And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s.

So nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.

Um, what I found though about the Christian Brothers is this: that they were certainly muscular.

In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.

Thomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.