Precision is what Eamon Barrett is about. You see it in the cut of a sentence - "Later, some drinks served lakeside were delivered by staff who all seemed to have just received wonderful news, such was their united state of good humour" - but also in the cut of a collar, and the v-neck worn on top of it.
His writing has both a touch of John McGahern - a writer he feverishly admires - but also Scott Fitzgerald - those little sprezzatura touches concealing the hidden hard work that has mined the sentence out from rough wood. He is a little past his 40th birthday, but seems older - one suspects a son who embraced responsibility in the family home. As a teenager, he might get on his bike and cycle from Waterford to Dublin, then back again, and he remains dedicated to pushing himself, which gives his character an elastic quality, and makes him bright company.
His Waterford shop, Altitude, is a singular retail space, tuned like a piece of horology, another sprezzatura performance in a life that pushes attention away from itself and onto what it does, what it is doing. Perhaps this is a sportsman's - a true sportsman's - attitude: be lost in the endeavour. It makes Barrett an amateur, in the ideal sense.