Is it ever possible to know what impact a choice will have on the rest of our lives? If we did know, would we behave differently?

David McMaster, a burned out, retired lecturer, returns to Belfast on discovering a cryptic, posthumous note from his friend Roddy, whom he last saw in Northern Ireland 40 years previously. In 1965, David, then a high-flying Oxford graduate, is recruited by Sir John Lockwood to help him look for a site for a new university in Ulster. But what seems like an interesting assignment turns into a tragedy not only for David and for Catherine, the woman he falls in love with. The sectarian forces which would later tear Northern Ireland apart, are destined to destroy the relationship of the two lovers, with terrible consequences for them both.

"This vivid, evocative, beautifully written novel brings to life a Belfast not seen often in fiction. Bravo to Patrick Kelly for this moondance made of words". Joseph O'Connor

“This kind of writing opens readers' minds and hearts, casts light in the darkest places, and puts a wonderful grammar on things that are not always easily understood. It's a huge achievement" Donal Ryan

“An utterly heart-wrenching novel, but Kelly's fluency and heart give it a delightful humour and grace too. Conjured with compassion and perceptiveness, it's a layered love story with breathtakingly vivid evocations of place and time, and deftly-drawn insights about the political backdrop of the day. I loved every single moment” Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

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.

I’m pretty sure we were the only house in our street in possession of a barometer. It wasn’t like having a colour TV of course, like the Pattons at Number 18, who had the neighbours coming round to have a squint at their superior goggle box. In our case, there was no queue forming to pop in to check on the air pressure before venturing out to work.

Some summers linger in the mind. The summer of 71 was like that - a long, sunny strand of empty beach just waiting to be filled in. It seemed that every day as I walked from home to the bar, the sun came out and lit up the streets, just so that I could enjoy the glint in the gardens, the shine of the pavement, the flash of sunlight on the windscreens of passing cars.

No school until September and Paddy Grim had lost no time in assigning me a lengthy schedule of lunchtime shifts in the lounge. I was pleased and spent my short walks calculating how much money I would have earned by the end of August. With tips, I reckoned, enough for a new record player.

England’s market squares are going to enjoy a boom time, if all the money that is promised in the government’s levelling up funds are spent as promised. Many local councils offered a share in the largesse are spending at least some of the cash on revamping markets, doing up public squares and refurbishing shopping centres.

At the moment the money is coming from two funds – the Towns Fund and Future High Streets Fund. There was a lot of publicity ballyhoo about both of them,  strangely, just before the General Election December 2019.  But Boris Johnson was no doubt hoping that people had forgotten Theresa May’s Stronger Towns Fund.  Remember that? 

Historians, archivists and computer scientists will bring Ireland's Public Record Office back to life by creating a digital reconstruction of the destroyed building and refilling its shelves with fully-searchable surviving documents and copies of the lost records.

This extraordinarily ambitious project, called Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury hopes to open its portals by June 30th, 2022, the centenary of the fire.

It’s the hope that gets you in the end. Ask any artistic director or CEO of an arts institution how they have survived this calamitous year and most will say that the prospect of re-engaging with live audiences is what has sustained them through the long months of lockdown. As the vaccination programme ramps up and Covid numbers fall, theatres, arts centres, museums and galleries are busy drawing up plans for re-opening.

But if we build it, will they come?