They say you have to suffer for your art but few have suffered as much as Gary Mitchell, the Belfast playwright who was the subject of a brutal campaign of intimidation by the people he wrote about – loyalist paramilitaries in the Rathcoole housing estate he used to call home. It seems it isn’t just …
Author Archives: Robert McMillen
Naysayer Nelson
You couldn’t make it up. Page 17 of today’s Irish News has a picture whose caption reads – “Busy Year Ahead: The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Audiences NI are hosting a master class today at the Ulster Hall to inspire arts organisations to take advantage of the benefits that cultural tourism can offer …
The BBC and Irish
THE recent spat over the All-Ireland Fleadh going to Derry raised a totally different issue for the Bluffer – the difficulty of BBC presenters in pronouncing anything in Irish. Foghraíocht is the word for pronunciation and when you see that group of letters together it’s little wonder people panic. Now, those nice folk off the …
An tSnáthaid Mhór in Brussels
Comhghairdeas le Andy agus le Caitríona. Belfast’s Irish language community will know of the stunning work that the publishing company An tSnáthaid Mhór does but today Andy Whitson and Caitríona Hastings are in Brussels to present their work as part of what is called the Brussels Platform. The Platform is the result of a collaboration …
Van Morrison and Slí Cholmcille
When I went to the launch of Slí Cholmcille at the Linenhall Library last night, the last person I expected to see was George Ivan Morrison, Van the Man to you and me. Slí Cholmcille or the St Columba Trail is the first visitor trail between Scotland and Ireland and is named after St Colmcille …
Cór Chúil Aodha ag Temple Bar
Chuir sé iontas orm an méid suilt is a bhain mé as coirm cheoil Choir Chuil Aodha oíche Shathairn seo caite. Chuala mé roimhe iad ar an teilifís agus, ainneoin an traidisiún saibhir ceoil as ar easair siad agus clú agus cumas an fhir a ghin an cór (go meafarach!), Seán Ó Riada, agus tuigse an …
Plantation once again!
Late last year, I was in hillwalking on Ratharsair (Raasey) an island between Sgitheanach (Skye) and the Scottish mainland. The scenery on Raasey, birthplace of the great Gaelic poet, Somhairle Mac Gill-Eain, is absolutely stunning as are the views of the neighbouring island and of Argyle on the mainland. One of the things I noticed …
Derry Fleadh bid fails
Ah well. The Fleadh isn’t coming to Derry in 2013. The sound of the pipes, the fiddle, the bodhrán and our other traditional instruments won’t be filling the Derry air as hosts of our fellow Irish men and women and instead there will be the banshee wail of “ideology.” And all because of two little …
Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey
In contrast to an opponent’s derisive description of Devlin as “Fidel Castro in a mini-skirt”, Lelia Doolan’s documentary film, Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey offers an in-depth perspective on a formidable figure of recent Irish politics. There was a time when Bernadette Devlin (now McAliskey) seemed to have the world at her feet. Adored …
Out to Lunch: Will Kaufman
Woody Guthrie is a name many people will be familiar with, some being loyal disciples of arguably America’s greatest singer and writer of protest songs but most people, I would suggest, would only have a passing knowledge of Guthrie and his songs. Will Kaufman’s show, Woody Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travellin’ however – part …