The Ulick O'Connor diaries 1970-1981 - Ulick O'Connor

The old tradition of the literary stroller, whose imagination fed on the passing crowd, still survived in the intimate atmosphere of Dublin in the 1970s and 1980s. In these diaries writer Ulick O'Connor takes us into the heart of Irish life in that period, evoking the streets and bars of Dublin with their now legendary characters, the world of the Abbey Theatre and that of the Gate Theatre of Michale MacLiammoir. Ulick O'Connor recreates the atmosphere and talk of the Anglo-Irish country houses such as Lexlip Castle and Tullynally, where he often stayed as a guest of the Guinnesses and the Longfords. He also reveals the secret part he played as a go-between for the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch.;O'Connor though doesn't just look at the Irish, he considers the international stage. He is well-known on both sides of the Atlantic as an award-winning playwright, poet and biographer, he has also written columns for the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday Times. His diaries show him to be an inveterate traveller. In New York he makes friends with Viva, the star of Andy Warhol's infamous Blue Movie, he talks to Robert Kennedy and witnesses the anti-Vietnam protests and the growth of the Civil Rights movement. In London he appears on Wogan, in Tangiers he dines with Alec Waugh and Paul Bowles, and in Stockholm he plays a practical joke on Edna O'Brien that unhappily misfires. Ulick O'Connor's diaries are funny and entertaining, gossipy and a good read.