For Soul Friends on Father's day.

A curious thing happened to me two years ago. The postman delivered a book to my home from Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway. Anam Cara by John O’Donoghue. No name, no note, no address and no idea who sent me the gift. I still haven’t a got a clue.

To say I knew little of O’Donoghue’s work at the time would be understatement of the century. For example, after reading twenty or thirty pages of Anam Cara while my first instinct was to marvel at the quality of the writing, my second instinct was to reach out to him with a request for an interview - only to discover the poor man died in 2008.

So, as I say, I knew next to nothing.

Even curiouser, a week or so ago, and pretty much exactly two years following on from the original post-man’s knock on the door, a second John O’Donoghue tome landed into my lap from the post-man. Again, from Charlie Byrne’s book-shop in Galway. Again, no word of who the sender might be. On both occasions the timing of receiving the books was significant from my perspective. Very.