College days are a distant memory, but one memory remains of a Munsterman who had a fondness for transporting us from Churchtown up to Lamb Doyle’s pub at the edge of the Dublin mountains. It seemed an odd thing to do, there were numerous pubs within easy walking distance for someone looking for refreshment after a day at the books.

Lamb Doyle’s, I was told, was bona fide. It was an odd way of talking about a pub, I thought. Only recently did I discover that “bona fide” meant something …

Back in the early 80s I was in college with a guy from North Wales. He had been a monoglot Welsh speaker until the age of 14. His family lived on a peninsula and they had no television. Primary and secondary schools had been Welsh speaking. In a reverse of what had happened in previous generations, he remembered with anger a teacher who had repeatedly mocked an English speaking pupil.

Andrew came to Dublin expecting a place as Celtic as the Wales he had left. Wales was under English rule; …

A comical story did the rounds in London in the late 1970s. The Royal Shakespeare Company, based then at the Aldwych Theatre, had a very successful run with Wild Oats by John O’Keefe. The play attracted excellent reviews from the press, but caught attention in other quarters. The Inland Revenue could find no record of Mr O’Keefe having paid any income tax and began to make inquiries about his whereabouts and tax status. O’Keefe, known for his comedies, would have been delighted at such a comic development; he died in …