Culture – Slugger O'Toole

Is it now the case that music and politics don’t mix?

Ian Clarke on September 14, 2023, 7:46 am | Readers 2250

I was going to write this piece a couple of weeks ago when the hysteria over the Wolfe Tones at Feile had settled down. But it didn’t. So I didn’t. Then last week it was worse than ever with their appearance and apparent triumph at the Electric Picnic Festival. But probably better timing for me. Leaving aside the embarrassing spectacle of thousands of young people singing along to a dirge in tribute to sectarian terrorism, it raised a bigger question …

A celebration of unionist culture

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 26, 2023, 6:36 pm | Readers 3697

A showcase day of unionist culture was held at 2 Royal Avenue, Belfast, with activities of a cultural identity video; a “living library” event; a talk by historian and broadcaster, Dr David Hume; an exhibition of archival footage by NI Screen of cultural events; and music performances. The event was organised by Belfast City Council, through its Good Relations Action Plan, Cultural Inclusion and Co-Design. This programme has been running since June 2022, with participants engaged in a process to …

The impermanence of land and legacy

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on July 29, 2023, 7:12 am | Readers 1218

Impermanence is a collection of essays by writers from or living in Northern Ireland. Its co-editor, Neil Hegarty led a discussion at a John Hewitt International Summer School event, with contributors Jan Carson, Susan McKay, and Nandi Jola, reflecting upon the book’s themes and suggesting ways of looking at our past, present, and future. Neil Hegarty provided context for the book. He was in Paris and witnessed the burning of Notre Dame, which made him think about the loss of …

What Have You Been Up To Jonty?

Dan McGinn on May 1, 2023, 9:58 pm | Readers 1589

So here we are – the final episode of this series of ‘Blue Lights’. And again, it only seems fair to fire another warning shot to those reading this review to expect a lot of spoilers from previous episodes. So if you’ve not yet seen all five episodes preceding this one, you should probably watch them first before reading this. With viewers still reeling from the events of last week’s episode, ‘Blue Lights’ immediately thrust its audience into the mania …

Try Talking to People for a change…

Ian Clarke on August 25, 2022, 7:14 am | Readers 4489

There have been a number of posts here recently about the unionist community, its failings (real and unfairly accused), its difficulties and most recently its need to “embrace its Irishness” as if it was a straightforward and simple issue. Too many of the comments thet followed them are generally well off the mark and border on the obsessive about the Unionist mindset from people outside that community with little grasp or genuine interest in its complexities. And little sympathy for …

Politics is becoming the new religion, with all the militancy of old. But in Ireland….

Brian Walker on August 19, 2022, 6:47 pm | Readers 2204

A sign displayed outside McQuiston Memorial Presbyterian Church in East Belfast in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Again, the mythological symbol of the rainbow is used.

Well meaning people in Ireland often like to claim that politics and religion are separate and that religion is all about love, reconciliation and goodness. We know what they mean but of course they’re wrong. From time immemorial politics has been about power and religion about controlling people’s minds, “the opium of the masses” But Marx’s line underestimated the powers of its ideas to create an alternative social bond against an oppressive state and finally an identity. And so religion …

Zines, baggage, othering words and lots more from Second Collective at #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 18, 2022, 10:00 am | Readers 401

Art is political. It can be provocative and challenging. It can help us understand society as much as reading the newspaper or reading a book … or a blog post. But do the public take it seriously? Second Collective are running a series of exhibitions, workshops and events across the week of Imagine! Festival. I recently spoke to its cofounders, Cathy Scullion and Sinead O’Neill Nicholl. Graduating as mature students, they set up Second Collective in 2017. Today it’s based …

Bring back Londonderry Feis!

Brian Walker on March 6, 2022, 3:36 pm | Readers 2603

Good on the Derry Now website for going to town to commemorate the centenary of Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille Derry Feis is celebrating its 100th birthday this Easter. To mark the special occasion, we are publishing a series of articles titled: Mo thuras go Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille 2022. Today, Fearghal Mag Uiginn, head of the Irish at Thornhill College and presenter of BBC Radio Ulster’s Blas Ceoil, describes his personal journey to Derry Feis 2022. Describing Feis Dhoire Cholmcille as the …

Big Albert shines his light/ casts his shadow across the pond

Brian Walker on January 22, 2021, 12:33 pm | Readers 1361

I knew nothing of Under the Albert Clock until I spotted a review of the podcast in the New York Times no less. Creativity and performance defies the lockdown. American sponsorship and other interest is very welcome. Any reaction? The New York-based Origin Theater Company commissioned the series, asking five female playwrights in Northern Ireland to use as inspiration Belfast’s landmark Albert Memorial Clock (a monument to Queen Victoria’s husband, and thus a symbol of Britishness), and to place their …

How Derek Mahon caught our attention

Brian Walker on October 2, 2020, 5:10 pm | Readers 745

Derek Mahon struggled with an intellectual ambition unexcelled by his Ulster contemporaries, elevating the commonplace into grandeur and striking the contemporary notes of recognition that draw us in. It’s uncanny how that late poem “Everything is Going to All Right,” has shed light on darkness during the pandemic, just as it has been adopted to ease the first shock of suicide for the bereaved. In hands such as Mahon’s, the commonplace phrases are the hand holds that begin to pull …

What is to be the message of Northern Ireland 100?

