Damian Barry Smyth

Damian Barry Smyth: Born Belfast, Northern Ireland, a freelance writer by San Francisco Bay.

I write because it's great fun; I publish because I do not want to talk just to myself!

Main areas of interest --

1. Religion: To counter the scandal of sectarian apartheid worship weekends at local synagogue, Catholic cathedral, Greek Orthodox cathedral. Vision: a pauline commonwealth of Judeo-Christians without borders.

2. Law: People only go to a lawyer when the going gets rough. Educated by my clients over 30 years of practice (retired 2005) : grandmothers raising abandoned grandchildren; Aids patients making a will; spouses enduring the trauma of divorce; men filed away and forgotten in San Quentin and Folsom...

3. Travel: always a little homesick for Europe. Speaking French and Italian, with a little Spanish and German, makes these returns all the more enjoyable. Today I get to see these lands afresh through the eyes of my California wife and children.

Publications include:

The Trauma of the Cross. (New York: Paulist Press, 1999)

"Psalm 95: The "Today" Clause." The Downside Review. (Bath, England: October 2010).

"Fitting Service". Commonweal. (New York: January, 2011).

"Dr. Newman: Non Angeus, sed Anglus." Doctrine and Life (Dublin, Ireland: June 2011).

Poetry published in Amelia, America, Brief/Case (San Francisco Bar Assn), The Mill Valley Literary Review, Ruah (Berkeley, CA).