William Trevor at 80

There is much on the airwaves and in the press at the moment about our most distinguished Old Columban writer, William Trevor, who will be 80 next month. We are planning our own celebration of this event - more here before long.

On Sunday, John Bowman's RTE Radio 1 Sunday morning programme replayed a clip of Trevor being interviewed by Andy O'Mahony about his book Landscape in Literature (1984).

If you click on the episode from Sunday 13th, you can hear him talk with Mike Murphy about his education, including discussion of St Columba's. He remembers thinking before arriving from Sandford Park that SCC boys would 'speak strangely', but then found that the school was socially 'pleasantly mixed'. He says that, having mocked the school (fairly gently), he now remembers it 'with affection' and thinks 'it was a very good school indeed', largely because during the War 'the staff were interesting men'. He goes on to talk in much detail about the profound influence that the then art teacher, the great Irish sculptor Oisin Kelly, had on his life.

On Thursday at the Mansion House William Trevor will be receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature at the Irish Book Awards. Also, at the weekend the author is the subject of a symposium at the Oscar Wilde Centre in TCD (here).