Bob Hope once wisecracked: ‘the choice between Carter and Regan was not so much the choice of the lesser of two evils, as the evil of two lessers.’ In Brexit-land that joke has transmuted into one about the difference between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. The Irish media, as ever, are looking at this election … Read more
Mary Ann DeVlieg is an internationally experienced consultant, facilitator and trainer with a background in the arts, arts mobility and policy. She evaluates international cultural collaboration projects for the European Commission and charitable foundations. Since 2010 she has been working to protect and defend the rights of artists-at-risk, she founded the EU working group, Arts-Rights-Justice, … Read more
‘God bless all here’ as our ancestors used to say upon arrival at the home of a friend, neighbour, or stranger. Not just a blessing on all within that home, it meant he who entered possessed not the evil eye. In my great-grandparents’ time, curses, spells, and witchcraft were common practise. It was the 1870’s … Read more
Sammy Jay, 30, grew up in Oxford and in Ireland by the sea. He works as a rare book dealer with Peter Harrington of London, tending to their literature department with an interest in poetry in particular. He has been writing since he can remember, and is working on his first collection.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”62″ gal_title=”Featured Artist of the Month: Maria Julia Goyena”] ‘Inner coherence is prior to artistic manifestation.’ Maria Julia Goyena Wandering minstrels travelled through villages in the Middle Ages, telling stories with a book of archetypal images of the time in which they lived. The pages came loose and they/we continued telling the stories, with … Read more
Rooftop Blues I could go for a quick smoke on the roof, the steel vent pipe snaking its lobed edges toward the window, hear the incidental music of engines snarl up from Richmond Street, relentless as diesel. Maybe, just maybe, I see people for what we are and want no part in it? Spilled lighter … Read more
Translation By Sally McCorry January 1st The first of January is always a special day. It’s as if everybody is suffering from a delicious jet lag to enjoy slowly. I, on the other hand, left my house at eight thirty in the morning, I don’t know why. Perhaps I just wanted to … Read more
Shaking Beyond I’m playing with Ned on Thursday. That evening in the National Concert Hall will be the first time we meet. How strange that we’ll share some food together and follow that with as deep a conversation as I’ll have with anyone this year, to an audience of friends and strangers alike. The … Read more
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film ‘Dr Strangelove’ dramatizes the still not-altogether-remote scenario of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It begins with a deranged U.S. Airforce General, Jack D. Ripper, overriding Executive Command and ordering a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The Russians, unbeknownst to the Americans, have developed a deterrent – the Doomsday Machine – … Read more
