Posts of the Year, 2024
A collection of 25 pieces of writing from 2024.
Read More'Small Things Like These': contingencies and decisions
Another in a series of essays on Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These, this time examining ideas of contingency and decision-making, with references to King Lear, Brian Klaas, Robert Frost and W.B. Yeats on Maud Gonne.
Read MoreWhat Can English Teachers Do?
There’s a sense that right now the world is particularly dark. We often hear the unlovely word ‘polycrisis’. At such a time, English teaching might seem almost irrelevant and ineffectual. What can we do?
Read More'King Lear' scene by scene 1
The first in the series of King Lear: scene by scene podcasts (with transcripts) looks at Act I scene i
Read MoreThe Most Important School Subject
A provocation: studying poetry is the most important activity in school.
Read MoreCarol Atherton's 'Reading Lessons'
A review of Carol Atherton’s Reading Lessons: the books we read at school, the conversations they spark and why they matter, with extended comments on English teaching.
Read MoreTeaching Notes on 'Small Things Like These'
A summary of teaching notes on Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, including a free 26-page downloadable guide.
Read MoreOn libraries: a personal history
A personal essay on the libraries I have used over the years.
Read MoreOn Eclectic Reading
A reflection on reading eclectically, and on how books connect to each other in surprising and fruitful ways.
Read MoreLaura Cumming's 'Thunderclap'
Laura Cumming’s marvellous Thunderclap: a memoir of art and life & sudden death mulls over our gaps in the knowledge of the artist Carel Fabritius, but it is about so much more, especially her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming.
Read MoreOn the Importance of Studying Poetry
The argument for the most ‘important’ subject in school being … poetry.
Read MoreOn the English Leaving Certificate fuss of 2009
A post published originally in June 2009, following the incident when Paper 2 Leaving Certificate English had to be rescheduled, and there was a media firestorm.
Read MoreCaravaggio and 'King Lear'
King Lear and Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’ were created at the same time, in two different countries, by two artists who never met each other: but they share a lot.
Read MoreOn Senior Cycle reform in English: follow-up
A post reflecting on where we are we right now with the proposed changes to Leaving Certificate English.
Read MoreMy Books of 2022
My annual selection of excellent reading.
Read MoreBruegel and the cover of 'Small Things Like These'
The beautiful jacket of Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These is fashioned from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’. A significant detail is excluded from the selection.
Read MoreOn researchED Dublin 22
Reflections on researchED Dublin, Saturday 24th September 2022
Read MoreNeil Sentance: 'Water and Sky' & 'Ridge &Furrow'
Neil Sentance has written two marvellous short collections, imagining the lives of his family over many decades on the border of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Read MoreOn the Design of Poetry Textbooks
Poetry is the most dense and intense literary form. It needs time and space. But too often the design of contemporary textbooks does precisely the opposite.
Read MoreWilliam Trevor's Schooldays
My long essay on the Irish Times website today on William Trevor and the influence of his schooldays on his fiction is here. Today would have been his 93rd birthday.