Eugene McCabe Q&A: ‘Having to leave Drumard would be a kind of death’

Who are your heroes?
William Shakespeare and Michael Collins. Both in their fields away above the common run.

What song would you like played at your funeral?
All Through the Night sung in Welsh by one of the great Welsh choirs. In an interview with David Norris we agreed that the lone piper had become a cliche at funerals. I opted for Michael Flatley dancing down the aisle in front of my coffin all the way to the hearse. We agreed it would be interesting but very expensive!

What record sends a shiver down your spine?
Allegri's Miserere but there are so many others. Chopin [the Keats of stunningly beautiful music] and recently the Benedictus by Peter Warlock ... all overwhelming.

What is your favourite place in Ireland?
Drumard, the high back. The farm and house in the borderlands where I have lived and worked as a farmer and writer for over 55 years. The familial associations are inescapable. Having to leave would be a kind of death. That is why I plan to have my ashes spread in the ground of an early [7th century] Celtic church on the farm.

Eugene McCabe, author and playwright, dies, aged 90

---

Joyce Carol Oates and that repulsive foot photo: ‘The moral is, proper footwear!’

---

As You Were: A powerful novel about life, death and the bit in between

---

What is your most treasured possession?
My sanity at 80. Two brothers suffered from dementia.

What makes you angry?
Presumption and all that stands for... and the arrogance of bad manners.

What book influenced you most?
The first one I read when I was seven ... Boy Trappers in the Rockies. I had no idea a book could fill the imagination with such wonderful images. I think it was then that I decided I'd like to be a writer

It's a special meal – what's on the menu?
Steak and kidney pie with creamed spinach and mashed potatoes followed by a steamed pudding served with runny golden syrup and whipped cream.

If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
My lack of natural sociability. I am not a full blown recluse but do tend to avoid gatherings. If I drink I talk too much ... If I don't drink I can't wait to get away. Sometimes the occasions I dread most turn out to be OK. I would like to become a naturally easy, relaxed personality. Too late now.

What gives your life meaning?
Love, family and the enjoyment of great Art.

Can you tell me a joke?
More an experience. Two fellow Cork students in Dublin accusing each other of having Cork accents... in a Cork accent!

What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Revise and cut, revise and cut, revise and cut ... It can shape the ordinary into the extraordinary.

When did you last cry?
Hate to admit it but during an emotional scene in the film The King's Speech.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?
What I find hard to credit... An old blotched man.

What is your favourite film and why?
Hard to pick between Casablanca and Schindler's List but I must opt for for the latter. Nothing so terrible has ever happened in the long history of war and horror. To catch that horror so perfectly on film is a matter for wonder and admiration.

What is your passion?
'Truth and beauty' in nature and art; Keats again.

What do you have hanging on your walls at home that you like looking at most?
A small painting by Ita Kelly called Starlings Feeding on Yarrow. She has painted three of them with an accuracy I never tire of looking at because I see them every day from different windows.

What was your most formative experience?
Being put back from 2A to 2B at Castleknock because I was a duffer at Maths. That humiliation I suspect has stayed with me all my life.

What do you believe in?
I believe that God has a lot to answer for but He/She /It won't ever go to trial. You can't try what doesn't exist.

What trait do others criticise you for?
In a family setting... I tend to cut across others and am accused of stealing the punchline!

What is the funniest thing you've ever seen or heard?
A young bull broke loose in our yard, charged into a workshop and came out with the handles of a lawnmower round his neck. He stumbled horning, stamping and bellowing till he'd disengaged from the mower then attacked it till it was a heap of scrap. Awesome at the time , funny in retrospect, as if he was saying "So much for your silly machine that robs me of good grass!"

What is your favourite word one-liner or retort?
Churchill at the dinner party to the woman who told him he was 'disgustingly drunk'. "Be that as it may... you madam are ugly... tomorrow I'll be sober"

What would your motto be?
The Mc Cabe motto is " To conquer or to die". A bit fierce. I'd alter it to... 'Keep trying'

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer... from an early age.

What are the best and worst things about where you live?
Best: Halfway between Dublin and Belfast for all the obvious reasons. Worst: The taint of sectarianism which still permeates life here though it is diminishing

Which Irish work would you recommend most highly?
Both Joyce. The Dead from The Dubliners which he wrote at the age of 24. Seems an almost unbelievable achievement. And the innovations of Ulysses still unequalled in modern fiction.