The Quiet Quarter: Ten years of great Irish writing
The short two-page pieces encourage compulsive browsing, whether prompted by the name of the writer or the title of the piece: John Moriarty on Where we Come From, The Rest is Silence by Nóirín Ní Riain, Gerry Galvin on Food from the Wild, Boat Dreaming by Fred Johnston, Love and Onions, Dancing on the Edges of Time, Strangers on a Plane. As in the much-loved radio slot, you never know what is coming next.
It is hard to believe that Lyric FM, in its recent schedule shake-up, has got rid of both Lyric Notes and its verbal interlude, The Quiet Quarter. One assumed, that like its elderly grandparent, Sunday Miscellany, the Quiet Quarter would be with us for ever. Máire Nic Gearailt dreamed up the title when she was a producer at RTÉ Radio 1 and took it with her when she moved to Lyric FM where it first went on air in 1999. Eoin Brady was the first producer of Lyric Notes and he developed the Quiet Quarter feature as we know it today: a few minutes of quiet reflection on some topic, followed by an appropriate piece of music.
