Culture
“Don’t blame me – I was only the taoiseach.”
As Crooked Timber’s Maria Farrell says, “words to live by”, people. In today’s Irishman’s Diary, Frank McNally offers a “history of Ireland in 100 excuses”. 78. We made those pre-election promises in good faith. It was only in government we realised how bad the country’s finances were. 79. It was a complex but legitimate business [...] more »
What is Britishness anyway? – latest
Stephen Moss in the Guardian adopts the least analytical approach imaginable to the identity thing, a random journey. It’s like an intro to a report that that doesn’t actually appear. A bit like Britishness itself maybe? Quite unlike our own passions. Might uncertainty and toleration be its saving graces? As I stood in freezing temperatures [...] more »
Another go at transformation at the Maze
I waited in vain to read the response of those closer to the action than I to the idea of a “conflict transformation centre” at the Maze, this time mixed in with the Balmoral show. It would surely have been easier to bracket the idea with a cross community stadium but that has gone. While I’m [...] more »
$cientology loses appeal against fraud ruling
The Irish Times reports from France, where the inheritors of L Ron Hubbard’s greedy and manipulative anti-science cult of scientology have lost their appeal against a 2009 ruling that “two French branches of the US-based organisation were guilty of “organised fraud” and gave four of its leaders suspended jail sentences of up to two years.” A [...] more »
Londonderry to host All-Ireland Fleadh in UK City of Culture year
After the application of some internal, and external, pressure the Ulster Council of Comhaltas reversed their earlier decision in time for the organisation’s central executive to select Londonderry to host their All-Ireland Fleadh during the UK City of Culture year in 2013. In the event, the only other candidate was Sligo… [Adds - Apparently Ennis withdrew [...] more »
“This further signifies the positive effect the City of Culture title is generating in the region…”
Whilst Comhaltas dither, and differ, over whether to hold their All-Ireland Fleadh in Londonderry during the UK City of Culture year in 2013, the UK’s Big Lottery Fund Chair, Peter Ainsworth, was in the city today to announce a £1million small grants programme to “support communities across Northern Ireland that want to play a part in [...] more »
“I am shocked, totally and utterly shocked.”
After dithering by the Londonderry branches, about being associated with the UK City of Culture, it’s now reported that the Ulster Council of Comhaltas have declined to support the city’s bid to host the All-Ireland Fleadh in 2013. From the Derry Journal report Moves to bring the 2013 All-Ireland Fleadh will now not proceed after [...] more »
Londonderry’s bid for All-Ireland Fleadh in 2013 to go ahead
At the second tiime of asking, Londonderry branch delegates of Comhaltas have agreed to bid to host the All-Ireland Fleadh during the UK City of Culture year by 13 votes to 1. As the BBC report notes Some Comhaltas members, who initially opposed the move because of the UK link in Derry’s City of Culture [...] more »
“I loathe Ireland and the Irish.”
In the Irish Times, Brian Cosgrove takes up temporary residence in An Irishman’s Diary in the hope that, with the lifting of European copyright restrictions on James Joyce’s major works, a greater familiarity with Joyce’s ”sometimes ruthless realism” may change the nature of the “annual Edwardian charade” that is Bloomsday. From the Irish Times The devastating cultural effects [...] more »
“The only way to neutralise the U.K. prefix…”
Nevin pointed at a rare tree of relevance in the comment zone yesterday. It’s the full statement from the former Sinn Féin “Director of Unionist Engagement“, now “Sinn Féin Junior Minister”, Martina Anderson, on the reluctance of some within Comhaltas to host the all-Ireland Fleadh in Londonderry during the UK City of Culture year. [That [...] more »
The Written World
Here’s something to keep you occupied over the weekend. [Will there be a quiz? - Ed] Possibly… The BBC magazine has an short and interesting, but un-embeddable, audio slide-show of Melvyn Bragg’s Radio 4 five-parter, In Our Time: The Written World. The British Library has more online information about the texts and technology featured in each [...] more »
“we are a city of culture…”
More symptoms of that political psychosis in evidence in Londonderry. Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson has informed the BBC that, at a meeting of the Irish music organisation Comhaltas in the city on Wednesday night, members failed to agree on a bid to host the all-Ireland Fleadh in 2013. From the BBC report “It is deeply disappointing,” [Martina [...] more »
What have the Elizabethans ever done for us?
