At the superb Poetry Now Festival in Dun Laoghaire last week, Paul Muldoon was challenged by a heckler to give his opinion on the Provisional IRA. I recorded his answer. That’s the first clip.

Muldoon went on to do a very strange presentation in which he first reflected on the use of fish images in sexually themed Irish poems and then delivered an account of how his sister had been sexually exploited by a catholic priest. From there he called on the Irish government to stand up to the bishops and announce that the days of Canon Law in Ireland were over.
I interviewed him afterwards for the Sunday Sequence programme. That interview was broadcast in reduced form, as these always are, but here is the full exchange.

Templar Poetry has been running a series of pamphlet competitions for five years now as part of a pitch to widen the poetry market. Their latest winner is Paul Maddern of Belfast, who draws on his Bermuda experience in Kelpdings.

I met the manager and publisher of Templar, Alex McMillen, at the Troubadour, a popular poetry venue on the Old Brompton Road in London.
The music in the background is the irrepressible Cathal Dallat, whom many readers will know from the John Hewitt Summer School. He was so loud that I had to record the interview with the mic practically up Alex McMillen’s nose, which is why there is more popping than there should be.