Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1969, writer Kevin Barry, who now lives in County Sligo, won the 2007 Rooney prize for Irish literature for his short story collection There Are Little Kingdoms. In 2011, he released his debut novel, City of Bohane, which won the International Dublin literary award; his 2019 novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was longlisted for the Booker prize. His writing has appeared in publications including the New Yorker and Granta, and he also works as a playwright and screenwriter. His fourth novel, The Heart in Winter, is published by Canongate.
1. YouTube
I have abandoned modern television and have been trawling the more esoteric districts of YouTube for alternatives. There’s a Dutch dude called Martijn Doolaard who has been doing up two cabins in the Italian Alps and posting a weekly show to document the project. It moves at a glacial pace, with little talk and little soundtrack beyond the birds and the wind; it’s very calming, beautifully photographed and it’s a great study in patience. I’ve watched a hundred hours of it now and am ready for more.
2. Music
Citrus Fresh
The latest Irish folk revival has rightly attracted kudos and coverage but, for me, the greater innovation and the keenest documenting of a rapidly changing island is coming from our hip-hop community. Every town and city has its own scene, each with a fierce DIY ethic, but I’ll admit to being especially drawn to records emerging from my native Limerick. There is, for example, Good Grief, the latest release from Citrus Fresh, whose rhymes are smooth, funny and heartbreaking, and the production is really crisp and clean.
3. Book
The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg
Daunt Books’s recent reissuing of the Natalia Ginzburg backlist constitutes the greatest Lazarus act in modern publishing. The Italian writer’s fiction is a joy, with her comic brio opening up depths of feeling, but the essays knock me out, too. Winter in the Abruzzi, the first essay in The Little Virtues, is the best thing I’ve read this year: a reflection on life on the run while hiding from the fascists during the second world war, months before her husband was murdered by them in Rome. Its closing lines, on the last days of her happiness, will stay with me.
4. Nature
Whitethorn blossom
In late May and early June, the blossom on the hawthorn trees makes a pale, ghostly spectacle across the hills of south County Sligo, where I live. Also known as the whitethorn or the May tree, the haws are revered in Irish folklore as portals to the Otherworld and they are never cut down. From Keash Hill, I can see the blossom draped across the countryside in every direction and it puts a witchy magic on the air. The blossom is said to emit a musky funk reminiscent of sexual congress, so maybe there are other things on the air, too.
5. Film
Days of Heaven (dir Terrence Malick, 1978)
I’m forever watching Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick’s neo-western masterpiece, and I’m forever mesmerised by the voiceover that holds the film together. It was improvised by the teenage co-star Linda Manz at a late stage in the edit and it’s among the most magical achievements in cinema. Manz’s laconic commentary plays way off the beat of the story – a love triangle in the Texas Panhandle in the 1910s – but it achieves a kind of blank poetry that somehow knits together the images and narrative. Manz isn’t with us any more but she is immortalised here.
6. Creativity
Liam Clancy’s mantra
In the documentary No Direction Home, Bob Dylan recalled being in a bar in Greenwich Village in the 1960s when the Irish singer Liam Clancy turned to him and said the secret to being an artist was this: “No envy, no meanness, no fear.” It’s a great instruction for any creative life. I believe that if you perfect the first two parts, you earn the third one, and then, just maybe, you can open up some new ground with your work.
