In the same way as the excerpts from John McGahern's Memoir in two Saturday newspapers surely refreshed eyes and spirits tired of summer silliness, the author's reading on Book on One restored appreciation of the power of radio to make us listen and be moved and stunned and to emerge feeling a little bit kinder about the human race.

Colin Murphy is seduced by the music, words, bawdiness and fun of The Midnight Court in Feakle, Co Clare

Eddie Hobbs gets under the skin, cartoon characters wear nothing but skin, sailors see a surprising amount of skin and the 1980s feel like a second skin for Dermot Bolger

It was 1968. I was in a tent in a field. Outside Clones. There were three other people in the tent. Two were playing the fiddle. Separate fiddles that is. Nothing remarkable about that given the weekend that was in it. We were in Clones for the Fleadh. There were tents all over the field peopled by musicians playing on fiddles or flutes or pipes or squeeze boxes or whistles or even, horror of horrors, the odd buzuki or some other such stringed instrument. And that was only the players who couldn't get playing in the myriad sessions in town or who had just returned from so doing.

In the aftermath of two No referenda, the European Commission is trying to change its image to listen, communicate, and go local. It has a long way to go, writes Conor Brady

Last year's fashion for book clubs may be receding but as a forum for championing books – and making books popular – there are few current alternatives as successful. Books like The Lovely Bones, The Master and The Kite Runner have a universality that made them ideal club selections. You can picture the publisher's glee when they realise that a book they have is perfect for that market.

Despite the fortuitous date of its publication and the familiar voice of its narrator, Incendiary suffers from the demands its plot entails and the logistics of capturing an entire city slowly lapsing into chaos.

Nature expert Richard Nairn's new book on Ireland's beautiful coastline will make readers pack up their bags, buy a map of Ireland and head for the shore.

Billy Leahy has a religious experience at Alice Maher's latest show at her home of many years, the Green on Red Galllery

Last Thursday, Raglan Road merely provided a handy means of avoiding the crowd headed to Landsdowne Road for the Ireland Ruby friendly. But the next night, when Luke Kelly sang of it, and I listened from my garden bench in Clare under that lovely moon, 'Raglan Road' was again mythical; the poet Paddy Kavanagh was wastin' his time on the young one and Luke's voice was again in the business of breaking your heart.