Cork singer-songwriter John Spillane (pictured) writes: "On my 18th birthday I got a full-time permanent and pensionable job in Bank of Ireland, and two years later I left it to become a full-time professional musician. My mother nearly killed me. 'If you leave your good job in the bank,' says she, 'don't ever come back [...]
It's so lovely to give yourself what you need. And - to quote my big brother Dan - to do it up big. Last night I treated myself to something I've drooled over for a long time: a subscription to "Slightly Foxed: the real reader's quarterly." I first spied a copy in the amazing book-town [...]
This little poem was inspired when my friend's beloved daughter graduated from a three-quarter-sized instrument and into a full-size instrument and a full-size life. The two are, I think, intricately entwined. In Her Hands for Sophie The three-quarter cello, breast-height and smiled-upon, a maker of child-music in clumsy quavers and slurs in pieces adapted [...]