If you still aren’t sure how to spend that Christmas book token, then AN Wilson’s “The Elizabethans” is a good candidate. This is a magisterial survey by the leading novelist, scholar and reviewer of the political literary and intellectual experience of a “glory age”, whose legacy in shaping modern Britain has only just come to an [...] more »
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Just your average family gathering at Christmas, with a bit of an argument about the seating cleaning arrangements… Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the [...] more »
Prometheus Unbound…
A geeky Christmas gift via the Guardian’s film blog. The official trailer for Prometheus – “the long-awaited return to the Alien universe (and indeed science fiction) of one Ridley Scott.” It’s due to be released in June 2012. Can’t. Wait. *hugs self* more »
“You can see Newton’s mind at work…”
To add to the open access treasure trove at the Royal Society, Cambridge University Library is putting online some of its collection of books, maps, manuscripts and journals. We have called the first phase of our work on the Cambridge Digital Library the Foundations Project, which runs from mid-2010 to mid-2013 and has been made possible [...] more »
Other Voices Live
I meant to flag this up earlier, but better late than never. The Guardian is live-streaming two sets from the Other Voices Festival in St James’s church, Dingle, tonight. The stream starts at 9.30pm GMT. First up is the Wild Beasts gig followed by a live stream of Spiritualized at 10.15pm GMT. Also at the Guardian, Joseph [...] more »
Archimedes’ bellyache
Having been subjected to X-ray fluorescence, and then some multispectral imaging, the 13th Century Archimedes Palimpsest may have finally revealed its last secret – “that Archimedes, working in the third century BC, considered the concept of actual infinity, something thought to have only been developed in the 19th century, and anticipated calculus.” The Palimpsest, constructed in [...] more »
#Aras11: Nordies need not apply, the party’s over…
I’ve heard it said in some quarters that quietly, there’s some considerable animus shown southerners in Northern Ireland. It’s not the old sectarian, ‘hey are you from Dublin, whip you off the street and take you to a house just off the lower Shankill’ sort of thing. It’s more of the ‘what the hell would [...] more »
“one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain”
The discovery of an intact Viking boat burial on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula - by the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project, a team led by experts from the universities of Manchester and Leicester, CFA Archaeology Ltd and Archaeology Scotland – has generated plenty of coverage. Believed to be from the 10th Century, it’s the first fully intact Viking boat [...] more »
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Books
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Of the Old North and other Vanished Kingdoms..
I’m currently trawling through Norman Davies’s fabulous new tome – “Vanished Kingdoms” – Five stars in the (London) Telegraph’s review from Ben Wilson: All the nations that have ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand,” writes Norman Davies. “The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human [...] read our review » -
Legion of the Rearguard – Dissident Irish Republicanism by Martyn Frampton, Book Review
Are you confused about ‘dissident’ Irish Republicanism? Anxious about its existence and its seemingly increasingly deadly capabilities? Martyn Frampton’s new book, Legion of the Rearguard: Dissident Irish Republicanism (Irish Academic Press, 2011) serves both as a primer on active dissident groups and a timely analysis of their historic significance and contemporary capabilities. This book clears [...] read our review »
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Children of the Revolution (Bill Rolston)
What was life like for children of political activists during the Troubles? A new book by Bill Rolston and published by Guildhall Press during the summer has collected together the stories of twenty Children of the Revolution whose parents’ activities – and in many cases, imprisonment – had a significant affect on childhoods and life [...] read our review »
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