Becoming a Mother – Reflections on Adoptive Parenthood took five years to write but realistically I have been mentally working on it since adopting my first child in 1999. The...

As our wedding day draws nearer, it may come as no surprise that “commitment” is on my mind. But the truth is, it had emerged as an important theme in...

After ten years compiling posts about Tom Crean to the supporters of the Facebook page and group that I created, writing this book was a natural progression for me. From a young age I’ve...

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...