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, […]
Eavan Boland, who was one of Ireland’s best-loved poets, has died in her home in Dublin, aged 75. Boland was a pioneering figure in Irish poetry and was Professor of Humanities and Director of the Creative Writing Programme at Stanford University from 1996 to her death. Widely published and studied, one of her best-known poems […]
On April 28 1916, as the fierce fighting of Easter Week began to abate, one of the most notorious events of the rising took place. 15 civilians were killed in houses and business premises on North King Street by British soldiers. The street had been the scene of some of the stoutest resistance by the […]
Had the Easter Rising gone ahead as planned on Sunday 23rd April 1916, it would have taken place on the anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. Separated by 902 years, Cogadh Cluain Tarbh or the Battle of Clontarf took place in Dublin on the 23rd April 1014. At the time, the Irish High King Brian […]
Caution, Caution, Caution – pretty much how you should respond to any news about Coronavirus these days, because the simple fact is that there’s so much we don’t know. And probably the biggest thing we don’t know is this: How many people are actually infected, and don’t know, and have never been tested, because they […]
Scríbhneoir, file, saighdiúir agus polaiteoir ab ea Brian Ó hUiginn ar a dtugtar Brian na Banban freisin, a bhí ina bhall bunaitheach de Shinn Féin agus a bhí mar Uachtarán ar an eagraíocht ó 1931 go 1933. Rugadh Brian i 1882, an duine ab óige de cheithre leanbh dhéag d’fheirmeoirí beaga i gCill Scíre, Contae […]
FEATURED CD for Easter 2020 is the chart-topping album from Celi Dé, starting with this gorgeous piece written and performed for Palm Sunday by Trian Ó Riordan and Colm Mannion. www.celide.ie
Florence Nightingale, who was born 200 years ago, is rightly famed for revolutionising nursing. Her approach to caring for wounded soldiers and training nurses in the 19th century saved and improved countless lives. And her ideas on how to stay healthy still resonate today – as politicians give official guidance on how best to battle coronavirus. For […]
My reading suggestion for these difficult times is probably not very original, undoubtedly challenging, but also certainly fully worth trying. It’s Dante’s La Divina Commedia. The quarantine we are experiencing or will be experiencing soon gives us much more time than we usually have; it forces us to stay inside, and it leads us to ponder […]