Patrick Kelly is a freelance journalist, editor and writer. He has contributed to newspapers and magazines* in the UK and Spain. He writes regularly on the arts, and also writes creative fiction.

If ‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word for the government at the moment, then ‘creativity’ can’t be far behind. The word was notable by its absence in the 332-page document that is the Government’s White Paper on ‘levelling up’, the signature policy that is meant to define the government’s purpose.

One also looked in vain for any real mention of the ‘creative industries’ in the document. Not until Page 167 do we hear that the creative industries have a ‘critical role to play’ as ‘drivers of growth and productivity.’

What Northern Ireland has is an excess of national myths. Nationalists comfort themselves in the Gaelic ones, unionists in the British ones. The real story of what happened in this island is obscured beneath a thick coat of legends. These legends are exclusive – the other ‘side’ has no real part in them – except as demons and evildoers.

The BBC’s latest blockbuster drama is called The North Water. It’s an appropriate name for a tale of hard seafaring men, battling with the ice in their 19th century whaling ship.

But what if the action in the TV series, based on a book by Ian McGuire, had been located in the South Pole near the Antarctic Ocean, where climate conditions are equally grim and challenging for human survival? They would have had to find a different title entirely. The South Water would not have conjured the right sense of danger and derring-do.

FOR SALE: Bridegrooms attire – suit etc. New and unused. £17 ono. Phone Belfast 765554.

The copy for an ad in the Belfast News. Back in the day. Would have been about 1965 or so. I could see the copytaker with her wee headphone set, taking down the caller’s details and thinking to herself ‘that’s unusual’. I can see her passing it on to her manager and him getting this wee copy over to the newdesk. I can see the news editor waving it about like had discovered a five pound note in the turn ups of his trousers.

There aren’t many country houses that have played host to the Queen, a clutch of US presidents, the Dalai Lama, Gerry Adams, Ian Paisley and the entire cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But Hillsborough Castle is no ordinary historic mansion. This Georgian building, tucked away behind a town square in the small village of Hillsborough, near Lisburn, is a royal residence, a government office (home to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) and from this month (July) a major new historic attraction which will entertain a hoped-for 200,000 visitors a year.

A working mens’ club is an unlikely setting for a museum devoted to the thirty year conflict that scarred Northern Ireland and claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people. But every day Kevin Carson, club member and part-time curator of the Roddy McCorley Museum will take visitors behind the clubs substantial lounge and around the three upstairs rooms that constitute a shrine to the Republican story of The Troubles.

The 1980s are a bit of a lost decade for me – as far as television is concerned. I wasn’t in prison or embarking on a series of drug-fuelled hedonist episodes. I was, I guess, living the life of a young adult – out most nights at parties, pubs, concerts, or in my sad case, Labour party meetings. Not for me the slippers and fire, Radio Times draped over my knee while I watched an endless parade of sitcoms or variety shows.

So watching an episode of No Place Like Home on YouTube is a kind of retro revelation. Did this dreary domestic comedy really run for five whole series throughout the Eighties?

He breathed in the air, surprisingly fresh and clean here, at the back exit of the supermarket, where the goods yard met the railway line. From here, you could see the station and hear the announcements for the trains to King’s Cross. He liked this break from the routine. The early deliveries were safely loaded, fresh goods to the massive fridges, dry goods to the warehouse shelves.

The year that the golfing world descended upon the small seaside resort of Portrush for the Open Golf championship, I thought of my Dad who treasured his trips to this, and the other windy little golf courses dotted along the north eastern coast of Northern Ireland.

But truth be told, we children always found an excuse to scurry off when he embarked on one of his reminiscences about golf, a game we heartily despised.