The Irish author on how an October festival in Mayo saved his yearIn the course of a bad year, it seemed like a good idea. There had already been one cranial surgery. There was a second procedure, a brain surgery, on the way. There was the political landscape, of course: the soggy white human loaf named Trump sitt­ing in the Oval Office. In the North, I had seen the future henchmen of social engineering put an effigy of a refugee boat on top of their bonfire, the mannequins within.

Source: Irish Independent January 04, 2026 07:03 UTC