She spoke no English so we used the international language of soupMichael Harding: My friend in Warsaw left me in a restaurant with a frail little woman I couldn’t talk toWed Mar 14 2018 - 06:00
Michael Harding on Room Little Darker: ‘so much fun you’ll probably frighten yourself’Book Club: ‘Stories spin with such control and elegance you must read them. Feel the sweat of it. The passionate hotness of it. The power and pulse that lie at the heart of it’Mon Mar 12 2018 - 11:15
Tea is the limit of my intimacy when someone unexpected calls to the doorMichael Harding: In the old days everyone got a mug – apart from priests and high-ranking nunsWed Mar 07 2018 - 08:27
Michael Harding’s epic journey home: ‘I needed to see Leitrim’A flight from Warsaw to Liverpool, another to Cork diverted to Shannon and then a bus to Galway and another to Athlone . . .Fri Mar 02 2018 - 15:00
Michael Harding: I worry I’m the elephant in the roomEven though I walked a lot, it was doing me no good. Because every time I went out I ate moreWed Feb 28 2018 - 06:00
‘It’s been very quiet around here’ apart from the half-naked people in the ditchMichael Harding: ‘I ate the head off Cyril and threw him out at the gate. I could have killed him’Wed Feb 21 2018 - 09:37
‘The General says I only go to Warsaw to get away from the Beloved’Michael Harding Valentine: Being alone without the Beloved can be sweet because I long to be with herWed Feb 14 2018 - 06:00
‘All your old shite about religion, that’s all pram-baby talk’Michael Harding: I presumed he didn’t have running water in whatever galvanised cottage he sheltered in on the side of some Leitrim mountainWed Feb 07 2018 - 11:02
I envy Marty Whelan. His voice bouncing into bedrooms in Cahersiveen and KillarneyMichael Harding: The first time I ever made love, a radio was playing Bob Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’Wed Feb 07 2018 - 05:00
The worst part of getting old? Nobody knows who you are any moreMichael Harding: ‘Are you retired?’ the man asked, which caused the General’s face to turn beetroot redWed Jan 24 2018 - 06:00
A fearless and good priest's lonely last walkMichael Harding: The cool rains of Roscommon, and the soft sleet showers over Kilronan mountain were a gentle embrace, compared to his earlier life in the heat of AfricaWed Jan 17 2018 - 06:00
I was panting like a dying walrus. The flu had arrived in full forceMichael Harding: When I got home, my nostrils felt like they were in the microwaveWed Jan 10 2018 - 05:45
People who live on the edge of the world know there are no borders, only loveMichael Harding: ‘I was in Raqqa,’ he whispered, 'when it was beautiful. And I was in Bagdad when it was beautiful. And I was in Beirut when it was beautiful’Wed Jan 03 2018 - 06:00
I’m in the sauna with an angry Brexiteer as large as a sumo wrestlerMichael Harding: I knew that if I opened my mouth I could never unwind my rage. My anger would be incarnate in the airWed Dec 27 2017 - 06:00
To me, west Cavan was the most beautiful place in the worldMichael Harding: Christmas brought emigrants home, and they triggered a rash of house parties and Hughie’s special songWed Dec 20 2017 - 06:00
Perhaps I was a cat and am now reincarnated as a humanMichael Harding: I saw my cat bang his paws on the floor and tears came out of his eyesWed Dec 13 2017 - 08:45
‘Brexit? What is that? Something to get rid of bad breath?’Michael Harding: The gales of laughter softened me too, dissolving the solemnity of all that a man tries to pretendWed Dec 06 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: It had been raining in Leitrim for four monthsA slanting sun two weeks after All Souls’ Day, in the month of the dead, is one of winter’s most remarkable miraclesWed Nov 29 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: How I discovered Santa was realThe annual winter trip to Dublin was my only chance to get a word in Santa’s earWed Nov 22 2017 - 06:00
I don’t think rationally. So I have endless conversations with ghostsMichael Harding: ‘Are you with me?’ I inquired. ‘I am,’ he whisperedWed Nov 15 2017 - 06:00
Facebook is amazing. I befriended a friend recently, only to discover he's deadMichael Harding: For days I tried to remember his faceSun Nov 05 2017 - 06:00
Love in old age is more about gratefulness than graspingMichael Harding: On the plane I wonder how many below are crossing the sea in dinghies, no one certain of finding love in old ageWed Nov 01 2017 - 06:00
I fell off the treadmill and lay there thinking of IrelandMichael Harding: Go you therefore to Ulster and tell them the Good News is for everyoneWed Oct 25 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: Conversations with friends in search of lost timeIf only I were at ease inside the narratives I weave around my sense of self – but I’m notWed Oct 18 2017 - 06:00
