Amazon sent me an e-mail today suggesting some books I might like to buy.
Top of the list was Downfall: How Rangers FC Self-Destructed by Phil MacGiolla Bháin, the story of the meltdown of the biggest club in Scottish soccer.
It would indeed be a book I would be interested in buying. The story of the downfall of one of Britain’s major sporting institutions, I find fascinating. I follow bloggers and tweeters on the subject and not (just) out of schadenfreude.
I have a soft spot for Celtic because of its links with the Irish diaspora.
Celtic Football Club set up by an Irish Marist Brother Walfrid (the spitting image of Pat Crerand) on 6 November 1887, to help his efforts to alleviate poverty in the East End of Glasgow by raising money for his charity, the Poor Children’s Dinner Table.
Walfrid was following the example of Hibernian who were formed out of the immigrant Irish population s a means of fund-raising 12 years earlier in Edinburgh.
My antagonism towards Rangers stems from the fact that I hate sectarianism and as we all know Rangers had a long-standing policy (as did Linfield) of never recruiting Catholics, although a few slipped through the net. I also accept that many people support Rangers (and Linfield) because of historical, family and purely sporting reasons and I don’t want to tar all their supporters with the same brush.
But the question behind this blog is this: how did Amazon know I would be interested in reading Phil Mac Giolla Bháin’s book?
Also on their list of recommendations are other books on the Old Firm but how did Amazon know I might be interested in these? I tend not to read sports books but the Rangers story is much more than a simple sports story that it has grabbed my attention.
it is about ethics, sectarianism in Scottish soccer and society, high finance, history, how people who pointed out the Emperor had very few clothes were diagnosed with Celtic paranoia and most of all it is about power in Scottish society, who has it, who hasn’t, how the Scottish media have failed abysmally to let people know what was going on and how bloggers have always been a couple of steps ahead of them.
It is about the tens of thousands of Rangers supporters and how they deal with the crisis at their beloved club, how they handle the truth and how they move on.
It is about threats and thuggery on one lever and on another it is about and the nature of truth.
Yes, I would be interested in reading Downfall but how did Amazon know and what else to they know about me?
This Sunday will see an amazing piece of avant garde traditional music – yes there is such a thing – when Gerry Diver’s Speech Project ends its Irish tour with a performance at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen’s University in Belfast.
Growing up in Manchester, Gerry got all the musical benefits of a typical Irish emigré upbringing.
“There is a very strong Irish community in Manchester,” he recalls, “and I started playing the Irish fiddle at the age of eight, and then it was céilís bands three nights a week and fleadh ceoils and all that kind of stuff, you know. It was a very Irish upbringing and then I moved over to Donegal when I was 14 and I kept playing the fiddle and other instruments but I also got to become aware of other kinds of music as well.
“I probably had a slight departure in my early teens but I was grounded in the Irish upbringing and playing Irish music at home,” Gerry told me through the miracle of skype.
His parents didn’t play instruments but they were keen that their children did and so the house was full of musical instruments. Whenever interested would wane in one of his siblings. Gerry would inherit the instrument which has made him the fine multi-instrumentalist he is today.
Gerry Diver in the studio
The young Diver knew from the very outset that he wanted to be a professional musician, “not a very wise career decision when you’re 9 or 10,” he laughs, “but it didn’t matter. I would do it anyway because I love it.”
Gerry went on to be taught by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin at UCC and his love for Irish music was re-invigorated by his studies in Cork.
“One of the things Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin taught me was that it was okay to think about other musics and how Irish music fits into the grand scheme of things,” he says.
In the beginning people learn how to play tunes and then when they reach a certain technical proficiency and after they have got into the heart of the music, they are given divine permission by the Muse to do whatever they want with it. To stretch it, play with it, take it on strange journeys and that is what Gerry Diver has been doing not just as a musician but as a studio producer too.
“I think that is just a natural, human urge to be creative, no matter what the artform is,” says Gerry, “and there is a real joy for me in composing and creating music and on the production side too.
“I do like that way of looking at music, which isn’t so much about the notes but about the emotional response.”
There have been many highlights in Gerry’s career – too many to mention but some do stick out like the really great memories he has of gigging out in Syria, with a Syrian band called Kulna Sawa and playing Irish music in Kazakhstan and Kurdistan with a band called Sin É, and then the stuff he did with Van Morrison.
Gerry’s latest project promised to be another highlight. The Speech album is like no other. It is traditional and avant garde at the same time, human speech and music, earthy and ethereal.
Christy Moore who features in The Speech Project
It is basically the sound of various Irish singers and musicians – Joe Cooley, Christy Moore, Martin Hayes, Margaret Barry, Damien Dempsey, Danny Meehan and Shane McGowan with new compositions by Gerry interweaving though the speech patterns of these great Irish musicians and singers. The project came about due to that great creative force, serendipity.
“Yeah, it really was a serendipitous thing, actually,” explains the Mancunian.
“I was working at home when I heard an interview with Joe Cooley I had heard many times before on a famous Gael-Linn LP just called Cooley where it precedes The Boyne Hunt.
“I heard the interview and it was raining outside but I had a fiddle in the studio and I could hear this inherent, natural lift in this voice and I wondered would it work together. It was all very speculative but I decided to have a go. It worked and then Christy Moore heard it from a mutual friend and he was very, very enthusiastic about it. Then when I started getting positive reaction from other people. the idea of doing something bigger started to develop.”
Gerry began choosing other people to give the same treatment too. His wife, Lisa, has heard a mini-disk of Martin Hayes talking during the Willie Clancy Summer School and Hayes’ philosophy about music and the sound of his voice made him an obvious contender.
Christy Moore suggested Margaret Barry as another one, the Donegal fiddler Danny Meehan was recording an album that Gerry was producing and so he is part of the Speech Project. So one thing led to another.
