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I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die.

My soul is still Irish.

Death has always had a prominent place in my mind. There are times when I think somebody might kill me.

Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.

The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true.

I think about death most of the day, every day. We can't escape death, and choosing to ignore it only makes it more scary.

I think about death all the time. I think that's a good thing because we're all going to die, and the only thing we can control is how we are and what we're doing in the meantime.

The way I see it is that all the ol' guff about being Irish is a kind of nonsense. I mean, I couldn't be anything else no matter what I tried to be. I couldn't be Chinese or Japanese.