Given that today is Bloomsday, perhaps it is timely to point out that there has been as much arm chancery about interpreting his politics as there is about many other things Joycean. The only real clue from his written work is that his family were Parnellites who stood by the Chief after his downfall. “He was […]
With most festivals and fleadhs cancelled for the summer, musicians and performers are coming up with novel ideas to keep music going online. At the weekend, thousands took part in the first-ever online Céilí in the Kitchen where families or socially-distant friends posted videos on Facebook and elsewhere of their celebration of Irish traditional music and […]
Begun, the statue wars have: British public defending cultural heritage in Poole. Baden-Powell statue now not being removed today. pic.twitter.com/qJuakSQVyo — Michael Heaver (@Michael_Heaver) June 11, 2020 The statue in question, naturally enough, is of some bloke you haven’t heard of, who founded the scouts. And trust me, the people who want it taken down […]
Give the man credit: He never shies away from the difficult jobs: The Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar has said Ireland 'definitely needs to bring in new laws around hate speech and hate crimes' and also needs an anti-racism awareness campaign. He told #2FMbreakfast such legislation 'isn't easy to introduce' due to the right to freedom of speech. […]
Reciting a pledge, renouncing your sins, hands upturned to receive absolution? You can recognise a religious ceremony when you see one, and here it is, in Bethseda, Maryland, yesterday: We often joke, those of us on the centre right, that in many quarters progressivism has become a kind of secular religion, and perhaps now you […]
ON THIS DAY: 16th May 1920, Joan Of Arc was cannonised a saint “You Englishmen, who have no right in this Kingdom of France, the King of Heaven sends you word and warning, by me Jehanne the Maid, to abandon your forts and depart into your own country, or I will raise such a war-cry […]
World Fiddle Day in Scartaglin is an annual gathering of traditional musicians not to be missed – but this year, like everything else, it will take place online. The Kerry village hosts a celebration of the fiddle and traditional music and song of area surrounding Scartaglin, Cordal, Castleisland, and those who enriched it by visiting […]
In the opening volley of the War of Independence in 1919, the Third Tipperary Brigade under commanding officer Séumas Robinson ambushed a RIC convoy transporting dynamite at Soloheadbeg on January 19th. Dan Breen’s brother, Lar, had told the IRA that the consignment was due to be moved under escort, and the raid included Volunteers Seán […]
Mary Shelley is famous for one novel – her first, Frankenstein (1819). Its extraordinary career in adaptation began almost from the point of publication, and it has had a long afterlife as a keyword in our culture. Frankenstein speaks to us now in our fears of scientific overreach, our difficulties in recognising our shared humanity. But her […]
Right from the get-go, I have to admit that Planet of the Humans, a documentary about the environmental movement produced by Michael Moore, is unfair, very unfair. And unkind, too, very unkind, to Al Gore. Alas. But as the Sierra Club might have said, you can’t produce clean, green biomass energy without levelling forests. Planet of […]
In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary. “Who knows,” she wrote, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.” During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669 – […]
Europe is filled with great Gothic churches, but for me Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral has always been one of the greatest. Not because her soaring bell tower and serrated steeples are so much more beautiful than those of other cities, but because it was St. Stephen’s that presided over some of Europe’s most consequential battles, […]