Wherever That Man Went, He Went Gratefully.

I Suppose I Did Feel A Certain Public Pressure Always.

Anything Can Happen Is Also, Incidentally, A Poem That Arose From Teaching. I'd Talked About The Horace Ode (i, 34) [on Which The Poem Is Based] In A Lecture I Gave At Harvard In The Fall Of 2000 Entitled Bright Boltsand Remembered It After The Twin Towers Attack.

One Of The Very First Poems I Wrote Was Docker That Fist Would Drop A Hammer On A Catholic And One Of The Sturdiest Was Requiem For The Croppies, Written 50 Years After 1916 [the Year Of The Easter Rising]. Being Responsible And What It Means, What It Demands, Have Indeed Preoccupied Me Maybe Too Much. But This Is It, This Is The Thing, This Is What You're Up Against.

There Is Risk And Truth To Yourselves And The World Before You.

Not To Learn Irish Is To Miss The Opportunity Of Understanding What Life In This Country Has Meant And Could Mean In A Better Future. It Is To Cut Oneself Off From Ways Of Being At Home. If We Regard Self-understanding, Mutual Understanding, Imaginative Enhancement, Cultural Diversity And A Tolerant Political Atmosphereas A Desirable Attainments, We Should Remember That A Knowledge Of The Irish Language Is An Essential Element In Their Realisation.