Once he had the voices, the phrases the speakers used lent themselves to phrases of music and then Gerry would decided what instrumentation was best suitable.
“Repetition plays a big part in how I approached it,” he explains, mentioning the fact that he is also interested in the workings of the mind.
Box player Joe Cooley
“It is Irish music but it is not meant to be traditional. The speakers are quite introspective and I have a great interest in things like hypnosis and I was keen to get them talking about the more spiritual aspects of their performance. It didn’t take a lot of encouragement, these people have so much to say.
“The spiritual side of things is the most interesting part for me, the part that language cannot express, the part for which there are no words, whether it’s Irish music or any kind of music, that’s the place hopefully you can touch, or you can try to get to. That for me is where it at, that spiritual part of music is the place we musicians are all trying to get to.
“I think we are over-exposed to music nowadays, there is so much of it everywhere, we are almost de-sensitized to it.
A lot of critics have pointed out that The Speech Project is almost like listening to the spirit of the diaspora and Christy Moore says on the recording that a tune played in England will have a different feel to the same tune played in Ireland. Christy, of course played for a long time in England as did Margaret Barry and others spent time abroad.
Gerry says he didn’t realise this until the project was finished.
“It was only when people pointed it out that I looked back and joined the dots that things made sense. I chose the bits of the interviews we used so the diaspora certainly is a theme. What Christy said really resonates with me, when people leave home the music takes on a different meaning to them and its more relevant now with more people unfortunately having to leave.”
Gerry has taken the Speech Project to Ireland for the first time, thanks to the Irish Arts Council, and the sounds are complemented using Will McConnell’s videos.
Playing with Gerry will be his wife, singer, fiddler and hammer dulcimer player Lisa Knapp, Jonathan Hennessy-Brown on the cello, Monaghan fiddler Declan Daly, uilleann piper, Colman Connolly all the way from north London as well as pianist Gaz Wilkins.
The Playboy of the Western World – what’s the point?
This was probably an impudent first question to ask someone who had been expending blood, sweat and tears preparing for a run of the John Millington Synge’s classic at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre but in a country which arguably relies overmuch on getting out the china tea-set to remind itself of former glories, I thought it an appropriate ice-breaker to get my conversation with Conall Morrison up and running.
Did he think we’d be keen on yet another production of a play that is “a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform” according to Sinn Féin founder Arthur Griffith?
Morrison insists the ideas wrapped up in the play are more than worth a re-visit.
“The point is the same as saying ‘what’s the point of seeing Hamlet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. In terms of the Irish canon, I know league tables are clumsy things but Playboy lays a very good stake of a claim to being the best Irish play of the 20th century or in the history of Irish theatre,” he suggests adding a pitch to die for.
Conall Morrison (right) at rehearsals with Lalor Roddy
“It is such an astonishing theatrical experience, the performance is animated, vivid and honest and vigorous and to experience it again afresh is a true joy,” he beams.
As many will know, The Playboy of the Western World tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man who arrives at a shebeen in rural county Mayo claiming to have killed his father. He immediately becomes a local celebrity with the females of the vicinity, especially Pegeen Mike, the feisty daughter of the shebeen owner and soon there comes to the fore that Irish trait of caring for the outlaw, the idea of tearmann, the tenet of Brehon law that says, if a man is full of remorse for killing his father, then he needs to be punished no more – although it is scant remorse that Christy shows. When it becomes evident that the reality of the patricide is more in the telling rather than in any actual deed, the faith and hope invested by the peasant community in the Playboy and what he stood for begins to crumble.
As Liz Finnigan points out in her essay, Postcolonial Reading of The Playboy of the Western World, there are a number of ways of looking at the linguistic and social world Synge portrays in his plays and in Playboy in particular. For Seamus Deane, Synge was “one who creamed off the Gaelic culture in the few remaining areas where his class had failed to exterminate it, but where he could now appropriate its energies on the eve of its distinction” while Columbia University’s Gayatri Spivak sees Synge as attempting to recover the native voice of those whom he saw as the true Irish people, distanced from colonial rebellion, ignorant of empirical politics and present in plays “whose text is the living word.”
Brian Earls’ description of the Synge clann might give more credence to Deane’s assertion.
“The Synges were notable for contributing clergymen and bishops to the Church of Ireland,” he writes, “although
John_Millington Synge
Synge’s own father, who died in 1872, was a barrister. One of Synge’s brothers was a rancher in Argentina; another spent his life as a foreign missionary , and a third was a land agent. “In 1885, when Synge was in his early teens ad the Land War was at its height, this last brother, Edward, was busy evicting tenants for non-payment of rent from estates in Cavan, Mayo and Wicklow.”
However, in the preface the first edition of The Well of the Saints, WB Yeats wrote of the advice he gave Synge when the two met in Paris.
“Go to the Aran Islands,” Yeats told the young writer. “Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.”
If this last phrase turned out to be Synge’s aim, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
One of the glories of The Playboy is the vernacular Synge places in the mouths of the characters and Morrison is a huge fan of the playwright’s use of language.
“The text of Playboy is so rich that, even if you think you know it, you don’t know it. It’s almost a cliche to say it is Shakespearean but it is true to a certain extent in that there are phrases coming up constantly that you haven’t focussed on. It is absolutely studded in jewels, it’s quite glorious,” he argues.
Any Gaeilgeoir will tell you that the language you hear in Playboy isn’t a direct translation from Irish, and Conall himself says that Synge “created his own language”.
“Synge made the claim that he has actually heard all every single one of these phrases at some point in his travels in the West or in Wicklow or somewhere else but the point is that he stitches them all together into a wonderfully dense, composite language. It is his own language, his own melody that he has created, but is rooted in peasant vernacular. It is heightened. It is particularly mellifluous, it is particularly image-laden, it is particularly funny,” he says.
