This – and most of the continuing chronological text – was written in 2009, with some updating in 2013.

The mixture of comment and fiction presented above for the years 1998 to 2000 covers a challenging time when Anne and I discussed plans for retirement and decided to buy some kind of pied-a-terre in Dublin. Momentum was added to those discussions by some concern about my health, a reorganisation in the Commission (which added new burdensome complexities to my already heavy responsibilities) and the fact that I was of an age where early retirement would make little difference to my pension rights.

An advantage of the Commission reorganisation was that in offering to retire from my post I felt I might possibly be able to lever a final promotion or, at least, negotiate transition arrangements that might give me more flexibility in planning and programming everything that a return to Dublin after so many years in Brussels might involve.

The promotion possibility proved a non-starter, but everything else worked out extremely well. To the great surprise of my staff in Luxembourg and Brussels, news of my retirement and the announcement of my successor were made virtually simultaneously. We sold our apartment so quickly that we had to move into temporary rented accommodation for the final months of our time in Brussels. Towards the end of 2000, on 9 November, we had the great joy of the birth of our first grandchild, Eli Keery, to Justin and Amma. Retirement would give us more time for contact with that new family in London.

Brussels and London would be important horizons, whatever our circumstances. In moving to Dublin we would miss being neighbours to Patricia, but she seemed reasonably well established in her Brussels post as a financial controller with a huge French multinational and, with some help from us, had become the owner of a fine apartment with enough space to receive us or other family and friends as regular visitors.

Ross Hinds had scheduled the publication of “Turnings”, my first collection of poems, for late 1999, with a launch in Dublin by Senator David Norris, to be followed early in 2000 by a Brussels launch, with Commissioner David Byrne as the speaker. These launches went extremely well and set the scene for our departure from Brussels and return to Dublin. The number of friends and supporters who came to the Dublin launch was much larger than we thought possible and seemed to confirm that we should be able to settle back into an active social life. In the same way, the success of the Brussels launch, and the spirit of the farewell dinner Anne and I hosted for our friends, indicated that we could be assured of a warm welcome on return visits to the Belgian capital that had been our home for so long.

The period between the purchase of our small semi-detached Carysfort Park house in Blackrock in 1999, and our return to live in it as our retirement home in 2001, saw house prices in Ireland inflate at a ridiculous rate. Many Irish people working abroad were beginning to find that the possibility of buying any accommodation at home was moving beyond their range.

Unfortunately, this property bubble turned out to be one of the most toxic elements in the collapse of the Irish economy triggered later by the 2008-2009 international banking crisis.

My intention on returning to Dublin was to declare myself a writer and to make writing a key component in the organisation of my new daily routines and outside interests. When Anne and I met our solicitors to ensure that our wills and other financial affairs were in line with renewed Irish residency, the discussions included references to my interest in the special tax concessions for writers in Ireland and the protection of copyright. I was optimistic enough to hope that I might make some kind of early breakthrough on the Irish domestic scene.

At the time, my leading idea was to write a series of talks for radio under the general heading “Enthusiasms”. I did get around to writing the series quite quickly, including the choice of some Bach as theme music. But I never got around to polishing my first drafts and submitting them to RTE. (These drafts are also in my Boole collection.)

Like most retired people, I began to wonder where each day went and how I ever found time to fulfil my previous professional working obligations. My initial contacts with the realities of poetry and authorship in Ireland taught me immediately that my hopes of recognition, or any possibility of earning an income from writing, were further confirmation of my predisposition to a sort of innocent idealism.

Read more: 2002 – From European Treaties to a Manifesto