How agreeable are you?
Very. Always.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
Vincent. My original name was Patrick Vincent, after my maternal grandfather, Patrick Burns. But my maternal grandmother insisted I not be called Patrick, so I was called Vincent. I assume the reason for my grandmother’s insistence was her horrific memories of her husband being killed in a stockyard brawl in Glasgow when my mother was aged three.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
Dún Laoghaire, where I live, and Broadford, Co Limerick, where I was brought up.
Describe yourself in three words.
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Old, cranky, delusional.
When did you last get angry?
Recently, over the treatment of asylum seekers, the plans to defang inheritance taxes and the wilful ignorance of technology that prevents motor vehicles being driven beyond speed limits, thereby reducing road deaths.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
Kathleen Burns, my mother; Seamus Browne, my father, and my close friends Gerry Barry and Dermot Lavery.
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What’s your strongest childhood memory?
Happiness, living in a small village, where everyone knew everyone.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
Second. My sister, Mary, was the eldest – she died two years ago – I have two younger brothers, David and Malachy. I suspect the defining thing is psychobabble.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
Nothing. I’ll be dead.
When were you happiest?
When I’m with the six people I love most: Jean my wife, daughters Emma and Julia, and grandchildren Mia, Sophie and Layla. Another grandchild is on the way.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
Maureen Potter.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
That I copped on so late in my journalistic career to the central issue: inequality.
Have you any psychological quirks?
All of them.
