Impermanence

‘Sixteen’ on RTE Radio 1

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Lovely responses my essay ‘Sixteen’ on RTÉ Radio 1 last night – a rare occasion where I read something myself. Covering education, the Troubles, escaping into the arts, the arts and class, sexuality and returning home.

The essay is from the anthology ‘Impermanence’ commissioned by ⁦⁦Centre Culturel Irlandais, and edited by Nora Hickey M’Sichili & Neil Hegarty published by No Alibis Press. Recordings beautifully produced by Cliodhna Ni Anluain.

There’s a a great chat beforehand and the essay lasts about 20 mins. Click : https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/11512834/

Impermanence Essay Collection Review

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A great review by Eilis O’HanIon of the ‘Impermanence’ essay collection edited by Neil Hegarty and Nora Hickey M’Sichili published by No Alibis Press and the Centre Culturel Irlandais.

It includes an essay from me as quoted here by Eilis;

Novelist Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son, recalls what it was like to grow up in Belfast during the Troubles as he came to realise he was attracted to both boys and girls, a state of affairs which, he notes with admirable understatement, “made life difficult for me”.

The liminal spaces here are sexual. “I was one way, I was the other. I was both. Now, mostly, I am neither.”

You can read the whole review here.

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