The Grandfather Clause
‘Where DID we come from?’ Coincidence? The Sahara was not always a desert. As evidenced…
Author Bob Quinn
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Disregarding chronological order, this is the tenth episode of A Monk Manqué, Bob Quinn’s unpublished…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 have come to kill you’
Another extract from Bob Quinn’s unpublishable (or unpublished) memoir – A Monk Manqué. In 1967,…
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…