Writer | Podcasts | Environment
Nearly two years ago I wrote a blog post ‘Should I be Writing at a Time like This?’ that started with a quote from Bo Burhan’s Netflix special Inside (2021): ‘The more I look, the more I see nothing to joke about. Is comedy over? Should I leave you alone because really, who’s going to …
Originally publishing in Catflap magazine (November 2021) There were two reasons I became a champion tree climber as a child. Firstly, because I loved it, the shapes of the branches and glow of the leaves when the light came through, the whisper of the breeze like the promise of something magical about to happen. Secondly, …
For every person I’ve met proclaiming the necessity for real art, I’ve met at least two more people too terrified to share their passion. Asking a young writer, still trying to find their voice in a world of such infinite mass media and “content”, to compare themselves to James Baldwin… That seems unfair. Either shape a generation or shut up? Should we be joking at a time like this?
My problem stems from not knowing how to live long-term. I’ve spent most of my life holding myself together a year, a month, a day at a time, telling myself that if I can just make it to next week, things will get better. I’m hardly alone in that phenomenon, but unfortunately for me I …
When the darkest days come we come together, We may never know why happiness sets us apart but, tragedy stretches out a hand and lips to kiss it better. And we were born on either end of the darkest week. But our tragedy was that those seven days and seven years separated us in ways …
I have made my feeling on the state of mental health services in Ireland known in asides many times. But this Mental Health Day highlighted the disconnect between what the Irish government and its various agencies claims, and what they put into practise. The Green Ribbon (#EndtheStigma) campaign caught the support of numerous politicians. The …
“The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” (Marx 1859) In what way is health, in particular mental health a highly political and potential radical issue? In …
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