"However much poetry may be respected in Ireland , this respect more often translates , in practice, into tolerance and acceptance, rather than support. Poetry is a 'nice' thing to live with , as long as it does not come too close."

“'Breviary example of O'Driscoll ' brief poems”

“Writers are not neccessarily articulate simply because poetry is their stock-in-trade.”

“Everybody has certain preoccupations they return to.What looks like an obsession, is often something more modest, namely a return to the fray through a somewhat different angle of vision..from a different stage of your experience.”

“Language is at the heart of poetry and it is difficult to commandeer words which elicit no personal echo . Of what we can speak, we need not be silent.”

“Even the Revenue is better loved by the twenty first century Irish natives than were the English colonists who ruled from Dublin Castle in earlier centuries.”

“If poets spoke their poetry , they would not need to write it.”