As the playwright himself has said, “All art is a collaboration” and in The Playboy the imaginative cultural and historical space of the people of the western seaboard join with his own creativity to conjure up something that is an amalgam of the two.
“Synge took from everywhere,” says Conall, “from Pagan traditions, from Celtic traditions but he was also the writer from that movement who was most versed in contemporary European traditions. He would have seen Ubu Roi by Jarry, a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd and Surrealism. for example.
“When he lived in France, he went to see all the new theatrical ventures that were happening at the time. So he was up-to-date with everything that was happening in contemporary theatre and he was also deeply versed in Old Testament and back and he has packed all this into the Playboy.”
Patrick Moy as Christy and Orla Fitzgerald as Pegeen Mike
Having said that, this isn’t a poetry reading, the text is used in service of the story. The language is at a high level because the story is at a high level of intensity and set as it is in the early 20th century – it was written in 1907 – there still exists the psychic landscape, a space of superstition and animism and pantheism that the Irish always inhabited, a space which Synge recognises but is cynical about in opposition to the tweer end of Yeats and Lady Gregory’s romanticism.
“He very unsentimental about it,” says Armagh-born Morrison. “He says these energies aren’t wafting through the Celtic Twilight like an all-purpose Cuchullain-esque mystery. These things are vigorous, they are the powers of violence, the powers of sex, the powers of the imagination. The power of language isn’t a thing of linguistic refinement it is a power of a linguistic potency. Linguistic violence and eroticism and glorification and they are all very animated energies, there is nothing twee about t hem. He does invoke a psychically animated world but he is not being reverential or soft-focussed about it, He is saying these are dangerous energies. You can’t tap into them but they are potentially lethal too.”
Morrison says there is no one particular message in Playboy but that “it invites you to enter the force field of your own imagination.
“If you really unleash yourself into what it is you want, your passions, your powers and your capacities be that for celebration, for love, for self-expression, the play says fully come into yourself, fully express yourself, and that is its message, move away from pieties, move away from repression, go out into the wood and embrace your own wildness.”
Sadly for Pegeen Mike, when she falls under the spell of the Playboy when she experiences that sense of freedom, she is betrayed, because of course, the Playboy isn’t who or what he says he is. He opened up her life, he opened up her heart but it was a lie and Synge is quick to point out that there are limits to what we can do, that we limit our dreams so that we can survive and that there is a cost to that degree of liberation.
In life, there is a constant struggle between so-called civilization and a wildness and like everything, the answer is in finding a balance between the two.
When the play first appeared in 1907, there were riots due ostensibly to the line in the play about “a drift of females standing in their shifts” although political forces were at play too.
There won’t be any riots outside the Lyric, we have moved on in our attitude to women’s undergarments if not to the politics – but there was the possibility that we have moved so far away from the Mayo of a century ago that, like in the play itself, the lure of the Playboy will have become illusory but having seen the production last week, I can safely say that, due to some great acting, a wonderfully evocative set and the gusto of Conall’s direction that there still is a point to The Playboy of the Western World in these celebrity-ridden, uncertain times.
The Playboy of the Western World is currently running at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast until 07 October 2012. You can book online at lyrictheatre.co.uk/book_tickets or telephone 028 9038 1081 (Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm) or by calling in person at the Lyric Theatre Box Office, 55 Ridgeway Street, Belfast, BT9 5FB (open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm)
By the way, you can read the full text of The Playboy of the Western World at www.gutenberg.org/files/1240/1240-h/1240-h.htm
"It is a goodly thing to see arms in Irish hands." Pic: Ros Kavanagh
If Sean O’Casey is up in Socialist heaven, he is probably looking down at Ireland and saying “I told you so. Have ye not seen The Plough and the Stars?”
Well, the Abbey Theatre’s production of The Plough and the Stars is in Belfast until Saturday this week before continuing its tour and the hugely enjoyable four-act play is well worth a visit.
It’s worth it for the ensemble acting of the 16-strong cast which didn’t have a weak link and in a play where the comic characters can steal the show, there were no solo runs in Wayne Jordan’s splendid production.
The Plough and the Stars is, of course, set at the time of the Easter Rising of 1916, a time when many Dubs proudly saw Dublin as “the second city of the Empire” yet the city had unimaginable poverty and ill-heath.
Twice as many people died from Tuberculosis in Dublin as in London and in Dublin alone, it killed more than 10,000 people a year, more than half of them children, the bacteria that caused it thriving in the overcrowded tenement slums in which huge numbers of people ground out their existence.
The gap between Ireland’s rich and its poor was enormous, political and economic power rested in the hands of
Sean O'Casey
Britain so the time was ripe for an insurrection. O’Casey’s play, however. tells us that the Easter Rising meant nothing for the poor slum-dwellers of Dublin, that it wasn’t about them in the first place.
O’Casey, although an Orangeman in his youth, was a socialist and member of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA). He even wrote a constitution for the organisation and penned a history of the ICA in which he quotes Jim Larkin calling on people to follow the example of Edward Carson in the north.
“Labour in its own defence must begin to train itself to act with disciplined courage and with organised and concentrated force. How could they accomplish this? By taking a leaf out of the book of Carson. If Carson had permission to train his braves of the North to fight against the aspirations of the Irish people, then it was legitimate and fair for Labour to organise in the same militant way to preserve their rights and to ensure that if they were attacked they would be able to give a very satisfactory account of themselves,” he wrote.
But O’Casey saw the socialist cause as being commandeered and dragooned into the service of bourgeois nationalism. He himself didn’t take part in the 1916 Rising although James Connolly led 200 members of the Citizen Army into the fray.
