BELFAST FESTIVAL : 134 events from 23 countries over 24 days in 30 venues across the city. Performances and productions to entertain you and challenge you to think. Lyndee Prickitt talking about We Are Angry, a refugee’s story nine years after entering UK in back of a lorry from Calais, opera and cooking.
A jolly piece by Zoe Williams in the Guardian which does not quite fathom the reasons but manages to avoid condescension – just about. The residents of the district of Fermanagh and Omagh are the happiest in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. This comes as no surprise to any of them. It’s a large area with three civic hubs – Enniskillen, Omagh and Dungannon – each of which claims to be happier than the other two. …
Following their successful production of Salome back in February, NI Opera’s Steven Hadley introduces the company’s next show Turandot [Ed – everyone can hum along with Nessun Dorma!] which he promises will challenge audience views on wealth, consumerism and the power of art to shock, educate and entertain. Is Northern Ireland ready? Northern Ireland Opera are closing this autumn’s Belfast International Arts Festival with three performances of the lavish Turandot by Giacomo Puccini at the Grand Opera House. It’s a …
I hesitate just a little to criticise Peter Osborne ‘s piece on Galvanising the Peace as I bow respectfully to the view that dialogue and contacts are essential for peace, reconciliation and development. But we really have to move on from this sort of generalised approach to more rigorous analysis and hard questions leading to more real solutions. We should have learned by now that yet another appeal like Galvanising the Peace won’t crack it. It lets the political class …
The Financial Times (£ paywall) which is so good at making its limited space for non-financial themes count, reports a new boost for the Scots language which the writer Mure Dickie suspects is part of the longer term drive for independence. In language policy, the parallels as well as contrasts with both Irish and Ulster Scots hardly need much spelling out. But I hope you will – enjoy, is that the word? – the distortions of what we think of as …
Conor Johnston writes for us on the state of the cinema industry in Northern Ireland I’ve used ‘state’ here, as the word reminds me of the State Cinema in Ballymena of my schooldays: a long queue for two large screens, thick smoke and the searching light of the owner’s torch on the lookout for feet-up or a hand about to launch a Cadburys Eclair at a classmate across the room. Fast-forward to 2015 and my last visit to a big …
Great to see that the unapologetically highbrow Beckett Festival which has just ended in Fermanagh for this year, has survived the funding famine. This is quite a feat for the celebrations of such a unsentimental and enigmatic author, whose work is so at odds with the normal run of Irish summer fare. Perhaps this is because almost by definition, it relies so little on Irish stereotypes and mixes the best of British and cosmopolitan with excellent indigenous talent, like a …
The three wee Celts in the precariously devolved UK have got together – convened wouldn’t you know it – by the Scots, to agitate for a bigger slice of the BBC licence fee during the coming round of the BBC Charter review. Northern Ireland’s culture minister Caral Ni Chuilin declares: “The BBC must continue to embrace and further develop its commitment to its public obligations and the occasion of the charter renewal must be seen as an opportunity to deliver …
Sinn Fein recently produced a round- up of Uncomfortable Conversations intended by promote reconciliation. With that in mind, is dropping the “London” prefix from the official name of the traditional city within the boundaries of the newly expanded local government district, really one we need to have again? Particularly as it’s doomed to failure. In a local government sense Londonderry may be said not exist any more , just as the old six counties don’t either. And just as “Belfast Co …
Once again, with apologies to Pierre Ranger… [It’s a tradition, we know… – Ed] Indeed! Sadly, no French winner in the Tour de France today. Nor will there be in Paris. Play La Marseillaise! Pete Baker
Mairia Cahill writes on her impressions of visiting a bonfire site on the lower Shankill yesterday, and how a child’s eye view, unencumbered by the narrative framing of cultural matters, helped her see another side to the celebrations of The Twelfth. A week ago, I caused consternation amongst some of the hardline Loyalist community for raising the issue of flags flying from lampposts. I asked was there any “need” to fly large Union Jacks from in an effort to understand …
One of these images is a view from my apartment block on bonfire night 2014… one of these is a scene from 2004 zombie-flick Dawn of the Dead… The entire area becomes uninhabitable for the night, you physically cannot leave your house unless you’re willing to navigate your way through crowds of overly-intoxicated, often threatening bonfire attendees, if a resident was to have a medical emergency, the consequence doesn’t bear thinking about. This isn’t culture. This is a riot. …
As the man said… It’s tradition! Those of a sensitive disposition are duly warned, again, that James Joyce enjoys the language in all its fecund nuttiness. Enjoy! The Guardian looks at how fans around the world will be celebrating James Joyce’s Ulysses. Auckland, New Zealand Usually, says Dean Parker, he helps stage a musical show in Auckland’s red light district: a three-hour musical cabaret of dramatised episodes from Ulysses. Last year was a “stunning, jam-packed success”, with Lucy Lawless, aka Xena …
The novelist Howard Jacobson on the virtues of art and literature over politics and politicians… It doesn’t follow from what I say that we should hand over the reins of political power to artists. They wouldn’t make a better job of it. But we would all make a better job of thinking about politics – indeed of thinking about anything – if we refused that daisy-chain of affiliation which the ideological hang around our necks, with the promise that we’ll …
Without wishing to undermine historian Hiram Morgan’s call for Irish Government action to preserve the cultural heritage in the seas off the Wild Atlantic Way, it’s worth noting the stated objective of that tourism initiative… The overall aim of the project is to develop a route that will achieve greater visibility for the west coast of Ireland in overseas tourist markets. Also worth pointing out that one of the armada wrecks he mentioned, La Girona, isn’t on the Wild Atlantic Way, having …
As I said of similar comments by HBO’s Michael Lombardo last year, With so much of some Northern Ireland Executive ministers‘ time and effort [and other people’s money! – Ed] focused on exploiting the international success of HBO’s Game of Thrones to promote Northern Ireland overseas, it’s perhaps unfortunate, but refreshing, that HBO’s director of programming, Michael Lombardo, has given an honest answer to a straight question… This time, it’s one of the leading actors from HBO’s Game of Thrones, Kit Harington, telling …
The six-foot sculpture of supposed Celtic sea-god, Manannán Mac Lir, that was ‘stolen’ from Binevenagh Mountain, near Limavady, in County Londonderry, has been found – some 300 metres from its original location… [Good initial search, Batman! – Ed]. The sculpture was apparently discovered by local ramblers, who “advised members of A company 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Regiment soldiers who helped police recover the statue”. The soldiers were in the area having been deployed by helicopter to the north Antrim Coast on a …
I was interested to note the Union Flag carefully positioned immediately beside Belfast PUP Councillor Julie-Anne Corr Johnson for her interview with BBC NI’s The View recently. “On one hand they tell us the British identity of Northern Ireland citizens is under threat”, she thundered, “whilst at the same time denying British citizens like me access to British laws and British rights.” The openly lesbian Corr Johnson was objecting to the DUP campaign for a ‘religious opt-out’ to equality laws …
I thought I’d tiptoe into the minefield of the “Irish Language Act”, an area where the massed ranks of persuadables risk getting wasted by the zealots, but here goes. Concubhar is right, there should be a mature discussion. I’m one of those who shrugged off Gregory Campbell’s leaden humour and hoped that most language supporters felt secure enough to do likewise. I can be as mildly irritated by Sinn Fein’s little chants of Irish phrases as I am at one with …
Via the BBC coverage of the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in which 12 people were killed, an eloquent cartoon from the New Yorker. Pete Baker
