The Trinity Report

I had a terrific time at the Irish Crime Fiction Festival at Trinity College over the weekend, and I didn’t even get to see half of it. The most enjoyable – albeit nerve-wracking – experience was chairing the paradoxically titled ‘Irish Crime Fiction Abroad’ panel in the Edmund Burke theatre on Saturday morning, with said panel comprised of (l-r, above) John Connolly, Jane Casey, Arlene Hunt, Alan Glynn and Conor Fitzgerald (pic courtesy of @paysan). The conversation ranged through issues such as place, identity and language, all in the context of how an Irish writer adapts his or her storytelling to another culture and society. I was too involved to have any sense of how it was all received, of course, but for my own part I found it utterly fascinating.
  It was terrific, too, to be in Trinity and meet – even for the briefest of chats – so many people all on the same wavelength. Joe Long and Seth Kavanagh, all the way from NYC; Michael Russell; Sue Condon; Paul Charles; Conor Brady; Kevin McCarthy; Eoin McNamee; Stuart Neville; Stephen Mearns; Sean Farrell; Michael Clifford; Rob Kitchin; Declan Hughes; Critical Mick; and Bob Johnston, all the way from the Gutter Bookshop.
  I had to leave at lunchtime on Saturday, due to work commitments so I missed out on the Saturday afternoon panel (and seeing Brian McGilloway, Niamh O’Connor, Gene Kerrigan and Louise Phillips); and I also missed out on John Connolly interviewing Michael Connelly, which I imagine was the weekend’s highlight. A real pity that, but needs must.
  Even so, it looked to me like the festival was a triumph, and a tribute to the fantastic efforts of Dr Brian Cliff, Professor John Waters of Glucksman House at NYC, and that tireless champion of all things Irish crime writing, John Connolly. Hearty congratulations to all involved, and here’s hoping the Trinity Irish crime writing event becomes a regular feature of the Irish literary scene.

Mysteriouser And Mysteriouser ...

All going well - which isn’t always the case for yours truly when it comes to airports - I’ll be in New York as you’re reading this, all sweaty-palmed with excitement at the prospect of wandering along to the Mysterious Bookshop at 6pm, there to join with John Connolly, Arlene Hunt, Declan Hughes, Stuart Neville, Alex Barclay, Colin Bateman and Professor Ian Ross as the quasi-mythical Otto Penzler hosts a coteries of Irish crime writers who may or may not be the first wave of what might prove to be a tsunami of Irish crime writers breaking on US shores. For all the details of what should prove to be a very enjoyable evening indeed, clickety-click here …
  The following day, as I’ve mentioned before, said writers will be joined by their Irish-American peers Pete Hamill and Peter Quinn as John Waters hosts a day-long symposium on the Irish crime novel at Ireland House, NYU. I’ve been looking forward to this one for quite some time now, particularly as it will mark the official launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS in the North American territory. There’s a terrific day’s schedule lined up - again, for all the details, clickety-click here …
  And that’s pretty much it for now. In theory I’d like to blog about the events as they happen, but I may well be self-sabotaged by the desperate need for sleep whenever I’m not actually talking or eating. It’s been a hell of a six months, what with two books being published, and juggling all that goes with that with a day-job, all the while trying to write a new novel. Still, a weekend like the one in prospect makes all the long hours worthwhile, especially as it’ll be spent in some very fine company indeed. Normal-ish service will very probably be resumed on Monday, jet-lag permitting; until then, folks, I’m outta here …

Sec’s Appeal: The Other John Waters Vs Secularism # 1,014

At the risk of oversimplifying John Waters’ most recent book, LAPSED AGNOSTIC, the Irish Times journalist found God through Alcoholics Anonymous, and then learned to justify an entire belief system by viewing it through the prism of his own experience.
  Now I’m delighted, for his sake, that John Waters managed to escape the demon booze, because you wouldn’t wish alcoholism on your worst enemy, but I really do wish that he’d stop trying to belittle those who have yet to share his epiphany by suggesting that they are somehow less human than he.
  He was at it again in today’s Irish Times, when he had this to say:

“Religion, rather than just another “category”, is the guiding hypothesis that makes sense of the whole, the public expression of the total dimension of human nature. No other channel has the capacity to convey the broadest truths about man’s nature and his relationship to the universe. Secularists do not like this characterisation of the situation, but it has long been obvious that they have nothing to offer society as an alternative source of ethics, meaning or hope.”

  Of the first part of his assertion, I’d suggest that science has not only “the capacity to convey the broadest truths about man’s nature and his relationship to the universe”, but is in fact the only rational approach to trying to understand the whys and wherefores of being alive.
  As for secularists having “nothing to offer society as an alternative source of ethics, meaning or hope”: leaving aside the basic human capacity to instinctively understand good from bad, and all that flows from that understanding, Waters fails to suggest how humanity managed to survive for the 100,000 years or so of its current incarnation (up to about 14,000-12,000 BC, when the first inklings of religion appear) without even a primitive system of ethics, meaning or hope to sustain it.
  Humans invented religion, the most perverse case of wishful thinking every visited on the race. And good for us, it’s a tribute to our imaginations and the brainy brains that got us this far in the struggle for survival. In the grand scheme of things, though, religion is Santa Claus for slow learners. Here endeth the sermon.