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Tag Archives: Ireland
For Liberties: Edna O’Brien: Documentary of A Writer and A Star
Edna O’Brien, a giant of Irish literature, died this past July. The loss is almost too much to get your head around, at least not immediately. She was a prolific writer for 70 years. Her books (and memoir, and non-fiction, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies, writers
Tagged documentary, Edna O'Brien, Ireland, Liberties, women directors
4 Comments
“What’s the difference between an exile and an expatriate? It seems to me that an Englishman in France is an expat, but an Irishman is an exile.” — Derek Mahon
“When growing up, my bunch of friends would have thought of ourselves as anti-unionist because we were anti-establishment. We would have been vaguely all-Ireland republican socialists. But then, when theory turned into practice, we had to decide where we stood … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Belfast, Derek Mahon, Ireland, Irish poetry, poetry, Seamus Heaney
5 Comments
“I would rather use light to draw with instead of making thousands of drawings.” — Mary Ellen Bute
“There were so many things I wanted to say, stream-of-consciousness things, designs and patterns while listening to music. I felt I might be able to say [them] if I had an unending canvas.” pioneering experimental animator Mary Ellen Bute If … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, James Joyce, Movies, On This Day
Tagged animation, Finnegans Wake, Ireland, literary adaptation, women directors
3 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere, by Christopher Hitchens There are a couple of his collections of older pieces – pre 9/11 – I haven’t read before. Many of these pieces were put in later collections (Arguably, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, England, essays, Ireland, Oscar Wilde, stuff I've been reading
2 Comments
“Something is gone and that’s why you write.” — Eamon Grennan
“I have a double sense of things, but I tend to write about what’s under my nose. I write about here when I’m here and when I go back to Ireland I write about what’s there. I regard myself not … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ireland, Irish poetry, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Seamus Heaney
4 Comments
Review: Small Things Like These (2024)
Cillian Murphy gives one of my favorite performances this year in the quiet painful Small Things Like These, an intimate character study with Ireland’s shameful Magdalene Laundries looming over everything. I reviewed for Ebert. Thank you so much … Continue reading
“A man innocently dabbles in words and rhymes, and finds that it is his life.” — Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh, titanically angry Irish poet, was born on this day in 1904. He came of age during the Celtic Renaissance and he thought it was all a bunch of bullshit. That is not a direct quote. He was much … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austin Clarke, Eavan Boland, Ireland, Irish poetry, Michael Schmidt, Patrick Kavanagh, poetry, Seamus Heaney
5 Comments
Today, the Sheila Variations turns 22. wtf.
The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 22 years ago today. I never should have put my picture up on my site – it led … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Personal
Tagged Block Island, Cary Grant, Croatia, Dean Stockwell, Elvis Presley, family, friends, Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Iran, Ireland, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, July and Half of August, Martin Scorsese, Memphis, politics, Raging Bull, September 11, Supernatural, Tilda Swinton, war
117 Comments
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” — Oscar Wilde
It’s his birthday today. One of my heroes. His mother, Jane Speranza Francesca Wilde (aka Lady Wilde, aka “Speranza”) was an incredible woman – also in the canon of Irish literary history certainly, not to mention its politics and social … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Ireland, Irish poetry, Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann, Seamus Heaney
22 Comments
“You cannot write and answer the phone.” — Paul Durcan
God, I love this guy (born on this day) Durcan’s poems are chatty, observant, scathing, often very funny. His poems sometimes have long funny titles: “The Divorce Referendum, Ireland, 1986”, or “Irish Hierarchy Bans Colour Photography”. He has a strong … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ireland, Irish poetry, Micheál MacLiammóir, poetry
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