I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die.
What makes Ireland inclined toward the drama is that it's a great country for conversation.
I've only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.
The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in St. Peter says, “Of course, just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars”. St. Peter says, “What a pity was there nothing worth fighting for”?
In Ireland every place you visit and every person you meet has a story. And they love to tell you their stories. Everyone is interested in everything; in a land of storytellers, you will never be bored.
Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions.
I think most Irish people are creative. Whether it's music, or dance, or... certainly storytelling is in the blood.
With Irish drama, things are told with humor.
Art is for [the Irish] inseparable from artifice: of that, the theatre is the home. Possibly, it was England made me a novelist.
My Dublin wasn't the Dublin of sing-songs, traditional music, sense of history and place and community.
I don't think Ireland has ever had a genius for the novel. Of course, there were plenty of Irish novels, but I don't think that was ever the natural means of expression for the Irish.
Ireland is a land of poets and legends, of dreamers and rebels. All of these have music woven through and around them. Tunes for dancing or for weeping, for battle or for love.
Yes... I miss that everyone in Ireland tries to knock some humour out of every situation. I don't think I appreciated that. It's unique to Ireland.
But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible.