Looking around Ireland at the minute, you’d have to see what O’Casey warned about when he wrote the play in 1927. That the path from the 1916 Rising has led to the self-serving ilk of politician that has beggared the country since Independence, the croneyism, the cowboys, the meek subservience to the Church, the banking scandal – the list goes on forever while today’s Nora Clitheroes and Fluther Goods and Bessie Burgesses try to make ends meet while the government bows at the altar of international financial speculation.
Today’s politicians seem to have lost sight of the fact that they exist to be servants of the people and that they have a particular duty of care to the poorest in our society.
If we go along with O’Casey’s thesis, this is the unavoidable legacy of the 1916 Rising and he has a compelling cast of characters to make his point.
Kate Brennan as Rosie Redmond and Joe Hanley as Fluther Good. Pic: Ros Kavanagh
Jack Clitheroe who chooses his country (or his ego) over his wife, the upwardly aspiring Nora Clitheroe; Bessie Burgess, the Union Jack-waving Protestant Dub whose son is fighting for the British in the First World War; Uncle Peter and Fluther Good; the young communist Covey (“there’s only one war worth havin’: th’ war for th’ economic emancipation of th’ proletariat”); Mrs Gogan and her consumptive daughter Mollser; Uncle Peter every harking back to the past and, controversially, given Ireland’s pious self-image, prostitute Rosie Redmond. None of these characters are the same at the end of the play as they are at the beginning.
It’s a sign of the success of a play when you find yourself silently shouting at characters to take one course of action or another and it’s hard not to get involved with this community of characters whether you’re for them or against.
Surrounded by a wonderfully evocative set – Dublin itself becomes a flickering character – the production is full of laughter, pathos, excitement and food for thought in this “decade of anniversaries” where this year some are commemorating “loyal” Ulstermen arming themselves and threatening to defy the British government by force while in four years time, we will (or won’t) be celebrating the centenary of the Easter Rising.
Try and get to see The Plough and the Stars if you can. Full details at: www.goh.co.uk/the-plough-and-the-stars
Other dates include:
An Grianán, Letterkenny
Tuesday 25 September – Saturday 29 September
Assisted performance: Thursday 27th September www.angrianan.com
Siamsa Tire, Tralee
Tuesday 23 October – Saturday 27 October
Assisted performance:Thursday 25th October www.siamsatire.com
The Lime Tree, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
Tuesday 30 October – Saturday 3 November
Assisted performance: Thursday 1 November www.limetreetheatre.ie
The wonderful centre culturel irlandais in Paris is organising Irish classes once again, and they’re also running a Speak Dating linguistique.
Using the same principle as speed dating, English and French-speaking twosomes will converse for ten minutes before moving on to the next partner, talking about a variety of topics. It will be a friendly, social evening designed to facilitate a fresh approach to both languages and cultures, in a laid-back atmosphere, nothing like a classroom!
I don’t know if this has been tried with using Irish speakers but it seems a great idea.
Pour ceuz qui ne parlent l’anglais et qui voudraient apprendre la langue irlandaise:
Certificat de langue irlandaise,d’histoire et de culture contemporaines irlandaises délivré par la National University of Ireland Maynooth, sur une durée de 24 semaines, d’octobre 2012 à mai 2013.
Le programme se compose de deux parties principales :
LANGUE IRLANDAISE (3 niveaux) : Deux heures par semaine de cours d’irlandais basés sur le Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge.
A partir de la première semaine d’octobre : les mardi, mercredi et jeudi à 19h (jours et horaires à confirmer).
HISTOIRE ET CULTURE : Ces modules sont enseignés en anglais sur quatre samedis, par des conférenciers de la National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Outre les élèves du certificat, ces modules sont ouverts à tout public.
Soirée d’inscription mercredi 26 septembre 12, de 18h30 à 19h30, en présence du professeur
Ou par e-mail : azuddas@centreculturelirlandais.com
Pictiúr de Christian Place i mBéal Feirste le Liam Mac Aindréis
Ealaín don phobal trí phriosma Gaelach
Saothar Liam Mhic Aindréis, Ealaíontóir agus Gael (1913 – 1996) le Liam Andrews
Rugadh m’athair, Liam Mac Aindréis, mac le Sarah Cooke agus Edward Andrews, ar 14 Meán Fómhair 1913. Cé gur thacaigh a sinsir Phreispitéireacha le hÉirí Amach 1798, ba aontachtaithe iad teaghlach a mháthar a raibh cónaí orthu i Sráidbhaile Chluanaí (Springfield) ar imeall chathair Bhéal Feirste.
Bhí an Sráidbhaile, atá leagtha le fada an lá, suite sa cheantar a dtugtar Gleann na Coille anois air. Bhí go leor teannais sa teaghlach toisc Sarah, arbh fhíodóir í, tiontú ina Caitliceach agus í ag siúl amach le Edward, ar tháilliúir Caitliceach ó Bhóthar na bhFál é. Pósadh ina dhiaidh sin iad. Ba é Liam an t-aon duine clainne acu.
Chaith Liam blianta a óige ag a sheantuismitheoirí, d’fhreastail ar Bhunscoil Chluanaí agus tógadh ina Phreispitéireach é. Is luath ina shaol a léirigh sé bua an ealaíontóra. Ba ghnách leis pictiúir a tharraingt le cailc ar leaca na cistine i dteach a sheanmháthar agus é an-óg. Bhí an oiread sin bua aige san ábhar agus é ar scoil gur ghnách leis an mhúinteoir seasamh i leataobh agus a iarraidh ar Liam an rang a stiúradh le haghaidh ceachtanna ealaíne. D’fhág sé an bhunscoil sular bhain sé na ceithre bliana déag amach agus chuaigh a obair ar dtús mar bhuachaill teachtaireachtaí i siopa déiríochta an Maypole sa tSráid Thuaidh Uachtarach agus ina dhiaidh sin mar shaothraí in Oibreacha Bailchríochnúcháin agus Ruaimneoireachta Chluanaí.
