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.

In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.

Behaviour that's admired is the path to power among people everywhere.

I don't miss teaching. I'm learning to take my time for myself.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.