World of Politics with Harry McGee

I remember walking down the laneway at the back of our house in Glenard when I was 18, my head full of the unassailable self-confidence only 18-year-olds can have.

I can distinctly remember telling myself that I would be a published author by the time I was 25 or die in the effort. Failure was not an option.

Well I have succeeded in the end. But as has been the story of my journalistic career, I missed that milestone by a tad – although one of the things of which I’m proudest of when it comes to The Murderer and The Taoiseach, is that it was completed under an incredibly tight deadline.

This book and the podcast series I did for The Irish Times last year were amongst the biggest – and most complicated projects – I have done. And both happened very quickly.

My Irish Times colleague Enda O’Dowd and I brought the podcast from conception to a completed project in five months last year.

And this book, which is all my own work, took a little over six months to write from beginning to end.

What made it easier is that I have been fascinated by GUBU since I was a teenager. I was getting into current affairs and had started to buy the current affairs magazine which I thought was the most exciting writing

I had ever encountered and got me hooked on journalism. Vincent Browne was the editor and he had some of the best young journalists in Ireland writing for him.

The summer was memorable for several reasons. It was long and hot, without rain for weeks. I spent my summer playing Gaelic and hurling, hanging around in Salthill, swimming in Blackrock reading books and magazines, and listening to U2 and to Joy Division.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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