Diary: Long before the Irish were ever good at anything else they excelled at poetry.
The British, of course, deprived the bards of their noble patrons but they could never entirely snuff out the spark: Davis, Mangan, Ferguson and Yeats rhymed on, soon joined by Kavanagh, Heaney and others, all building up nicely to critical mass until, by the early 1980s - before, incidentally, we had even heard of software - the nation was already producing more verse than it could possibly consume and exporting increasingly significant volumes to markets overseas.
It is entirely appropriate, given the important ancillary role we have allotted culture in presenting ourselves in a favourable light at home and abroad, that one of our best-loved national characters should be a poet, and a very full-bodied poet Paul Durcan is: large-souled, generous, intellectually free-ranging, irreverent, hilarious, impassioned, even scary.
Heaney is our Nobel man, who does us credit in Stockholm's halls while Durcan stands up in the market square at home to abuse us for worshipping the false gods of money, status and celebrity. Of course he risks being laughed at for his pains, but I doubt if that bothers him, rightly unimpressed as he is by "the nasal trumpetings of the Celtic Smarty-pants".
The present volume is a selection of occasional prose pieces on many topics, broadcast on the Today with Pat Kenny show from 2001 to 2003. The first thing to say is that it is a tribute to the tradition of public service radio broadcasting which still miraculously survives in this country and in Britain that such a series was broadcast at all.
Secondly, though there is small chance of him heeding such advice, it would be a good idea if Durcan were to avoid political themes, for his judgment in this area seems wildly askew. A stubborn affection for John Bruton or Bertie Ahern one can perhaps accept, but a man who allows himself to be charmed by Charles Haughey or Padraig Flynn can only remind us why Plato wished to banish the poets from his republic. As for the wild denunciations of "the American Reich", one is reminded of the lapidary Belfast formula: "his heart's in the right place but his head's full of mad dog's shite".
Thirdly and most importantly, however, Durcan is hugely enjoyable and engaging on almost every other subject. Though I find in the words he chooses to condemn Cardinal Connell a touch of that "rancorous liberalism" he elsewhere condemns, his enthusiasm and positivity also have great power to charm in fine pieces on travel, friends, painting, the National Gallery and, best of all, the new life of his granddaughter, Rosie, and the fading one of his mother, Sheila. All in all, a book for the collection; buy now while stocks last.
• Enda O'Doherty is an Irish Times journalist