On Being Old
Oscar Wilde said that the tragedy of being old is that one is still young.…
Author Bob Quinn
The Grandfather Clause
‘Where DID we come from?’ Coincidence? The Sahara was not always a desert. As evidenced…
Towards the Brink of the Cataract
Unaware of the roaring cataract ahead, a small boy splashes in the dark river named…
Do Not Resuscitate
Holy Gawd, we’re back to Charles Darwin and his interpreters. In the mid-19th century Darwin…
Never Such a Meal
Years ago, arriving late one evening in Ostende by train – always my favourite means…
Keep Spinning until you Drop
Never boast to your children that you had seventeen occupations before your twenty-fifth birthday. I…
The Bestseller that never existed
I first heard the story of Gene Shepherd after receiving a 46th rejection slip for…
A Monk Manqué – ‘what a young girl in love will say to keep her man’
Disregarding chronological order, this is the tenth episode of A Monk Manqué, Bob Quinn’s unpublished…
Old Man Talk – ‘I used to ride young wans in here’
I made the following notes in an old factory that was built in 1906 at…
The Conman and Correspondence with Kurt Vonnegut
I admire old people who live by their wits, like the ancient American, a real…
Lament for Áirt Uí Laoire
In August of 1969 I was driving across Ireland with the late Bearnard Ó Riain,…
Last Days in RTÉ – ‘I came to kill you’
In 1967, the fidgets struck again. That was the year my mother died, rapidly following…
Culchies – An Excerpt from ‘A Monk Manqué’
In the mid-1990s Seosamh O Cuaig and I were filming a programme for TG4 in…
Waiting for Colonel Ghaddafi
I was pretty sure I was going to die, sooner rather than later, one midsummer’s…
Early Days in RTÉ
Back in Dublin again, I was one of thirty, all-male trainees destined to become the…
Making Films
I’ve just made my last film, a short called Bog Graffiti. Another last film. I…
A Monk Manqué II: Thaura Mornton
Back to love and sex. Liking is preferable to loving – and less conducive to…
A Monk Manqué
PROLOGUE ‘The reverend Judge leaned over and addressed the defendant’ ‘I have taken your spotless…