Wild Horses
There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Like horses, we were born to be wild. The adrenalin rush pushed through my veins. I reach out for memory and what’s to come but yesterday’s forgotten before it even had the opportunity to begin. The ancient thoughts tumbling down into a continuing spiral of self-doubt, pulling me back up with a blood-curdling scream, they find a way out. Suddenly I am free, again, wild with delight, trashing about in the early morning. Absolute moments of madness that turn my world on its head. It could be a late Arsenal goal to win a big game, a crucial Dublin point sailing over the bar in Croke Park, or Bohemians beating Shamrock Rovers. It happened last week. 1-0 to the Gypsies. A football club full of restful souls, untethered by what’s seen as normal. That’s all it takes—moments of pure ecstasy and joy lost in the monotony of the routine that squeezes the life out of us. The boredom is suspended for a short while when nothing else matters, but now…
Read More
The Importance of Sport
For me sport is one of the most important things in life. I used to apologise to certain people for that, but not anymore. When I was knee high to a grasshopper I chose Arsenal as my team. Bohemians and Dublin came a little later. It helped that sport was embedded in family life. My brother was already an Arsenal fan before me, my other brother Stephen leaned towards Manchester United, Dad was Aston Villa and Kerry and mum loved rugby. Sporting events were enjoyed in front of the TV together. It wasn’t like today with every one scattered to the four corners of the house. My earliest memories include the Dublin versus Galway 1974 All- Ireland Final when Kevin Heffernan and his army on Hill 16 came from nowhere to win Sam. I also recall Willie John McBride crashing over the French line late in the day at Lansdowne Road to guarantee an Irish victory over France. Another special day in 1974 was when the Republic of Ireland beat the USSR 3-0 thanks to a Don Givens hat-trick in a European Championship qualifier at Dalymount Park…
Read More
Write On
I write to feel alive. I write for rhythm. I write to feel real. I write at night and early in the morning. I write what’s in my head. I write when I’m dead. I write to feel okay. I write when I’m happy. I write when I’m sad. I even write when I’m in between. I write because I feel the importance of expressing my creative side. I write about people. I write about things. I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to get things out. I write to keep things in. I write for love, and hate it must be said…
Read More
Screw Normal, I’ve Always Wanted Magic
So there it is, I’ve gone and said it, what’s been trapped inside for so long. The itch desperate to be scratched I’ve known from way back. It dawned on me when I finally scrambled past the Leaving Certificate because up until then I felt stupid. It was only when I made it into college I started to grow with the realisation that there was in fact plenty going on inside my head, and some of it was actually interesting. I had enjoyed history in school, but subjects like maths, science, and languages submerged me. A love of english would develop later. It was merely a case of tapping into what I was really interested in in the right environment. The first time I began to realise I wasn’t stupid was because of football. I only had to see or hear the results read out by James Alexander Gordon once on a Saturday evening and they were imprinted on my brain. Football also taught me the geography of England, Scotland, Wales, as well as Europe and the World. It was dawning on me that if I was genuinely interested in something I was well able to tune into its frequency. So much of what I was asked to do in school on the academic side baffled me. Finally in college, my aptitudes were aligning to what I was doing. Life was suddenly a lot easier…
Read More
Hothouse Flowers
I watched an excellent program on TV about the Hothouse Flowers the other night. I saw a bunch of wide-eyed believers who knew what they wanted to do and had to do, right from the very start. Young men on a mission. And once they had set sail there would and would be no going back. I love listening to artists, musicians, and writers speak about their work, their process, and their reason for being. Lifelong gypsies gifted with the courage to step outside restrictive societal boundaries into possibility. Risk-taking is their prerogative. Perhaps it is their greatest demon. They cannot ignore the call to arms. Into the rich light of understanding, and expression they go, unwilling to surrender despite the trouble it often brings. And so they begin the brave struggle of going to their deepest parts to understand themselves through their art…
Read More
The Last Bus Home
For me, life is about distraction. Whatever it takes. Last night it was a YouTube video of Louis Dunford singing The Angel at the Hammersmith Odeon. Enough to bring tears to my eyes. Arsenal have finally found their anthem. Stuff like this takes me out of the every day, the monotony of the regular drumbeat that courses through our lives. There’s beauty to be found in the little things. This time it’s the words and power in a song, a throwback to the old times when life was slower. The speed of communication has left us exposed in the face of constant interruption. Switching off is now a conscious decision. Work and people chase us. The news chases us, hunts us down, threatening to darken even the brightest of days. I have to remind myself that I don’t have to go there, that I can take a step back and choose to walk the other way…
