The Irish are a strange race. We are an amalgam of Celts, in a sense like people standing on the edge of a cliff but holding tight nevertheless. There is a general conclusion that all Celts are the same - i.e. have something in common, but in fact that is wrong. Actually we're very proud of our individuality; we don't want to be "of the one tribe."

We are much less reserved than the Scots, the Welsh or the French. But we seem to have all ended up living on the edge of society as though we have invited the stronger, more practical and therefore more powerful races to brush us away. I think possibly that all these circumstances have made us - through necessity - quick thinkers. And perhaps this is re-produced in our various art forms. In other words, we are always in a hurry, which of course brings me to the gist of my summing up, our need to express ourselves - an omnipresent human need - through the quicker kind of art form, in this case "the short story".

We must encapsulate our feelings which we want to communicate as quickly as possible. We are a bit like children at a circus, we are always pushing our way to the front; we are always in a crowd who - by and large - wants to get rid of us.

And we Irish, who are basically islanders, are probably the most determined to get "our message over" as quickly as possible. And what better way than through the medium of the short story. Consequently we have produced some of the most phenomenal short-story writers over the last two hundred years. Writers who tell it well and tell it fast.

So many names spring to mind: George Moore, James Joyce, Kate O Brien, Mary Lavin, Frank O Connor, Sean O Faolain, William Trevor, John McGahern. And too many more to mention. And I am very honoured to be given a ringside seat at the circus amongst this company.

Leland BARDWELL

February 2010.