Last night, after the hillwalking festival party finished up, I screencast a livestream of the Leitrim-NY GAA quarterfinal match on the big TV in the bar. Many in town had gone over to New York for the match but Jerry was present, cheering his nephew on. The game went into overtime, maybe an hour and two more gin and sodas, ending in a penalty shootout which Leitrim lost.

I was surprised at how easy it was to sort out the screencast, as I'm terrible with new technology and media. I can't seem to get my head around it. Cryptocurrency, NFTs, ChatGPT, self-driving cars, smart homes—it's all deeply perplexing and, well, rather horrible.

For now I'm of an age to say, "I remember when..." When wee-me hopped across a living room floor to Madonna's "Like a Virgin" on the record player. When I might use a rotary phone, thrilling to the click-click-click of the dial returning to its original place. When I'd watch old b&w and Technicolour films on Channel 5 every Saturday afternoon. When a young man might nervously hand me a mixtape as I walked across campus. When I'd stare into a pager, puzzling over the stream of codes from a prospective beau.

When my attention span was longer, uninterrupted by pings and spam and notifications, and time was more languorous, rich with possibility.

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