Where is your favourite place in Ireland?<\/p>\n
Where I live, which is right beside the Three Rock mountains [Dublin]. Recently, I was in Nagasaki, and as I was heading up to one of the viewpoints, a voice-over consistently reminded me that it was one of the most spectacular city views in the world. The whole time I was thinking I actually prefer the view of Dublin from Three Rock.<\/p>\n
Describe yourself in three words.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d say very creative, passionate and meticulous, but not always in that order.<\/p>\n
When did you last get angry?<\/p>\n
I tend not to get angry that much in my day-to-day life. A lot of my anger is kind of a more general existential anger that we all feel at the state of the world and its injustices.<\/p>\n
What have you lost that you would like to have back?<\/p>\n
Where I have felt most in balance would have been through periods of my life when I\u2019ve been running about 10K a few times a week. I\u2019ve had a particularly busy six months, and I\u2019ve felt the absence of it in a way that has surprised me.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your strongest childhood memory?<\/p>\n
We had a cottage that was perched, literally, on the edge of a cliff, in Crosshaven, Co Cork, where we used to spend weeks during summer school holidays clambering on rocks and exploring fields. My mother would laugh at me saying this because at the time, I\u2019m sure I complained about it every minute. In terms of nostalgia, however, I probably think about it several times a week.<\/p>\n
![\"Hugh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/43XD7VGWHZBI7IYUIIT6CUDVN4.JPG\")
Hugh Hick says he thinks of happiness ‘much more as a communical experience’. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times<\/p>\n
Where do you come in your family\u2019s birth order and has this defined you?<\/p>\n
I have one brother, who is seven years older than me, and in my life, he has been a presence I\u2019ve valued, someone I\u2019ve greatly looked up to and admired. A lot of people have said that within 10 minutes of being with us, they knew we were brothers. The funny thing is, I\u2019m adopted, and so I think that tells you all you need to know about our relationship.<\/p>\n
What do you expect to happen when you die?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t understand anything about the science of near-death experiences or theories that are emerging about when your brain is in the process of dying, it enters this mode where it plays back your life to you. Whenever I think about it, it\u2019s the closest I\u2019ve come to feeling any sort of comfort. Anything after that is above my pay grade.<\/p>\n
When were you happiest?<\/p>\n
What I would have considered happy when I was 20 is very different to me at the age of 38. I now consider happiness much more as a communal experience than an individual one.<\/p>\n
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?<\/p>\n
When I was younger, way back, some people remarked that I had a slight resemblance to Cillian Murphy, but I think he\u2019s aged a lot better than I have. Also, his stock has risen considerably since those comments were made, so it\u2019s maybe a bit of an ask these days. That said, the last biopic he did worked well for him.<\/p>\n
What is your biggest career\/personal regret?<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Marty Whelan convinced me to sing along to Frank Sinatra\u2019s New York, New York, live on his radio show. This was quite early in the morning, before my vocal chords were properly warmed up, and my regret is not picking an easier song.<\/p>\n
Have you any psychological quirks?<\/p>\n
One of my main ones would be hyper-fixation. A few years ago, after visiting a friend\u2019s house and seeing they had a lovely chihuahua, I was like, I need a chihuahua! A week later, I could have written a thesis on the history of humankind\u2019s relationships with chihuahuas. I still haven\u2019t got one, but I know a lot about them.<\/p>\n
In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How agreeable are you? I like to think I\u2019m agreeable, but that doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t ever draw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46,93,61,60,101340,6085,976],"class_list":["post-346020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cork","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marty-whelan","tag-rte","tag-weekendreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}