Writing among so many great Cork writers. It’s about the return of hope in a dark time. The book is available in Waterstones Cork and Cork City Libraries. The piece was previously published in The Irish Examiner.
I was delighted to have my short essay: ‘Celebrating the Return of Hurling in a Strange Time’ in Cork Words 2: An Anthology of Contemporary Cork Writing among so many great Cork writers. It’s about the return of hope in a dark time. The book is available in Waterstones Cork and Cork City Libraries. The piece was previously published in The Irish Examiner.
I was delighted my little tribute to Diego Armanda Maradona was published in the 2021 Holly Bough. It really is a Cork institution.
I was delighted that my sports essay ‘Possession’ from Winter Papers featured on on the RTÉ Radio 1 arts show Arena. The programme was devoted to Winter Papers 7 and Billy O’Callaghan kindly picked out my essay to discuss. You can listen back here (‘Possession’ appears at 43:52).
I was delighted my little tribute to Diego Armanda Maradona was published in the 2021 Holly Bough. It really is a Cork institution.
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 by be Number 40 in the brilliant Behind The Lines Podcast with Gavin Coooney of The42.ie. We had a wide ranging conversation involving donkey jackets, Nicky English, and sports fiction. My 4 picks for the episode were: “Sport”, a poem by Paul Durcan; “Prosinecki”, a short story by Adrian Duncan in a 2018 edition of Stinging Fly; A Natural, a novel by Ross Raisin; The Throwback Special, a novel by Chris Bachelder.
My essay ‘Five Moments in Sport’ was published by The Stinging Fly magazine. Writing in the issue by David Means, Anne Carson, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Ian Maleney, Martina Evans, John Kelly and many other wonderful writers. Purchase options here: https://stingingfly.org/product/summer-2019/ Read the essay online here.
