Not to Learn Irish is to miss the opportunity of understanding what life in this country has meant and could mean in a better future. It is to cut oneself off from ways of being at home. If we regard self-understanding, mutual understanding, imaginative enhancement, cultural diversity and a tolerant political atmosphereas a desirable attainments, we should remember that a knowledge of the Irish language is an essential element in their realisation.

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

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

I am not a playwright. A playwright would take "Antigone" and hit it a few clouts and knock it out of shape and restructure it. My versioning was strictly verbal.

Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. ~from the poem "Digging

I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.