St Patrick’s day sees the arrival of great numbers of visitors from abroad, many of them part of, or deeply interested in the Irish diaspora. This seems an appropriate moment then to visit the EPIC presentation down on Customs House in the Dublin Financial Centre. EPIC stands for Irish Emigration Museum, by the way. This is…
Thanks to its intrepid artistic director, Fergus Sheil, Irish National Opera is currently midway through its latest production – Richard Strauss’ single act Salome at Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. A concert performance in Wexford’s National Opera House on March 3 preceded the fully staged production by Bruno Ravella that opened at BGET last Tuesday.…
Tis a tale of two days I have for you – a Saturday and a Thursday. If Ireland had beaten England at Twickenham last Saturday it would have been the icing on the cake, after that day’s stunning win for the No side in the referenda. But the cake is more important than the icing…
The latest partnered exhibition at the National Gallery, featuring as it does the works of a series of great artists, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer and a few others, is a remarkable show, not so much for its bravura accomplishments of style and setting, but for its concentration on the wonderful landscapes of the human face through…
A love of home, ‘one’s own place’, is said to have characterised Irish people from the earliest days. These days, when people remove themselves to as far away as the Antipodes, there is still, even in the sunshine of Bondi Beach, that melancholy longing for the old place at home. How we lived in the past is…
This is an original book. Whereas most books for young readers try to involve them in word and meaning, this is a book without words. But it still manages to speak volumes. Significantly it is dedicated by creator Tatyana Feeney to her own father, so the pages must carry for her a hidden level of…
Even for those who, as they say these days, ‘are not religious’, reading the New Testament is an experience which few set themselves to have. I also believe people should, in this day and age, have some acquaintance with the Torah and the Quran, and try to understand what they mean to Jews and Muslims,…
There’s so much going on in society that is just so grim. The crises seem to be served up in rotation by the media. One of the minor crises was the unexpected amount of snow that fell last Friday. On Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, Friday) we heard from homeless men queuing up out the International…
The Oscar ceremonies, Hollywood’s annual ritual of patting itself on the back for delights real or imagined, are taking place next Sunday night. Unless you’re one of those obsessives who likes to stay up into the wee hours to hear the results, California time being ten hours behind us, you won’t know who won until…
Mark Holan This year’s fraught US presidential campaigns have got many Americans wondering what has become of the once powerful ‘Irish vote’? This problem comes into even sharper focus with this recently published history of the Irish American strain by Prof. Timothy J. Meagher. Meagher was once associate professor of history at Catholic University of…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone