How agreeable are you?
A lot of what I do involves working with other people, in my day job and also my writing. So relationships are important to me. I’d say I’m very agreeable. I try to be. That’s my instinct, my default. But I’m a creature of my energies, so if I’m well fed, if I’m rested, if I’m not in a hurry, then I’m like a cross between Gandhi and Mr Tumble. But if they’re not in place, I take a bit of love and care to get me back to my best.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
My middle name is Gerald, which was my father’s name, so I like that. My father died when I was young. He died when I was seven, so I like that I have that connection to him. I have two sons; one of my sons has that as a middle name as well. So yeah, I like the name. You don’t hear many Geralds. I don’t think I’ve met a Gerald of my own age.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
Mount Usher Gardens in Wicklow. I love it there. I love trees. Probably some of the trees there are over 100 years old ... They have a lovely selection of trees from around the world. I go there about twice a year with my family, normally in spring or summer and later in the autumn because it has a very different personality then.
Describe yourself in three words
I’ve always wanted to be asked that question, and the answer I’ve always wanted to use is just succinct.
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When did you last get angry?
Especially as I’ve got older, I’m a lot more irritable and sensitive to noises. In particular, scraping. Scraping of plates, cutlery. Even talking about it now gives me a shiver down my spine. I work in the city centre, so I often have lunch in this Hare Krishna restaurant ... There’s all this scraping going on. I find that hard. I know I’m probably in the minority of people who get enraged at Hare Krishna restaurants.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
I’m at the stage where I feel I have too much stuff and I need to shed things. I buy a lot of books and I probably need to stop doing that. I’m pretty happy that anything I’ve lost, I lost for a good reason or I have moved on from and I don’t grieve for any sort of past possessions.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
I’d say it was the death of my father. He had a heart attack during the night and I was sharing a room with my brother. We both have a very vivid memory of him being on a stretcher and being carried around the turn in the landing down the stairs. He was a very pale, purplish colour, which at the time I always thought of as a bit like when ET was sick – it was that kind of colour. Myself and my younger brother remember that very vividly.
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I remember talking to my mother about it years later, and she was like, “It couldn’t have happened like that, he was covered with a blanket in the room.” Maybe she misremembers or we misremember. The memory is extremely vivid for both of us, but she said it couldn’t have happened like that.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
Seventh of eight. I think the assigned roles of family order probably works for three or four kids. I’d say after that it’s pretty random. I’ve always ... been the person in the family who does their own thing. I don’t think it’s defined me.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
I’ve always thought about things like that as being over long periods of time. The universe is almost 14 billion years old. All our atoms are billions of years old and they’ve all had a life before they became part of me. After I die, they’ll go on to be part of something else. So I feel the afterlife is the same as the before life. The universe expresses itself as – today it’s as a Rónán and an Ella and a table and a computer – and in a billion years time, those same ingredients will be reorganised in some different way. So I’m just happy to be part of that very long continuity for a very specific period of time. I don’t worry too much about my individual afterlife.
When were you happiest?
I’m always happiest with my wife Sinéad and my two sons, Jacob and Thomas. Often for me it’s not even a special occasion or anything. It’s just, Saturday morning. My wife usually gets up earliest. Then I could be chatting to her with a bit of music in the background and my kids one by one enter and join us. So it’s not even the big golden memory. It’s just the everyday loveliness of that.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
Well, because of my image, I think I’m probably not that hard to cast. There’s a lot of bald men with glasses in the world so, I don’t know, Harry Hill or Adrian Edmondson. Or, if you shaved her head, Nana Mouskouri.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
Before I became a writer, I used to play music. At one stage a promoter who was based in Galway offered me the chance to play the support slot for Mark Eitzel. I couldn’t do it. Every now and again I think maybe I should have just done it.
Have you any psychological quirks?
I’m basically psychological quirks stacked inside a trench coat, passing myself off as a human. That’s kind of what I am.
