All my people are from Ireland. I was born in Manchester, but I am Irish.
I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself.
We recognised from the start that we couldn't just stay in the U.K. and Ireland markets. We have always looked to the products of the future. I've always said, 'If you don't innovate, you'll evaporate.'
Whenever I dream of playing a perfect round of golf, which I rarely do more than a dozen times a day, I picture myself on one of my favorite British Open-style links, and in particular the great courses of the west of Ireland, whose holes flow through naturally bunkered dunesland never far from the sight or sound of surf.
Journalism took me around the world. I worked in London for ten years and reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the first Gulf War.
There are many things we can do with Scotland and, indeed, with others which would be hugely beneficial to both Scotland and to Ireland, so I'm absolutely up for all of that.
I went up for the first time when I was 18. It's a great place - I love L.A.; I mean, in Ireland it just rains all the time, it's crap weather, so it's nice to go to L.A. where it's just sunshine every day, and then it's kinda easier to live a kinda healthy lifestyle.
You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.
Hollywood is probably the most active centre of film-making in the world, but it's also a very difficult place in which to find your voice... It was also a far more civilised industry in Ireland.
We can be a very natural partner as a support base for Ireland to use Mexico to enter into the North American and South American markets and for Mexico, in turn, to really take advantage of Ireland as a gateway to the European markets.
My father is from Newark in Nottinghamshire and my mother is from the very north of Ireland. They've ended up in Scotland, where my father - well, both of them - will always be seen as having come from somewhere else.
Ireland was an idyllic place for us as children. We had all these cousins and all this green countryside. Given what I've written about rural Ireland, my memories of it are all blue skies and endless play.
I definitely want to keep working in Ireland, and without being too worthy about it, if it's possible to bring work into the country, that's no harm.
By far, the greatest contribution Ireland can make is to lead by example, by actively pursuing its own transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy.
