Culture
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I enter the sempiternally dingy Abbey by the stage entrance and advance up the mid-century staircase to a poky room alive with two middle-aged but effervescent non-Irish Celts. The guy at the desk has said he sees a lot of them and they seem effortlessly in control. They’re informal, blithe, cheerful and open throughout our […]
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Ancient myths for today’s dreams
The highest compliment I can pay Mark Williams is that after reading his ‘Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth’, I have an appetite to learn the Irish language. He exposes to the light a literary inheritance that has barely flickered in the Irish national consciousness since independence in 1922. It allows […]
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Our exquisite recent Architecture
Even if most of the recent legacy is subpar
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Ancient myths
From the eighth to the eleventh century Ireland nurtured an outstanding vernacular literature
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Posted in:
Our exquisite recent Architecture
Kathleen James-Chakraborty reviews ‘One Hundred & One Hosannas for Architecture’ by Shane O’Toole, Gandon Edition. Designed much like a guidebook, to fit into the pocket of a good tweed jacket, and with not one but three ribbons to hold one’s place, ‘One Hundred & One Hosannas for Architecture’ is in fact a collection of essays […]
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The idea for a television licence decoupled from ownership of a television, proposed by Fine Gael as long ago as the 2011 election campaign as a “content tax” or “public broadcasting charge to apply to all households and applicable businesses, regardless of the device they use to access content” has undergone several iterations since, but […]
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Central Bank’s expensive atonement
The suppurating carcass of the proposed Anglo Irish Bank headquarters on North Wall Quay in Dublin became a symbol for Ireland’s economic collapse. Its original architects Traynor O’Toole Ltd – in what is best seen as a fitting gesture – eventually went bust. In plain view of all on Dublin’s regimented riverside, the country ogled […]