Bull Island Haiku, documentary
(North) Bull Island, Dublin is the source and inspiration for my book Waveforms: Bull Island Haiku, which in turn provided the source for Claire Cunningham’s radio documentary, broadcast on Ireland’s Lyric FM on Sunday 4th October 2020. The documentary features the majority of the text of the book, and includes recordings made in situ on […]
Audio: The Pre-Electric Picnic
THE CANCELLATION of this year’s Electric Picnic means the highlight of many people’s autumn calendar – and a huge source of income for so many in Stradbally, Co. Laois, and beyond – has been lost for another year. Perhaps it’s been online all the time, but by an odd coincidence I was directed just now […]
Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cabra, 1980
Punk rockers Siouxsie and the Banshees’ legendary gig in a local cinema in Cabra, north Dublin in 1980 is the subject – or part of it, at least – of my contribution to Sunday Miscellany’s 50th, a half-centenary celebration of the radio show that has long been an Irish institution. The recording made at Dublin’s […]
Audio: The Children of Alcoholics
“I think that’s what the purpose of poems is, to step outside of easy and polite conversation, and sometimes to say something … that begins in shock but afterwards ends in intimacy.” On this episode of the podcast Words Lightly Spoken, Pat Boran considers the “emotional truth” of poetry before reading his poem ‘The Children […]
Audio: 3 Favourite Yeats Poems
This is a short contribution on my three favourite Yeats poems as part of WB and Me, RTÉ Radio 1’s series in 2015 in which contemporary Irish poets discuss their relationship with Yeats. Produced by Kevin Reynolds for Drama on One (June, 2015).
Miriam Meets … Pat Boran and Theo Dorgan
Miriam O’Callaghan talks to my longtime friend Theo Dorgan and myself, back in 2011, about poetry, music and friendship. AUDIO
An Unusual Name
This is a recording of a short prose piece entitled ‘An Unusual Name’, concerning the reputed origins of the name ‘Boran’ and the name of my late father’s Travel Agency at no. 74 Main Street, Portlaoise IS IT A BLESSING or a curse to have an unusual name? In the Boran family mythology, for example, […]