The arrival of the New Yorker is one of the high-points of the week on this column. What image will its trademark cover have this time? What gems will reside inside?
The cover of the latest issue says it all; it's completely black - and only when you peer closely do you see, within that blackness, the silhouette of the Twin Towers. Virtually the entire issue is devoted to events of September 11th in New York, the legendary "Talk of the Town" column reporting, not on glitzy goings on downtown, but on "the catastrophe that turned the foot of Manhattan into the mouth of Hell".
Among the writers contributing are Aharon Appelfeld who, having stayed up all night in Jerusalem watching the attack on America on television, says that, like everyone else, he is groping in the darkness. "I used to feel that those of us who had suffered in the Holocaust were immune to fear. I was wrong. We are more sensitive to danger. We can smell it."
John Updike saw the catastrophe from a 10th-floor apartment in Brooklyn Heights where he was visiting. Wandering that neighbourhood later in the day, as ash drifted in the air, freedom was still somehow palpable. "It is mankind's elixir, even if a few turn it to poison ."
For the writer Denis Johnson what struck home was that these mass atrocities on America's own soil revealed how much some people hate Americans. "They hate us as people hate a bad God, and they'll kill themselves to hurt us "
Susan Sontag was in angry mood, seeking acknowledgment that this had been an attack on the world's self proclaimed superpower, "undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions", going on to stress the need for historical awareness in trying to understand what's happening. "Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together."
One of the most poignant accounts is by Amitav Ghosh. The two small children of a couple who worked in the north tower at the World Trade Centre stayed with him and his family the night after the attack. Their father was Frank De Martini, construction manager of the World Trade Centre. Their mother, Nicole, was a surveillance engineer there. After herding Nicole to safety, Frank stayed back, most likely to help others . There was no word of him after that.
After going to the Ghoshs' home to tell her children what had happened to their father, Nicole told the writer and his wife: "I think it was only because Frank saw me leave that he decided he could stay. He knew that I would be safe and the kids would be looked after.That was why he felt he could go back to help the others. He loved the towers and had complete faith in them. Whatever happens, I know that what he did was his own choice."
This - the September 24th - issue of the magazine will become a collector's item; for all the saddest reasons.
On Thursday, the results of the RT╔ Radio 75 National Poetry Competition were announced in the Radio Centre in Donnybrook. The competition was part of RT╔'s ongoing celebrations to mark its 75th anniversary.
The winners gathered for the hooley, which was followed by a special recording of Rattlebag. Myles Dungan interviewed the poets, whose poems were read on the show, which will go out on Tuesday. The man who bagged the £1,000 prize for his poem 'The European', was Tom Duddy, who lectures in NUI Galway, in the Philosophy department.
There were some familiar names among the other winners: Pat Boran, John O'Donnell, Hugh O'Donnell, Walter Fleming, Doriane Paso, Gerard Geraghty, Michael Herron, Enda Coyle-Greene and Oliver Marshall.
The Quiet Man will forever be with us. Well, it's been with us for 50 years so far, and looks destined to caper on into the next 50 at least. We all know that Hollywood gave us what Hollywood wanted: red-haired colleens, fist-fights, misty valleys and film-set cottages, Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne, but who remembers the name of the man who actually wrote it? It was Maurice Walsh. The films-script was based on a short story he published in 1933 in the American magazine, the Saturday Evening Post
Apart from this short story, Walsh wrote several novels, including The Small Dark Man, Blackcock's Feather and The Spanish Lady.
Originally from Ballydonoghue in Co Kerry, Walsh spent much of his working life in the Scottish Highlands, where he set several of his stories. After his death in 1964, his papers were stored in the safety deposit section of the Bank of Ireland. They have now been acquired by the University of Limerick, where they will be kept in the university's Special Collections Department.
Among the papers the university has acquired is the manuscript of The Quiet Man itself. There is also correspondence between Walsh and his publishers in London and New York and letters from Seβn O'Faolain on the subject of Irish and American neutrality during the second World War.
This weekend the seventh Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering takes place in Gort, Co Galway. Opened by Colm T≤ib∅n last night, it's obviously the place to be; we're told it's a sell-out. The theme this year is European Connections.