I didn’t plan to write this book. I’d begun work on a new novel about a family wedding in Italy but I couldn’t concentrate; I was too overwhelmed by what...

If there is a single thing Joyce teaches us it is patience. I expressed as much to the grandson of one of Joyce’s sisters when I met him for coffee...

Positive thinking is a flimsy strategy. “You can do anything if you try” is a lie, a myth we must bust if we are genuinely to control our lives. Focusing...

In 2012 I was working for the publisher Phaidon Press, when I watched a video interview with the artist Agnes Martin, whose work Untitled #7 (1980) is in the collection of...

I was sitting on a plane a couple of years ago, on my way to speak at a conference in the US, when it came to me.  At the time...

The Cow Book is the story of my life as a farmer in rural Ireland. It is also the story of my family, community and the animals I live with:...

Coming Home Recently, I visited the Dublin Castle exhibition Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger – the world’s largest collection of Famine-related art on loan from the Great Hunger...

As a child creativity was my friend.  Reading, writing, painting, sewing, piano, and ballet created sanctuary from a childhood punctured by trauma. But when it came to adulthood I turned...

The early inspiration behind writing a book on the various historical, geographical and cultural landmarks in Ireland was derived from trips to The Aran Islands, The Burren and The Cliffs...

The only thing you need to do in 2018 is be nicer to yourself! Humans like to measure things – it’s our way of making sense of the world, of...