'Cillian Murphy shows what we can achieve when we dream big - we're good at that in Cork'

'We need people like Cillian to go into the world and achieve great things, to light the way,' says Richard Hogan

Richard Hogan. Picture: Moya Nolan

I still remember the first time I heard W.B Yeats’ voice. I was about 14 or 15 years old sitting with other young aspiring scholars in Tom O’Flaherty’s English class in Rochestown, Cork. We were studying ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ at the time.

‘That is no country for old men, the young in one another’s arms’. I’d utter these lines to myself walking home, like I was Ian McKellen.