In 2015, documentary filmmaker and Director of Loopline Film, Sé Merry Doyle, and the Irish Film Institute, received funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to archive the company’s collection. Over a twelve-month period, Sé and I fully catalogued 16mm and 35mm films, tapes in a variety of formats, and numerous audio materials. These were … Read more
Music is like a home. A country. A tribe. A religion or faith. You can’t see it, yet it is real, and has tangible effects. It brings people together. Or it pushes them apart. It creates groups and sub-groups through inclusion or othering. It provokes love and friendship and connection. It reaches into the core … Read more
Following a global trend since the arrival of the Internet, mainstream Irish media, including the so-called ‘paper of record’ the Irish Times, is increasingly required to sell itself. The days of someone reading a daily newspapers cover-to-cover are fading into nostalgic memories. Now editors feel obliged to dangle click-bait, and even fake news, often through … Read more
It is the job of the market to turn the base material of our emotions into gold. Andre Codrescu In Ireland, if you hear ‘Section 8’, you might think THEFT, as here we have a statute for that, oh and FRAUD. No need to applaud. Meanwhile in America, they might mean housing the homeless or … Read more
In the mid-1990s Seosamh O Cuaig and I were filming a programme for TG4 in the State of Minnesota. It concerned an 1880 shipload of emigrants from Conamara. In the city of St. Paul we were told that the term ‘Connemara’ was a century-old Minnesota synonym for lazy. This was curious, because nobody in the … Read more
In the ferry terminal of Algeciras, on Spain’s southern coast, two middle-aged gangsters from Cork sit and wait. Maurice and Charlie have been tipped off that at some stage in the next twenty-four-hours Maurice’s estranged daughter Dilly will show up. They can’t be sure whether she will, or what she’ll do if and when she … Read more
But again, and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. Albert Camus, The Plague. Periodically, I am asked about the relationship between law and literature. Therefore, it came as no surprise to be sent a book on that … Read more
Under normal circumstances, developing a bus network should confer great benefits on a city: it is cheap, quick to implement, and causes little disruption. Yet, remarkably, the BusConnects plan manages to achieve precisely the opposite effects. Furthermore, ever since BusConnects has been on the agenda, it has diverted public attention away from other improvements that … Read more
Alternative Realities… Among the least discussed, but perhaps most important influence of the Digital Age is our tendency to live in bubbles. We no longer have to be rich to live in the equivalent of gated communities. TV, radio, and the internet provide echo chambers for our beliefs. Sophisticated algorithms deployed by Facebook and Google … Read more
Few among the crowds walking down Thomas Street will know there is a hidden garden in the heart of the Liberties. In the past this site served as a car park, and a popular place to shoot up. Later it was bought up and fenced off. Shops and houses, however, had back door access and … Read more
In this benighted ‘Republic,’ spectral beggars haunt the streets of Dublin, soup kitchens multiply, and the sick lie in agony on hospital trolleys. The ‘booming’ economy is really a country where working people are known to live in cars, and some of the nation’s children bring toilet paper to school (no, it’s not Venezuela). The … Read more
In 2016 the Department of Education and Skill’s outlined its latest scheme for Gaeltacht (designated Irish-language) districts: ‘Policy on Gaeltacht Education 2017 – 2022’. It aims to reverse the adoption of English as the primary language of these areas, a process which is pretty well complete. Irish speakers are now in a minority in twenty … Read more
On a crisp, sunny morning in Hebron in January of this year my friend Atta Jaber tells me: ‘The settlers have what they wanted and Randina sits on a chair.’ Atta resembles a Kerry farmer, one in particular comes to mind: the late Sam Brown from Maharees in West Kerry. He is sinewy, with a … Read more
What one leaves behind. I guess a lot of stuff. If over the last few years you have passed Bloom’s Lane, just across the Millennium Bridge on the north side of the River Liffey, you may have noticed a familiar figure. Sometimes standing on the bridge, other times reading from a bundle of newspapers and … Read more
Over seven years ago, I moved to an old house on Liffey Street having lived in various Dublin suburbs. I was 25 years of age and in the heart of Dublin city. Quickly the opportunity to make music my livelihood was upon me. I was now living on the circuit that could pay me to … Read more
No soy yo quien atraviesa estos valles prendidos de ocres, ni este el tren que me lleva de un lugar a otro lugar. La tierra se retuerce mostrando sus costuras y de las balsas de agua emana un vapor sin voz. Los túneles construyen el paisaje con su lenguaje de fronteras. En el vidrio reflejado, … Read more
One fine day all this will burn Strange but true The blue woods of Oregon Silver snakes of her rivers Her dark lakes gone like steam Something will come A hammer at high noon To stove in this huge porcelain egg of a world Our hopes were only ever The white wisps of clouds Full … Read more
It’s only a day’s walk north from Sana’a to Al Madid, in the province of Neham, so I said, ‘In Al Madid, God willing, surely we’ll find what you seek.’ Wearing a cuffia, the small man eyed me with a detached superiority while I thought to myself, ‘How fortunate he is to have me. With … Read more
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