Read More
Grey Matters
Recently I heard a Junior Certificate History student talking about what she had learned from studying the subject. She spoke so eloquently about how it made her realize that life is rarely black and white, that it is in fact (and we all know historians love their facts) populated by a fair old smattering of grey. Her wisdom brought me back to a time when I was agonizing over the Troubles and the terrible loss of life on the island of Ireland. It was only when I read David Beresford’s Ten Men Dead which tells the story of the 1981 Hunger Strike that I grasped the complexity of what was going on just a stone’s throw up the road from Dublin. We learn so much from stories. The little pieces of fabric joined together to create something much bigger than itself. This is when grey areas are brought into our consciousness…
Read More
The Fingers in the Greasy Till are Greasy Still
It used to be a blessed virgin and her black-robed sooth sayers that kept us in check. Now, it's the economy, its very name blackened by bailouts, emergencies, and wars. The heaviness of the Troika boots still rests on our crooked necks. There appears to be no escape. They have us everywhere we turn. Nowhere to run. They have broken us. Nowhere to hide. They have rendered us meaningless in our minds. They have taken our hopes and dreams and laid them to waste. We watch idly by as Dublin burns. Buses and trams were set alight by a disaffected undercurrent of rage. We're a strange bunch, amenable to every rough brutish kick that rains down on us. We wait patiently for the resurrection to come. Nothing uttered. Nothing said. We sleep in our beds and wait. There are so many red flags. But still, we stumble on to the dying notes of a soldier's song that has long since lost its meaning. It seems that nothing matters except for the hauntings in our heads. We are amongst fools. We have forgotten who we are. Our spirit is extinguished…
Read More
Here
It’s here that I get to go where I’ve never gone before. It’s infinite, magical, a wide open space, and empty of everything that doesn’t and shouldn’t matter. It’s wild and exorbitant. It’s here that dreams are made real. This place of the mind is static and unyielding until before long it’s speeding toward sundown on a long road that stretches over the horizon. A rush and a push and a shove into a cavernous vacuum. Time doesn’t exist here. It’s out of sync with what’s going on outside. It’s wild and distorted. It’s empty of thought. The ideas flow from here through me and out onto the page. Here there is no fear, no doubt, no holding back, or holding on. Here, dear life can go and fuck itself. Thankfully the words of others have no place here either. Words that carry no weight, unless they come from a good and honest place. Irrelevant, forgotten, ignored, nothing to push and pull, upset, or cut me down to size…
Read More
Reasons To Be Cheerful
Snowdrops and daffodils. Glastonbury. Laughter. Peace. Confetti roasting in the summer sun. Happiness, that will soon be overcome. A steaming hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning wakes the senses for what lies ahead. The hum of a jet overhead brings up memories of good times. The beginning of the weekend. Reminders of you. A full house in Croker on a sunny, Sunday afternoon, or even a wet one for that matter. The Hill was filled with blue. The ground beneath her feet. The Burren. Friendship. A kind thought. A smile. Eyes meeting across a crowded room. The first kiss. The North Bank explodes, into joy. Thierry Henry. Ian Wright. The last kiss. The ecstasy that erupts inside me with an Arsenal goal. Letting go. Punching the air. Slipping into bliss…
Read More
Walking into Winter
Winter is coming and the nights are getting longer. I never look forward to this time of the year, and yet when it arrives there’s something comforting about it. The tail end of Autumn wrapping its arms around us as the trees finally surrender and allow the leaves to fall to the ground. Perhaps this is the signal we need to withdraw into ourselves, to acknowledge the tired feeling in our bones, and let the silent stones go unturned until Spring comes back to put a sprightly pep in our step. Autumn is Spring in reverse. Warm at first until cold’s first light sharpens the senses. How I love those frosty mornings with their fresh ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude. They bring with them a simplicity coupled with a graceful elegance, a clear boundary separating the seasons. They can cut right through you without a thought. The lukewarm water splashed across the early morning windscreen, only to turn immediately to ice again. This is the time when the rhythm of a new day is accompanied by a shiver. The bravery that it takes to step out of bed is forgotten as soon as our cold feet hit the floor…
Read More
Loneliness
I think a lot about loneliness, and what it means to be lonely. I’m lonely now. I have to be if I’m to write effectively. I am chasing an absence of the heart, but to do so I have to be ready to go to a place that might well be uncomfortable. But I know it will hold the truth. That’s why I have to be prepared to try and go there. The moment holds my consciousness in its silence. Here I can tap into the quietness of my mind, doing cartwheels in its anticipation of what’s to come when the words start to flow. It is here I sit and wait for inspiration. Desk cleared of clutter. Incense burning. Here I wait for no one because I know no one is coming, anytime soon. I sit with it and wait again. I think back to the times when I’ve been most lonely. Often it’s been when I have been surrounded by thousands of people…
