Letters From Quotidia Quentin Bega

Some say, Such Is Life, were the final words of Ned Kelly as he stood on the scaffold of Melbourne Gaol. In fact, his final words were Ah Well, I suppose…which his detractors use to claim that he was just mumbling incoherently at the end. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, Ah Well, in the mouths of Irish people has the same plangency as Virgil’s sunt lacrimae rerum- there are tears at the heart of things.More

Don’t look back in humiliation or disappointment or with a sense of failure. Don’t look back at all is probably too extreme a prescription- but don’t look back if all it’s going to do is leave welts on your soul. More

Most of us living in Western countries owe our rather comfortable lives to those who, for the past hundred years- and more- served in the armed forces, some making the ultimate sacrifice, others with life-altering mental and or physical injuriesMore

As a teenager I would visit my girlfriend (later wife) where she lived in the docks area of Belfast. Her father, a noted traditional fiddler in Northern Ireland, worked for many years at Harland and Wolff, the firm who built the Titanic. He made her a doll’s house from scrap material there, and, of course, I worked this and myself into the bridge of the song. As I say, hubris not entirely expunged. More

The Rocky Road to Dublin features a young man who leaves home to make his mark on the world, Let’s now follow him as he makes his way from Galway to Dublin and then to Liverpool.More

Sydney Carter saw Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality... Coming and going by the dance, I see/That what I am not a part of me./ Dancing is all that I can ever trust,/ The dance is all I am, the rest is dust./I will believe my bones and live by what/ Will go on dancing when my bones are not.// More