Mark Devenport on a tumultuous year in Northern Ireland…, which is not exactly the year we thought was going to be in it last December. It remains too early to judge if there has been a substantial turning of the tides, but the robbery of the Northern Bank looks to have changed more than the mood music.
Short answer: very little, other than he enjoyed the environs of Hillsborough Castle, enjoyed working with the local politicians, and has Gerry Adams to thank for Bobby his dog. Peter Mandelson’s book The Third Man has captured media headlines in recent weeks as the Times serialised the most juicy bits. But what did he have [...] read our review »
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, they say. When I last saw Eamonn Namcarrow, back in the mid 1980s he was a congenial, good-natured and highly sociable young lad. The next time was 26 years later, in Lavery’s Gin Palace in Bradbury Place. He’d just brought out his first book, Holywood Star about [...] read our review »