Sa bhliain 1934 d’fhág sé Sráidbhaile Chluanaí agus chuaigh a chónaí lena thuismitheoirí i mBotháin Bhruach na Sailí ar dtús agus in 35 Paráid Uíbh Eachach ina dhiaidh sin. D’iompaigh sé ina Chaitliceach timpeall an ama sin.
Chun an easpa meánoideachais a chúiteamh leis féin, chuir sé spéis an-mhór sa léitheoireacht agus é ag taithí leabharlanna poiblí agus ag ransú seilfeanna i siopaí seanleabhar Greer agus Harry Hall i seanmhargadh Smithfield. Is é an t-ealaíontóir Robert Cresswell Boak a raibh stiúideo aige san Ascaill Ríoga, is dócha ba chúis le tús a chur lena oiliúint fhoirmiúil san ealaín. Casadh ar Liam de sheans é sa Maypole agus mhol dó dul chuig Cumann Ealaíon Bhéal Feirste (ar a dtabharfaí Acadamh Ealaíon Uladh ar ball air).
D’fhreastail Liam ar ranganna ealaíne ón bheo a bhí á reáchtáil ag Cumann Ealaíon Bhéal Feirste mar ar bhuail sé le Maurice Wilkes, Pádraic Woods agus ealaíontóirí eile a bhí ag tús a ngairme an tráth sin. Chláraigh sé mar mhac léinn i gColáiste Ealaíne Bhéal Feirste agus d’fhreastail ar ranganna oíche ann sna mall-1920í agus sna luath-1930í agus obair lae ar siúl ar fad aige.
Is sa Choláiste Ealaíne a chuir sé aithne ar ealaíontóirí eile agus ina measc bhí Frank Mc Kelvey, Willie Conn, William Conor agus Gerry Burns a raibh cuid acu fostaithe mar dhearthóirí póstaer ag Cuideachta Fógraíochta David Allen.
Is é an dúil mhór a bhí ag Liam san ealaín ba chionsiocair leis an spéis a chuir sé sa Ghaeilge. Ní raibh sé ábalta a dhéanamh amach cad chuige nach raibh aon scoil phéintéireachta ar leith dá cuid féin ag Éirinn, agus a fhios aige go raibh traidisiún ealaíne dá cuid féin ag an tír ní ba luaithe sa stair agus é bunaithe ar dhearthóireacht Cheilteach agus ar ealaín mhaisiúil.
I ndiaidh dó tréan machnaimh a dhéanamh faoin cheist is amhlaidh a tháinig sé den tuairim gur fágadh bearna mhór i bhforbairt na healaíne in Éirinn mar gheall ar mheath na Gaeilge agus an chultúir a bhain léi, agus gur dhual an bhearna sin a líonadh. Dá bhrí sin, d’éirigh sé an-díograiseach faoi athbheochan na Gaeilge agus chinn sé go bhfoghlaimeodh sé an teanga .
D’éirigh sé cairdiúil le múinteoir bunscoile darbh ainm Cathal Ó Baoill agus lena bheirt mhac, Seán agus Uinseann, a raibh cónaí orthu i gCéide Uíbh Eachach in aice leis agus is iomaí airneál agus comhrá fada a rinne sé leo. Bhí suim mhór acu sa Ghaeilge agus sa cheol traidisiúnta agus is mar gheall ar a dtionchar a chuaigh sé i dtreo Chonradh na Gaeilge.
Sa bhliain 1938 thosaigh sé a fhreastal ar rang Gaeilge a bhíodh ar siúl gach Domhnach ag Craobh Thír na nÓg san Ardscoil i Sráid Dhubhaise. Lena chois sin, thosaigh sé a ghabháil don amhránaíocht thraidisiúnta, do na damhsaí Gaelacha agus do sheinm an chnaipchairdín. Is ansin a chláraigh sé ina bhall de Chumann Chluain Ard, craobh eile de C honradh na Gaeilge, a raibh foirgneamh an tráth sin acu i Sráid Phort Láirge.
I ndiaidh dó an-dianstaidéar a dhéanamh ar an teanga agus é cuairteanna a thabhairt ar Ghaeltacht Thír Chonaill, d’éirigh le Liam aitheantas a bhaint amach mar chainteoir líofa Gaeilge nuair a ghnóthaigh sé an fáinne óir i scrúdú an Fháinne ar 6 Márta 1942. Bhaineadh sé an-sult as na céilithe san Ardscoil fosta, áit ar bhuail sé le hAnna Marie Nic Mhathúna a bheadh ina bean chéile ar ball aige. Pósadh i Mí Iúil 1943 iad agus is í a bhí ina crann taca aige go dtí deireadh a shaoil. Bhí seachtar clainne acu agus is minic a fheictear a lán acu i ról na gcarachtar sna péintéireachtaí a rinne sé.
Cheal cáilíochtaí foirmiúla, ní raibh i ndán dó mar oibrí i dtús a ré ach sraith jabanna gan ionchas a bheith leo; bhí sé seal ina chúntóir stórais, seal ina mheicneoir neamhcháilithe, ina thiománaí veain agus ina gharraíodóir. Chaith sé seal gairid mar oibrí sibhialtach in aerbhunáit na Meiriceánach i Lóiste Langford i rith bhlianta an chogaidh agus chuir sé gliondar riamh air cuimhneamh siar ar an tréimhse sin. Chaith sé míonna fada gan aon obair rialta a bheith aige agus lena linn sin rinne sé iarracht an dé a choinneáil ann féin agus sa teaghlach as pictiúir a dhíol. Sa bhliain 1955 fuair Liam a chéad phost buan mar léaráideoir teicniúil ag Cuideachta na nDeartháireacha Short agus Harland. Is ansin a d’fhan sé, diomaite de thréimhse gairid, go dtí go ndeachaigh sé ar scor sa bhliain 1978 .
