If you count my two unsuccessful (all cough no high) undergraduate attempts to smoke weed and the later (nominally) more successful fractal bits of gummy I consumed (once) at a wedding reception, you must grant I possessed sufficient knowledge and experience with recreational imbibing to feel I was setting myself up for an evening of … Read more
Basque rapper Zekan Askalari’s latest track ‘Erantzun’ is directed by Yaser Akbari, an Afghan asylum-seeker from Iran. It was produced by Leah Rustomjee while volunteering for ReFocus Media Labs an NGO on the Greek island of Lesvos that trains asylum seekers in filmmaking, photography and journalism skills. ‘Erantzun’, is a rap song in the ancient European language of … Read more
In a recent review, my colleague Ben Pantrey argues Richard Kearney’s Touch is itself out of touch with the ‘maddeningly Baroque … meme-ified soup of internet discourse.’ Given the Boston-based Irish philosopher is from an older generation, a relative lack of insight is perhaps unsurprising, but in dismissing the work in at times caustic terms, … Read more
It is often said the current Irish housing crisis is mainly the result of a lack of supply of new houses; a supply that slowed down and never really fully recovered following the burst of the property bubble in 2008. Developers lament a lack of initiative in governments past and present; housing plans replace one … Read more
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was founded by the Reverend Dr. Ian Paisley in 1971. Paisley was an enigmatic figure in Northern Irish politics, offering a heady mixture of fundamentalist Christian values, Unionist rhetoric, and a cult of personality, culminating in a power sharing agreement with his greatest foes. Paisley was a maverick, non-establishment figure … Read more
