How agreeable are you?
Too agreeable. I am fatally compromised by just wanting everyone to get along. I am the wrong person to take a country to war but once it’s been agreed we are going to war I’m probably good to have around the camp.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
It’s Pius. I think I’m named after Padre Pio. It got a lot of slagging in school. Like Colm, it’s fallen out of favour. Now it’s a name for Leeds/Wolves/Nottingham Forest fans and IRA dissidents.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
The Inch on the farm I grew up in, an old river meadow which has never been ploughed in my memory. It has an ancient buckthorn growing out [of] a rock all gnarled as if waiting to come back for some big end of days battle.
Describe yourself in three words
Stoic. Funny. Worrier.
When did you last get angry?
Trivially, the last time I read a Facebook comment underneath an article about cycle lanes but more seriously pretty much any news from those under bombardment in Gaza or Ukraine.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
A school copybook containing a ridiculous poem I wrote when I was nine. But it also taught me that you lose things and you get on with it. I had only found it a few years previously so I’d lived most of my life without it.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
Unfortunately, it’s putting my hand in an enormous dog turd on the grass while sitting down on a day when I was anxious to impress fancier cousins.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
Youngest and last by six years so yes it defined me. Smartarse, trying to impress, insecurity and it makes me happy now I’m always the tallest in my family and the best at reaching things.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
I expect a decent funeral and I expect people who express condolences to state to my loved ones clearly who they are and how they know me so that they can be milked for anecdotes. It baffles me about Irish people that we don’t know how to introduce ourselves.
When were you happiest?
Selfishly/personally right now. All the vital signs of my life are in good nick, health, relationships, community, family, I’m good at some things and the things I’m not good at I’m looking forward to getting better at. But in the late 90s, there was so much optimism we were headed in the right direction. Now the news is grim so I protect myself with fatalism.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I’ve said this before so I’m destined to be mocked by the internet in side-by-side photos but Ben Affleck in sighing mode because someone once said my beard reminded them of him. It’s either that or former minister for housing Eoghan Murphy though I doubt he’d give up his secure role consulting for the election monitoring arm of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for the uncertain twists of Hollywood.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
Honestly I wish I had a trade or proper skill that I could use at home instead of fluting around with words. There’s a confidence that comes from fixing your own stuff. I am most definitely aiming to retire early to a shed.
Have you any psychological quirks?
Hmmm. I spend a lot of time thinking about energy. As in what’s the least energetic way to do everything. It might be my climate worry seeping in.
