Letters From Quotidia Quentin Bega

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

The woman I love says to give it up now/Or else I’ll go to an early grave,/But I say no and keep resisting/For taking drink’s what prolongs your days./ Seamus HeaneyMore

Welcome to Letters from Radio Quotidia the NYE2023 program where, on New Year’s Eve, we look back at the things that, at times, we wish weren’t and forwards to what we wish might be. More