The dotted line my father's ashplant made On Sandymount Strand Is something else the tide won't wash away.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power.

I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible.

It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.

The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.