Read More
All-Ireland Sunday
Sunday, July 30, 2023. The day of the Men’s All-Ireland Football Final. It used to be played on the third Sunday in September. A holy day for those of us who worship at the altar of Gaelic Football. I’ve always found sporting arenas more accommodating than churches. Here is where I go to pray, to forget everything in the outside world for a couple of hours. I dive head-first into the tension and allow it to overwhelm me. The nervous tide slowly rises until it’s almost unbearable as a gigantic tussle reaches its end game…
Read More
On Being Irish - Part Two - The Bright Side
We don’t get to choose our nationality. It chooses us. For a long time, I struggled with being Irish. I felt out of odds with a country that was at odds with itself. I knew of nothing else, and yet the sense of being caught in a time warp was very real. It felt like everything was out of kilter with who we really are. It still is, but less so now. I can see a little more clearly now that the rain has gone. The beauty was always there and it railed against the cloak of church and state that was thrown over it for too long. It exposed itself in the words of the likes of Beckett and Behan. Angry men and women, who refused to go under. Brave men and women, who refused to give up…
Read More
Joy
I can feel it rising. The excitement. The adrenalin kicking in. A surge of uncontrollable energy rips through the body and mind. Wild, wonderful, and completely free. A total loss of control. An absence of ego. Bigger than self. It goes beyond anywhere else. It used to come so quickly. It comes less often now…
Read More
Contradictions
Life is indeed a contradiction. Stuck in the often crushing structure demanded of us by society, I yearn for a freedom that is always just out of reach. I do make the connection sometimes, but it is hard-won and always fleeting. Elusive to my touch. Forgotten at the moment when the cold fist of reality drags me kicking and screaming back to where I’m meant to be. Often, I’m too tired to resist. A simple taste of calm perfection that is lost in the briefest moment in which it actually exists. It feels like it’s sitting out there somewhere between the lost and found of the great beyond. A vast ocean of potential going to waste. It is tired of waiting for me to catch up and make sense of its own importance. It’s where I would happily spend all of my time if I didn’t have responsibilities, bills to pay, and all that goes with society’s way of keeping us all in check…
Read More
Where The Streets Have No Name
I’ve lost my way again recently. I’m not afraid to say it. I put it down to too much routine and not enough fun. Too much institutional boredom at the expense of personal freedom. Too much of the mundane blocks the creative brain. So much potential slipping through my veins. I can feel myself shutting down. Zoning out. But not in a good way. I’m out of step. I’m out of town. I’m so frustrated I want to scream. I want to shout. My fingernails scratch to find a way out. The heartstrings stretched to breaking point. It’s a dirty day as the rain hits the window pane with a petulant smack. I turn on Spotify and choose a tune to take me out of this place…
Read More
Resurrection
These words which are trapped within, live only for the day when they will finally see the light. It will happen. Nothing is more certain. But for now, they wait patiently, held hostage to fortune in a private hell of their own and other people’s making. It’s the not knowing that hurts, the not knowing when the waiting will be over. In fact, waiting is the only certainty, but that in itself is no consolation. They have waited so long that they are desperate to be on their way…
Read More
Dissolution
It’s been a few months now since one world ended, and another began. A time when the immediacy of the overwhelming sadness, failure, and regret that has hovered these past few years was finally replaced with a somewhat lighter and jauntier walk, a hop skip, and a jump into the devil’s heart of unnerving possibility. It seems that everything is a challenge in this life, even the good times have to be worked through. It sometimes appears that everything exists only so it can be ripped up and eventually replaced by someone or something else. We learn to dip our toes in the water time and again, to surf the faint heartbeat of our hesitant existence, followed by the headfirst dive into another consequence, wondering if it will be any different this time…
Read More
Driving Nowhere For Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
or the first time in twenty years, I am spending Christmas at home. Dad passed away in 2003 and with him went the Christmas ritual that had been our tradition since the day I was born. Since then I’ve been joining Chris Rea on the road. Aghade House. Ratheenwood. Riyadh. The Pink Sofa. Ardee. The Yellow Sofa. Ashmore’s. All with their own special place in my heart. But whilst I’ve had the best of Christmas Days, laced with fun, kindness, and the brandy of wholesome fun and wonderful memories that I’ll never forget, it’s nice to be back home…
Read More
