As we celebrate Bloomsday it might be of interest that while researching a biography of Arthur Griffith recently I was intrigued to discover a 20-year long relationship between himself and James Joyce, running from 1901 to 1922. While this was in the main in intellectual form, there was a close personal aspect to it at the start, middle and end.

The Seanad and proportional representation voting were introduced by the founders of the Irish Free State to ensure the interests of Protestants-Unionists were protected.

I once told Seamus Heaney that I regarded him as the second Sandymount man to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.