Category: Blog

I was delighted to be interviewed by Don O’Mahoney again, this time on UCC98.3FM’s Art Beat programme. The interview mainly focuses on two poems in my collection, Jewtown: Preservation and The Last Sabbath at South Terrace Synagogue and the stories behind both of the poems. We also talk about Freddie Rosehill who passed away recently […]

As many poets know, there’s not a lot of money to be made in the art so when one receives the gift of travel expenses or a reading fee, it is really appreciated. In general, I have been treated well by the events and festivals where I have read. I am delighted that I have been […]

My trip to London in February for Jewish Book Week is coming closer and preparations are underway. The official announcement has been made on the Jewish Book Week website and I’m delighted to see it looking so well. The event is called Jews of Ireland and features me, Ruth Gilligan and Jonathan Self. Ruth Gilligan is […]

I was sad to hear of the death of Freddie Rosehill, who some would have described as the “last man standing” when the synagogue in South Terrace closed earlier in the year. Freddie will be remembered fondly by all of the Cork Jewish Community as well as the rest of the Jewish Community in Ireland. […]

Browsing my Instagram feed, I spotted Kerrie O’Brien’s post with a photo of her collection Illuminate in the window of Waterstones in Cork. I was delighted to see my own book on the bottom right of the display. Thanks for taking the photo, Kerrie, and I hope you don’t mind me stealing it!

I’m looking forward to my next reading in the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin. This will be my second time reading in this venue and my first since Jewtown was published. Last time I read, it was part of a celebration of Jewish Cork. It was a very interesting day where we watched video footage […]

Here’s my latest pile of books sitting on my bedside. As usual I’m in the middle of all of these except for David Marcus’ novel, A Land Not Theirs, which I should probably have read already. I’m really pleased to have William Wall’s Mathematics there on the top. When I started writing poetry, I was intrigued by […]

I was delighted to attend Eleanor Hooker’s launch of her second collection, A Tug of Blue. Eleanor read a number of poems from the book. It was also very nice to meet some familiar faces in the packed room.

My blog is usually dedicated to poetry in the written and, maybe, spoken form but now that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I’ll divert just once to the poetry of Radiohead. A few weeks ago, it was announced that they were to play a concert on 20th June 2017. It brought me […]

I was interested to see that the new issue of Books Ireland, which features the beautiful cover of Eleanor Hooker’s new poetry collection, also features an article about Jews in Irish Literature. This article is inspired by Ruth Gilligan’s wonderful novel, Nine Folds a Paper Swan, which I’d highly recommend. I’ll be buying the journal as […]