Quite early on in 2007 it became clear that we were entering a year of high risk.

We were determined that “Home” should be published before Christmas and, before that, there was the new challenge of trying to ensure that a week-long September trip to the Saint Sebastian Film Festival for Kildare Street and University Club members and friends would be a success.

Happily, we were able to celebrate Christmas with Justin and family in London with a real sense of missions accomplished.

Anne and I put a lot into the planning of the Saint Sebastian trip, which I had agreed to work on at the request of the Kildare Street and University Club’s Classic Film Evening enthusiasts. We had had a brief one-day visit to the Festival city as part of an earlier holiday in the Basque and Rioja country. As Anne had also had student experience of staying with a family in Bilbao, we decided that prior to the Club trip we would do a little exploring ourselves, revisiting the territory to get to know the detailed local geography and to have a look at the hotel which MAP Travel had chosen for the Festival stay.

Our recce went extremely well, although a visit to the Film Festival Office confirmed that the programme would only be available at the last minute and that it would not be easy to make early bookings on the ground to ensure that all the participants could get to at least one major showing they would enjoy.

I decided that the best way to get good access to the programme and booking arrangements would be for me to use my film experience and become an accredited delegate to the Festival.

As the week-long trip, linked to the Aer Lingus Dublin/Bilbao timetable, would give us some touring days prior to the Festival opening, Anne and I also made as big a collection as we could of tourist literature that would enable us to plan interesting visits and to spot restaurants that would make good venues for lunches and dinners.

In the end, what made the trip a brilliant success was the fact that all thirteen of us who travelled got on well together and found a wide enough range of options in the film programme to see something of interest and to get the feel of a special Festival showing, with appearances by visiting stars and directors. The choice of restaurants and hotels also proved most satisfactory and the weather was reasonably kind to us.

With our own coach and tour manager, we were also free to introduce visits unthinkable for most package tours. At the frontier railway station between France and Spain we did our own re-enactment of the wartime meeting between Hitler and Franco.

When “Home” was at a stage where printing estimates might be sought, we asked for prices from two printers in Dublin and from the Belgian printer who had done such a good job on “Turnings”. One of the Dublin printers came in with a price virtually identical with the Brussels price, while the third quote was vastly higher. The decision was taken to print in Dublin and a timetable was agreed that looked as if it would give delivery a week in advance of the launch scheduled for Monday 10 December.

Fixing the date was linked to the agreement between the Blackrock Society and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, which made it possible for the Society to be sure of the use of the large hall at the headquarters of Comhaltas on Belgrave Square in Monkstown.

Once Ross and I had all the details of venue and timing necessary to launch invitations, we swung into promotional mode on the basis of his publisher’s list and everything I could think of in terms of my own personal contacts and links made to poetry circles and other groups since returning to Dublin. The printer almost broke my heart, only delivering the books on the afternoon of the launch. Ross assured me that this was quite normal and we were both happy with the quality of the production. The advance of print technology meant that full colour could be used on the cover at no extra charge so the final design included a colour author portrait downloaded from one of Justin’s digital photographs.

People still talk about the evening of the launch. As these things go, it could have been the launching of a new collection by a major poet. The hall looked magnificent because it had already been decorated for the Comhaltas Christmas programme. More than 120 people arrived, creating a traffic jam in the square. Regular Blackrock Society attenders were impressed to find in the audience a range of recognisable public personalities, the Minister for Education, a well-known Senator, two High Court Judges, and a retired Papal Nuncio.

Justin had come over from London and was shooting away like a professional photographer. Friends of mine also helped by turning up to look after the serving of the wine and the selling of the books.

After introductions by David Hussey, Chairman of the Blackrock Society, and Ross, the poet and teacher Maeve O’Sullivan spoke to introduce “Home” before I went to the microphone to read some of the poems.

Maeve did a wonderful job, impressing everyone with the warmth of her assessment of the book, taking as her theme the sensitive way in which she saw me addressing mortality as a trope. After the reading, Ross completely surprised me with a framed presentation in beautiful calligraphy of the last poem in the collection:

Active Retirement
He re-organised the space
In which his dream had taken place,
Then went back to sleep.

Read more: 2008 – A Non-Stop Year