Feictear an chéad tagairt do Liam mar thaispeántóir sa chatalóg a ghabhann leis an Taispeántas Mór Ealaíne agus Ceardaíochta ar chuid d’Fheis Bhéal Feirste 1944 é. Is é Lindsay Keir, Cathaoirleach CEMA (An Chomhairle um Chur chun Cinn an Cheoil agus na nEalaíon) agus Leas-Seansailéir Ollscoil na Banríona, Béal Feirste, a d’oscail an taispeántas i Halla Naomh Muire ar 15 Bealtaine. I measc na dtaispeántóirí eile bhí Pádraic Woods, Frank McKelvey, Maurice Wilks, Gerard Dillon, George Campbell, Colin Middleton, Daniel O’Neill, John Luke, Rosamund Praeger agus Gladys McCabe. Lean Liam de bheith ag caitheamh a dhúthrachta leis an ealaín i rith na 1940í agus na 1950í agus sholáthair lear mór saothar. Baineann a lán de na péintéireachtaí uiscedhatha is úire dá chuid leis an tréimhse sin.
Faoin bhliain 1951 bhí Liam ag eagrú ranganna Gaeilge agus ranganna ealaíne saor ó tháille do dhaoine, ós rud é gur chreid sé nach dtiocfadh fíorealaín náisiúnta chun cinn in Éirinn mura mbeadh ealaíontóirí ábalta Gaeilge a labhairt agus taithí a bheith faighte acu ar stair agus ar bhéaloideas na tíre. Tráthnóna samhraidh nó ag deireadh na seachtaine ba ghnách leis imeacht leis féin, nó in éineacht le mic léinn dá chuid, chun péintéireacht uiscedhatha nó sceitseáil a dhéanamh faoin spéir ar imeall Bhéal Feirste.
Is é an tuairim láidir aige go raibh athbheochan na Gaeilge barrthábhachtach d’fhorbairt na healaíne in Éirinn sa todhchaí a spreag é le páirt a ghlacadh i mbunú Fál, an ciorcal staidéir Gaeilge, agus le seasamh go daingean le ceannairí Chumann Chluain Ard nuair a chinn siad go ndéanfaí ballraíocht an Chumainn a theorannú feasta do dhaoine nach labhródh ach Gaeilge amháin agus nach n-úsáidfí aon Bhéarla feasta in aon ghnó de chuid an Chumainn.
Agus é anois ina chónaí ar Bhóthar Chluanaí agus muirín bheag air féin a bhí ag éirí ní ba líonmhaire, chuir sé spéis ar leith sa lucht taistil a raibh cónaí orthu ar láithreán in aice lena theach féin. Bhí sé an-chairdiúil lena lán acu agus tugadh cead a choise dó timpeall an champa. Thug an t-ealaíontóir James MacIntyre cuairt ar an champa fosta agus tá grianghraf aige de Liam i measc an lucht taistil ina dhírbheathaisnéis Making my Mark (Blackstaff Press Ltd, 2001).
Baineann an chuid is fearr de phéintéireachtaí Liam den lucht taistil leis an am sin. Rinne Seán Ó Baoill teagmháil leis, nó bhí Seán fostaithe in éineacht le Peter Kennedy ag an BBC, chun ábhar a bhailiú le haghaidh cartlann speisialta de cheol traidisiúnta a bhí an BBC i ndiaidh a bhunú. Chuaigh Liam a obair leo i dtionscadal le ceol agus amhráin an lucht taistil a thaifeadadh agus rinneadh stiúideo taifeadóireachta d’uimhir 513 Bóthar Chluanaí roinnt uaireanta sa bhliain 1952. Tá bailiúchán mór d’amhráin ón lucht taistil ag an BBC mar gheall ar na seisiúin sin.
Agus an teaghlach go minic ar saoire i nGlinnte Aontroma bhíodh deiseanna ag Liam cromadh ar radhairc mhara agus chladaigh a phéinteáil. I rith a shaoil bhí dúil mhór riamh aige sna Glinnte. Ní hé amháin gurbh inspioráid iad dá chuid péintéireachta, ach bhí ceangal láidir go fóill acu le cultúr agus béaloideas an tsaoil Ghaelaigh a bhíodh ann.
Tugadh tuilleadh deiseanna do Liam péintéireacht a dhéanamh sna 1960í nuair a chuathas i mbun obair athfhorbartha timpeall Bhéal Feirste. Thosaigh sé a dhéanamh taifead den iomad radharc sráide agus den chineál saoil a bhíodh ag pobal na cathrach sular réabadh as a chéile é an t-am a ndearnadh léirscrios ar na seantithe sraithe de chuid ré na tionsclaíochta agus tithe nua á dtógáil ina n-áit. Faoin tráth sin bhí Liam i ndiaidh stad de bheith ag úsáid leabhar sceitseála an ealaíontóra ach ceamara anois aige chun cuimhne a choinneáil ar radhairc le grianghraif dubh is bhán. Is taifid luachmhara fhísiúla de sheanpharóiste Naomh Peadar iad a lán de na péintéireachtaí a rinne sé den cheantar sin atá anois imithe as aithne ar fad .
Ós rud é go raibh spéis mhór aige in ealaín mhaisiúil na hÉireann, d’fhreastail sé ar roinnt ranganna seodóireachta agus chuaigh aige go leor earraí beaga copair agus earraí cruanta a dhéanamh amhail dealga Teamhrach. D’úsáid sé na scileanna nua sin a d’fhoghlaim sé sna ranganna seodóireachta le modh simplí a cheapadh chun fáinní a dhéanamh den chineál a chaitheann daoine mar shuaitheantas lena chur in iúl go bhfuil Gaeilge líofa acu. Bhí an chuma ar na fáinní a dhéanadh Liam gur as ór a rinneadh, ach níorbh ea, ach as miotal neamhchostasach.
