I first came across him when I was studying philosophy, a subject I was interested in because of the way it makes you think about the world. I was working as a journalist by day, and therefore dealing in facts, and at night I did a degree in philosophy and English at UCD. I had the luxury of not having to get really high marks in it, as there was no chance whatsoever of me getting a job out of it.

What attracted me to Socrates was that he was such an early formative influence.

He was born around 470 BC, and was one of the triumvirate of major philosophers.

There was himself, then Plato, and then Aristotle, and these are the people we can thank for much of civilisation as we know it now. At that stage, the known disciplines of science didn't exist, such as physics or chemistry. It was all just "stuff" that kind of mashed into the same thing.

The likes of Socrates would be sitting around asking philosophical questions about what was going on and why, and that in itself would make him somebody to take notice of.

Socrates wasn't a typical kind of philosopher bloke, because he was apparently a foul-looking man with a wicked tongue. I actually have a bust of him on my desk at home, which does him huge favours, as he was meant to be quite small and ugly. His father was Sophroniscus, his mother was called Phaenarate, and his wife, Xanthippe, was much younger than him. She was apparently a total pain, and would become hysterical about any old thing at the drop of a hat. They had three boys, Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus, and Socrates was executed in 399 BC, when his sons were still quite young.

It was suggested that he made his living as a stonemason, although that has never been confirmed, and other sources suggest that he was a teacher, although in Plato's Apology and Symposium, Socrates categorically denies that he made any money from teaching. It was also thought that he spent some time in military service.

Socrates' most important contribution to western thought is his dialectic method of inquiry, which is known as the Socratic Method, and was largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts, such as justice. How it worked was that in order to solve a problem, you would ask a question, because the fundamental part of any science is just to ask, "Why?" And that's all Socrates ever did. He never made any statements about anything, and the only thing he was definite about was the degree of his own ignorance, and how much he didn't know. He would be hanging around in courtyards and squares, having discussions with ancient Greek versions of Celtic Tiger pups who sat around making pronouncements about things. Socrates never pretended to know anything, and he would ask them why they said these things and argue them down to their fundamental level.

He did this so much that, eventually, he pissed off the people who ruled Athens, and they had him put to death. It was over the nature of God, and whether there was one God or several gods, and the fact that he had publicly questioned the Athenian men about their knowledge of good, beauty and virtue. He was found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, and I think he could have got out of it by retracting something, but he refused to do that.

He had an opportunity to escape, because his followers were in a position to bribe the prison guards, but he refused on three grounds, even though he said that he was unjustly being put to death. The first reason he gave was that fleeing would indicate a fear of death, and he believed no true philosopher was afraid of that. The second was that if he left, he, and his teaching, wouldn't fare any better in another country, and the third was that he lived in Athens and had agreed to abide by its laws. When he was finally condemned to death, he had to drink hemlock, which apparently wasn't very pleasant. He then had to wander around the town while the people watched him die, which is quite disgusting really. Xanthippe was there saying that he hadn't done anything, and he was saying, "It sounds like you'd prefer it if I had done something!"

I don't think I have any of the aspects of Socrates' personality, although I'm probably as ugly as he was. I'd like to believe that I think and challenge things like he did, but with my hand on my heart, I don't think I could be as brave as he was.

I'll go to a certain point on issues, but caution will usually kick in, and I might step back a bit.

We live in an age where every ad on the television for toilet roll or hairspray is telling you to do it your way, and you can be a rebel and different . . . when actually we're not, we're all the same and we live in oceans of blandness. Whereas Socrates is someone who was genuinely different, and in spite of the fact that everybody in Athens was giving out about him, including his wife, he was absolutely right to be different. And that's why he's the father of what went on to be western political philosophy, ethics and moral philosophy.