Polish is a tricky language but Hiberno-Cavan-English is worseMichael Harding: It’s a pity the ancient tongue of South Ulster is not given more formal recognition by governmentsWed Oct 11 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: I'm as confused about masculinity as my catMy cat is a sorry sight whenever some neighbouring queen comes around the yardWed Oct 04 2017 - 09:40
When I was young, flesh pots were few and far between in CavanMichael Harding: It was a time of innocence, before the Troubles, before war on the BorderWed Sept 27 2017 - 06:00
‘The flute in my hand, I got on the treadmill like a true Orange Man’Michael Harding: Whether Orange or Green, the tunes stayed the sameWed Sept 20 2017 - 06:00
Why I gave up cardigans for waistcoats - Michael Harding returnsI was hoping to make an impression in the world of polished grandeurWed Sept 13 2017 - 06:00
I still gaze at the beloved as she sleeps and see a strangerMichael Harding: In relationships I find out who I am, not who the other person isWed Jun 28 2017 - 07:00
I’m an old farting male who has given up hotels for hostelsMichael Harding: I love privacy but hate ‘Downton Abbey’ obsequiousnessWed Jun 21 2017 - 11:32
The child tugged my arm and said: ‘You are like Mr Bean!’Michael Harding: I had a go at speaking Mandarin but I managed to mangle the wordsWed Jun 14 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding on a happy fortnight of Cill Rialaig calmThen the shutters finally opened and I returned to the belly of this raging worldWed Jun 07 2017 - 06:00
The beauty of Kerry couldn’t erase the memory of angry dad in the Topaz stationMichael Harding: The man, as devoid of emotion as Clint Eastwood on a bad day, looked at me as though he might break my armsWed May 31 2017 - 06:30
I was never on Skellig but I made love in Kerry in the 1970s with a petite German girlMichael Harding: She could see beneath the mask of codology that I was still a peasant of simple tastes and devotionsWed May 24 2017 - 10:58
Radox is as near as I ever get to an exotic life in the bathroomMichael Harding: Getting a new bath installed is not as simple as you might thinkWed May 17 2017 - 06:00
Leitrim boy's dam was a work of art 'holding back the shite'Michael Harding: ‘It’s not brains you need to appreciate art,’ I shouted, ‘it’s love’Wed May 10 2017 - 06:00
‘Wasn’t he lucky to go like that? Feet washed. A few pints. Off to sleep’Michael Harding: In awe of old people so detached from the world they could laugh at the frenzy of it allWed May 03 2017 - 06:00
An emotionally constipated night out in a posh Dublin restaurantMichael Harding: The General stared at me ... he hates looking silly in front of city peopleWed Apr 26 2017 - 01:00
Wee Daniel, his amazing missus and the frog in the poolMichael Harding: Wise woman’s words in Donegal put a spring in my stepWed Apr 19 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: Making my peace with the tree-choking ivy‘I must have loved currents . . . and I still can’t resist anything with a dried grape in it’Wed Apr 12 2017 - 05:00
‘Do you have your wee pennies, love?’ The question filled me with childish ecstasyMichael Harding: Random encounters are the perfect medicine for melancholyWed Apr 05 2017 - 00:00
‘The secret to a happy marriage? Avoid magical thinking’Michael Harding: Darkness envelops me in the evening but my beloved does not fear that demons haunt the houseTue Mar 28 2017 - 06:00
‘If these vitamins work I won’t need Viagra’Michael Harding: I made a mistake about my vitamin dosage and began to feel fidgetyTue Mar 21 2017 - 06:00
'In my swimming togs, toenails like a neglected donkey'Michael Harding: Magda arrived in a shining black costume, sat down and asked had I been talking to myselfTue Mar 14 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: Learning late in life to listen to womenThe iPhone changed everything. These women were different. Their narratives were emotionalMon Mar 06 2017 - 18:07
'I cherish flutes as much as the waterbowls I use when I sit before my shrine'Michael Harding: 'I am a bad musician, but I play for the strange sensation of being alive'Tue Feb 28 2017 - 08:52
‘Closing the door one final time on the world where I was born’Michael Harding: Gathering up the discarded ornaments and junk, I thought I saw my mother againTue Feb 21 2017 - 06:00
Michael Harding: ‘I wrapped the tiny body in a page from the Leitrim Observer’The mouse in the attic shared my passion for apples. What else did we have in common?Tue Feb 14 2017 - 06:00
'What my new guru showed me: I'd been looking at the world arseways'Michael Harding: The ultimate teaching is that there is no teaching, according to the 70-year-old with a greasy pony-tailTue Feb 07 2017 - 06:00
