irish independent

I’d like to thank the (Royal Irish) Academy…

I was flattered to be included in Penguin’s collection of Great Irish Reportage, published last week. Not that you’d guess so from the above picture.

I had been trying to appear casual at the launch. As though my writing gets included in anthologies alongside Flann O’Brien, Fintan O’Toole and Conor Cruise O’Brien all the time, and I wasn’t particularly phased.

So one of my sisters taking flash photographs kinda risked botching that whole operation.

The piece selected, For God & St. Patrick, originally appeared in Mongrel magazine in September 2007. It’s about religious observance in Co. Mayo. If you have a minute, I’d like to relate a little (EDIT: actually a long bit) about how that article came about. Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Irish Independent, 25 May 2013

The Odd Couple

ACCORDING TO HOMER SIMPSON, there are only two types of men who can get away with wearing Hawaiian shirts: gay guys and big fat party animals. Well, I definitely fall into one of those categories. And my friends would argue the jury is still out on the other.

So what the hell? When I’m asked to pose as Oscar Madison for an Odd Couple-themed photo-shoot, I don’t require all that much persuading. Besides, I’m only the writer here. I’d do this thing in blackface if they told me to.

Playing Felix to my Oscar today, however, is a man without quite the same latitude to fly by the seat of his immaculately tailored suit pants. Rob Kearney is a three time Heineken Cup winner, two time British and Irish Lion, a Grand Slam winner with Ireland and (for one day only) my new best friend for life. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time I ever mention this idiot. I promise.

Last week I expressed surprise that Ian O’Doherty had not been taken to task over some really callous homophobic invective in a recent newspaper article. Now I’m a little wiser. Having a rational argument with O’Doherty, I realise, is like having a fist fight with a toddler. There is no glory in it.

Yesterday in the Indo, he fired back at me. Well to be fair, he first chipped in a really stellar (even by his own lofty standards) think-piece about bras, which concluded with the burning question: “After all, who wants to live in a world where chicks with massive hooters aren’t celebrated?” Then the gloves came off.

Though professing not to know me, nor to have any quarrel with what I had written about him, he referenced (apparently without irony) my supposed “bitterness” and “talentless outrage.” Really, in terms of the guy having a comically low self-awareness, he could only have topped that by singling out my drooping jowls and pass Leaving Cert standard English. Read the rest of this entry »