Every self-respecting nation should have at least one wildly witty romantic for every era of its history. Then, chances are, the nation will maintain its mental balance and a healthy ability to take itself less seriously. Large cities are especially in need of such people, especially in our time. Pat Ingoldsby, a man with a biography big enough for three, is one such great 20th-century Dublin romantic, a poet, playwright, and, in the past, a star of Irish television and a children's favorite.

In the late 1980s, Pat finally gave up 'working' and devoted himself full-time to poetry—all these years he has been writing poems, publishing them almost exclusively in samizdat and selling them himself on the streets of Dublin. Thus, Pat also became a city landmark.

In 2020, his poetry collection, 'The Beauty of Cracked Eyes' (1999), was published in Russian by subscription by Dodo Press, and Ingoldsby instantly acquired a small but enthusiastic army of Russian-speaking fans. It's high time to get acquainted with Pat's urban journalism, although in it he remains a poet and a romantic.

This collection continues the series of sparkling English-language journalism of the 20th century, which has already published Flann O'Brien and Donald Barthelme.