Brian Walker on August 26, 2020, 2:51 pm | Readers 3707

Ulster 71 (archive) Does anybody out there know how plans to mark Northern Ireland’s centenary are progressing? To try to find answers, I’ve been combing the websites and having a few chats, without much luck. Last month, following a few bumbled sentences from Boris Johnson it seemed that the UK government with due regard to the “sensitivities”, were taking the initiative, thus avoiding the potential for another Stormont deadlock. The SoS Brandon Lewis looked forward to.. Following formal acceptance of …

Shared or united island? The Greens called it right.

Sarah Creighton on July 16, 2020, 2:16 pm | Readers 4069

The new banter coalition in the Republic has got off to a dramatic start. Ministerial sackings! A tax ruling from the ECJ! Infighting! It’s everything we could have hoped for. Among the chaos of this week came an interesting titbit from Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. According to Ryan our own Clare Bailey, the party leader in Northern Ireland, was behind the decision to rename the ‘united island’ unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to the ‘shared island’ unit. …

How much of the extra £33m dividend from UK Culture Secretary will be spent on NI arts? (updated with response from Communities Minister and Arts Council NI)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 5, 2020, 11:15 pm | Readers 1600

A major injection of £1.57bn into the cultural sector by the UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden may prematurely raise the hopes of Northern Ireland artists that their industry is finally set to receive the relief and attention that many other areas of business have already enjoyed. The question for the NI Executive is how much of the expected £33m (via Barnett consequentials) will be spent on the cultural sector? Northern Ireland already spends less than half what England, Scotland and Wales spend on arts per head of population.

Anti-racism must not become a new form of cultural oppression

Brian Walker on June 13, 2020, 3:21 pm | Readers 2350

Laurence Oliver’s Othello ( 1965) Although from today we in England can create our own family bubble of different households, it’s still not too late to enter the lockdown confessional. I am not for a moment about to challenge the central aims of Black Lives Matter, or persistent discrimination at work or even what seems to me to be the intractable problem of race as an identifier of knife crime suspects in stop and search. I hope I’m sensitive to …

Removing statues is a revolutionary gesture. Is that what’s needed?

Brian Walker on June 9, 2020, 4:52 pm | Readers 5707

Queen Victoria being removed from the front of the Dail Fergus on Monday nailed it. In the current atmosphere the statue of Oliver Cromwell speaks for itself. Perched in front of Westminster Hall the Victorians who erected it were celebrating the victory of Parliament over the royal tyrant Charles 1. But even leaving aside the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford, this distorts Cromwell’s record. He sent the troops in to expel Parliament not once but twice and instead ruled …

Normal People depicts an Irish generation to appreciative millions that is at last growing up normally

Brian Walker on May 5, 2020, 4:57 pm | Readers 3071

Irish pornhub or a touching rite of passage? Critics are divided and that may be an age thing. But there’s no doubt that the TV series based on Sally Rooney’s rather minimal novel about the relationship between Sligo teenagers is a smash hit. This boomer old enough to be their grandparent is still getting over the fact that a drama about relationships set in a C21 Irish high school and small town has not a hint of Girl With Green …

The RIC commemoration is off. Was it a bridge too far to unionists?

Brian Walker on January 7, 2020, 8:36 pm | Readers 8478

Newstalk If you’re going to do a U turn, getting it over quick limits the damage (even to bloggers like me). It’s remarkable how long politicians usually take to face up to the inevitable. Wisely not this time. With only 10 days to go, it had to be quick, with only a weasel word “ “deferred” substituted for “ cancelled.” Was holding a commemoration in Dublin Castle for the RIC and the Dublin Metropolitan Police a revisionism of history too …

Commemorating the RIC and allowing an Irish Language Act are opposite sides of the same coin

Brian Walker on January 7, 2020, 11:58 am | Readers 4764

RTE The Irish government’s decision to commemorate the RIC in a major state ceremony is the right one precisely because it is as controversial as it is fundamental. There is no point in filling an entire decade with an orgy of self congratulation. The modern Irish state was born in insurgency and revolution is always controversial. But it is s also a reminder of that the state born out of revolution was part of a much longer continuum that is …

Royal Portrush: our biggest ever event, worldwide appreciation, old school nostalgia.. it’s got it all. Let’s give ourselves a big break

Brian Walker on July 18, 2019, 3:05 pm | Readers 3177

Amid all the and doom and gloom over Brexit, I can’t let this week pass without a hefty mention of the Open at Royal Portush. Here surely is a piece of British exceptionalism all can enjoy, the un-neurotic side of identity. Note that it’s called “the Open”. No “British” prefix is needed (although I see the Irish Times wouldn’t you know it has added it, just in case somebody thinks it’s the Uzbek Open). This piece of swagger was pointed …

“À la Bastille!”

Pete Baker on July 14, 2019, 3:26 pm | Readers 647

One more time, then… with continued apologies to Pierre Ranger… [It’s a tradition, we know… – Ed] Indeed! And with Alaphilippe in yellow again! Play La Marseillaise! Pete Baker