Episodes

  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 9

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 9
    Jan 26 2026
    The next song is, arguably, the most overplayed, over sung, over loved and over hated of any Irish ballad. Its antecedents are not entirely Irish- I have even read somewhere that it has Korean origins- but let’s not go down that particular rabbit hole. I speak, of course, of Danny Boy.More
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    16 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 8

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 8
    Jan 23 2026
    In my youth, beguiled by whimsical notions of the dark Romantic imagination, I would have chosen the eldritch Selkie tale; now, unquestionably, I would choose the quotidian world of Margaret and the Dutchman she loves. More
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    19 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 7

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 7
    Jan 22 2026
    Some say, Such Is Life, were the final words of Ned Kelly as he stood on the scaffold of Melbourne Gaol. In fact, his final words were Ah Well, I suppose…which his detractors use to claim that he was just mumbling incoherently at the end. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, Ah Well, in the mouths of Irish people has the same plangency as Virgil’s sunt lacrimae rerum- there are tears at the heart of things.More
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    16 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 6

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 6
    Jan 21 2026
    Don’t look back in humiliation or disappointment or with a sense of failure. Don’t look back at all is probably too extreme a prescription- but don’t look back if all it’s going to do is leave welts on your soul. More
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    16 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 5 ANZAC Day

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 5 ANZAC Day
    Jan 20 2026
    Most of us living in Western countries owe our rather comfortable lives to those who, for the past hundred years- and more- served in the armed forces, some making the ultimate sacrifice, others with life-altering mental and or physical injuriesMore
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    27 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 4

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 4
    Jan 19 2026
    As a teenager I would visit my girlfriend (later wife) where she lived in the docks area of Belfast. Her father, a noted traditional fiddler in Northern Ireland, worked for many years at Harland and Wolff, the firm who built the Titanic. He made her a doll’s house from scrap material there, and, of course, I worked this and myself into the bridge of the song. As I say, hubris not entirely expunged. More
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    16 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 3

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 3
    Jan 16 2026
    The Rocky Road to Dublin features a young man who leaves home to make his mark on the world, Let’s now follow him as he makes his way from Galway to Dublin and then to Liverpool.More
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    16 mins
  • Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 2

    Letters from Quotidia 2024 Episode 2
    Jan 15 2026
    Sydney Carter saw Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality... Coming and going by the dance, I see/That what I am not a part of me./ Dancing is all that I can ever trust,/ The dance is all I am, the rest is dust./I will believe my bones and live by what/ Will go on dancing when my bones are not.// More
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    17 mins