On the Town: It was about the old days, the way things used to be. "So much has changed in the last 10 or 15 years, I wanted to record that change," said Michael Cronin at the Irish Writers Centre this week on the publication of Time Tracks, his 11th book and his first non-academic book.
Cronin, who is director of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, said this was a different book from his others and that he had "never been so nervous" before".
Time Tracks "is a journey through everybody's memories, not just my own," he said. "It's about everyday objects, in ordinary everyday life, and looking at these things." The memories stretch from the 1960s to the present day.
Reading from the book's last chapter, entitled The Ice Age, he recalled the cold of those days - "the nightly ritual of the hot-water bottle", "the bachelor frugality of the one-bar electric fire" and "the chant that heralded all our exits and departures - 'Put on your coat' ".
His wife, Juliette Péchenart, also of Dublin City University, and their son, Máirtín Cronin (12), were both present along with many others to celebrate the publication of Time Tracks. Friends and colleagues included Pat Burke, from St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, and Bill Richardson, head of DCU's School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies, with his son, Robert (13); poet Enda Wyley, Joe Woods, director of Poetry Ireland, and Peter Sirr, editor of the newly-designed Poetry Ireland Review, which is just out.
Luke Gibbons, whose own book, Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Colonial Sublime, was launched this week, attended with his wife, Dolores Gibbons, a guidance counsellor at Greendale Community School.
"This is his 11th book - it's the first book we can all read," joked broadcaster Joe Duffy, as he launched Time Tracks. The two men first met in TCD when they were both in the students' union around 1979/1980.
Time Tracks by Michael Cronin is published by New Island (12.99 hardback)