Le linn na dTrioblóidí theith an teaghlach ina ndídeanaithe go Baile Uí Mhurchú, áit ar lean Liam den phéintéireacht. Phéinteáil sé radhairc shráide agus radhairc de shaol gnáthdhaoine agus iad ag iarraidh déileáil le hollteanna polaitíochta agus sóisialta na tréimhse. I gcaitheamh na mblianta sin is iad an tacaíocht óna bhean chéile, Anna Marie, agus an cairdeas a rinne sé leis an Athair Des Wilson a neartaigh Liam agus é gnóthach ag teagasc ealaíne agus Gaeilge i measc mhuintir Bhaile Uí Mhurchú. Na cuairteoirí a thiocfadh chun tí chuige, d’aithneodh siad mar chomhráiteach aigeanta é agus scéalaí breá a raibh dúil sa díospóireacht agus sa ghreann tur aige.
Thosaigh Liam, agus é ag dul anonn in aois, a bhaint triail as teicnící éagsúla ealaíne agus rinne sraith líníochtaí pinn agus leachtdatha de radhairc in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste le haghaidh féilire a foilsíodh sa cheantar. Thosaigh sé a úsáid péint aicrileach de rogha ar olaphéint fosta. D’éag sé ar 6 Feabhra 1996 i ndiaidh tréimhse easláinte.
Ba dhuine ildánach é Liam Mac Aindréis a raibh lámh mhaith aige ar scileanna praiticiúla agus spéis dhochloíte aige san ealaín, sa Ghaeilge, sa chultúr agus san oideachas. Bhí sé riamh lántoilteanach na scileanna agus an spéis sin a roinnt go fial agus go hoscailte le gach aon duine a bhí sásta éisteacht leis. Chreid sé dá mba rud é go dtiocfadh le gnáthdhaoine saothar bunaidh ealaíne a bheith acu sa teach ar phraghas a bheadh ar a n-acmhainn go dtabharfadh sé ardú meanman dóibh. Agus é ag cuimhneamh air sin d’eagraigh sé trí thaispeántais aonair dá chuid saothar. Bhí an chéad cheann, agus an catalóg i nGaeilge amháin, i gCumann Chluain Ard i Mí na Bealtaine 1967; bhí an dara ceann in Ionad Oideachais Pobail an Athar Des Wilson ag 123 Ascaill Chnoc Chluanaí i Mí Eanáir 1973 agus an tríú ceann i Sólann Bhaile Andarsan tamall ina dhiaidh sin .
Is eiseamláir é Liam don té a rachadh i mbun an tsaoil gan mórán deiseanna ach é nó í a bheith oscailte, lán díograise agus réidh chun foghlama. Tá scoth na línitheoireachta agus súil ghéar le haghaidh mion-nithe le sonrú i saothar ealaíne Liam. Ní hionann é agus cuid mhór d’ealaíontóirí a linne nach raibh ar a n-aird acu ach radhairc tíre. Bhain an saothar mór a rinne sé lena lán ábhar de gach cineál agus bhí sé an-mhaith ag léiriú carachtar agus fíoracha daonna. Is é a dúirt an staraí ealaíne Peter Lord go raibh Liam in ann “breith ar an nóiméad” ina chuid saothar.
I dtéarmaí ginearálta, tá taifead ar leith déanta aige ina chuid péintéireachta de radhairc uirbeacha ar an athrú gasta a tháinig ar dhreach Bhéal Feirste agus ar stair shóisialta achrannach na cathrach sa dara leath den fichiú haois.
Is mar a leanas a mhíníonn Liam Mac Aindréis an tuiscint a bhí aige ar an ealaín.
“Is ealaíontóir é an té a phéinteálann rud nach féidir friotal a chur air. Is é an teagasc a ghairm bheatha. Is dual dó daoine a spreagadh, ardmheanma a chothú iontu agus a bhua mar ealaíontóir a thabhairt chun foirfeachta.
Is ionann saothar ealaíne agus teilgean a bheith déanta ar eispéireas mothúchánach. Is in ealaín an phobail is fearr a chuirtear anam an náisiúin in iúl. Chun leibhéal na sibhialtachta a mheas i dtír ar bith is táscaire réasúnta é caighdeán na tuisceana atá ann don ealaín. Ciallaíonn ealaín náisiúnta an léiriú suibiachtúil a dhéantar ar smaointeoireacht náisiúnta.
Is cosúil smaointeoireacht náisiúnta le teanga – tá a dul féin uirthi. Gan an dul sin a bheith ar eolas aige tá an t-ealaíontóir as teagmháil lena phríomhfhoinse inspioráide. Ní féidir leis teagasc ná léirmhíniú a thabhairt; éiríonn a dhearcadh oibiachtúil; níl aige ach súile an turasóra; amhail ceamara, ní dhéanann sé ach a bhfeiceann sé a thaifeadadh.”
Who’d have thought that death was so life-enhancing. Other people’s deaths of course, fictional people at that and creatures whose often grizzly ends have been wrapped up in a shroud of melody and sung for the entertainment of all God’s chillun.
And out of that ménage has grown Cathy Davey’s Songs to Scare Children (but in a very beautiful way), a fabulous homage to the macabre, the Twiddledee to life’s Twiddledum, came to a MAC metamorphosed into the Court of Duke Special for one week only.
The scene was set by David Turpin, who issued a word of warning: “You have come here because you’re curious, you’ve come here to sample the grotesque, the depraved, the perverse – and you will not leave unsatisfied if you leave at all,” he intoned darkly, setting the scene for the grotesquerie to follow.
For instance, the show starts off with Cathy herself singing Gloomy Sunday, a song also known as the Hungarian Suicide Song.
Legend has it that 19 people committed suicide immediately after hearing the song – it was first recorded in Hungary in 1935 – although luckily all members of Saturday night’s MAC audience have been duly accounted for.
Next up came Pete Pamf’s version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, but his was no Burl Ives ditty. This was dark and scary and the monstrous import of the words revealed in Pamf’s voice and the minor key piano and bass accompaniment.
But if the carnivore hag was scary, Rhob Cunningham showed that sweetness of voice could convey as much fear as a snarl in a song whose title I don’t know but the great music just kept coming.
Gretta Gunn’s version of Cher’s Bang Bang, (natch), and the ensemble singing Mammy Dear,the words of which are just
Lisa O'Neill
gorgeous, and then came the moment I became an instant and eternal fan of Lisa O’Neill who gave us a hearty rendition of Weila, Waile, Walia – where in God’s name did that song come from? – and then the ensemble did a mesmerising medley of Ring-a-Ring o Rosies, existential anthem Row, Row Row Your Boat, Little Miss Moffat = this is obviously not a show for anyone with arachnophobia! – and This Little Piggy Went to the Market.
If you’re listening at the back you’ll see the theme here and won’t be surprised that this was followed by Gilbert and Sullivan’s Tit Willow from the Mikado before finishing off the first half was a top-hatted Neil Hannon’s spirited version of Betty Boop’s The Mysterious Mose segueing into 3-6-9 The Goose Drank Wine.
Some of our best known songs would shame some video nasties and we merrily sings of murder and mayhem to children ann adult alike, yet, apart from the Hungarian Suicide Song, no-one has tried to ban them. We’ve possibly lost that healthy connection with the Otherworld we had when folk tales and folk songs were being sung around hearths in the middle of the countryside or city houses before electricity arrived but the delight in the macabre lingers on in these songs.
And they kept coming in the second half, with Duke Special and Ursula Burns and magician David Currie joining the cast and I could list every song that was sung- from St James’ Infirmary via Let’s Do the Time Warp Again to Oh My Darling Clementine but every single song was a delight in what was also an evening celebrating the power of the human voice, from the sensitive to the strident.
And so, we left the MAC having laughed in the face of the Grim Reaper, our joie de vivre reinvigorated and basking in the glory of what we humans, all of us, like to do to help us get our head around the craziness of the world – we sing.
Níor foilsíodh colún Shéamaí Mhic Giolla Ghinnéin san Irish News an tseachtain seo. Seo an méid a chaill sibh ..
King Henry
D’imir siad a chéíle sa chluiche ceannais le trí bliana anuas. Ach cé acu a imreoidh An Ghaillimh an dara Domhnaich den mhí seo chugainn – Cill Chainnigh nó Tiobraid Árainn?
Iomáint : Dé Domhnaigh Cluiche leathcheannais na hÉireann (Beo ar RTÉ) 3.30pm : Cill Chainnigh v Tiobraid Árainn
Bhí cluiche breá againn Dé Domhnaigh seo caite agus tá Gaillimh ar ais sa chluiche ceannais don chéad uair ó 2005.
Mar a tharlaíonn, is í 2005 an bhliain deireanach nach raibh Cill Chainnigh sa chluiche ceannais – agus Gaillimh a stop iad sa chluiche leathcheannais an bhliain úd. Chuir Gaillimh bealach an chúldorais iad i mbliana i ndiaidh taispeántais fíormhaith i gcluiche ceannais Laighean ag tús mhí Iúil.
Ba dhoiligh a chreidbheáil an rud a rinneadh do Chill Chainnigh sa chéad leath sin. An dtig le Tiobraid Árainn an rud céanna a dheánamh leo Dé Domhnaigh?
Ba chóir go bhfuil a fhios ag na Tiobradaigh faoi seo an dóigh leis an lámh in uachtar a fháil ar a gcuid comharsana. I 2009, thug siad an-chluiche ar fad do na cait – go dtí gur tugadh cárta dearg do Bhenny Dunne. Ansin d’aimsigh Henry Shefflin cúl ó shaorphoc nach raibh, i mo thuairimse, tuillte acu – agus fuair Martin Comerford cúl mall eile.
Ach thug an taispeántas sin muinín go leor do Thiobraid Árainn agus thug siad an cluiche chuig Cill Chainnigh an bhliain dar gcionn, cluiche a bhain siad furast go leor le stop a chur leis an “Ruaig ar an Chúig”. Ach anuraidh ba iad na cait an fhoireann ba láidre.
Bhí siad i gceannas ar an chluiche ceannais ó thús deiridh, cé nach raibh ach cúpla cúilín eatarthu ag an fheadóg dheiridh. An lá sin, ní fhaca Padhraic Maher Thiobraid Árainn mórán den sliotar sa líne leathchúil. Dhírigh Cill Chainnigh an sliotar síos an taobh eile, áit a raibh Henry Shefflin, nó i dtreo Eddie Brennan. Níl Eddie ar fáil dóibh i mbliana ar ndóigh agus, cé gur bhain siad an tsraith gan mórán stró, ba léir nach bhfuil cuid de na himreoirí ar a sáimhín só go huile agus go hiomlán.
Ní fhacthas Tommy Walsh ag streachailt leis mar a bhí sé i gcluiche ceannais Laighean. Ní raibh lár na páirce mar ba mhian leo é agus bhí na tosaithe ag brath barraíocht ar Henry. Ní raibh laoch Bhaile Éile ach ina chéad chúpla cluiche ar ais i ndiaidh gortuithe.
Sa chluiche in éadan Luimní bhí siad ag teacht a chéile go maith. Bhí Tommy ar ais ar a sheanléim, bhí Michael Fennelly agus Michael Rice ar ais le chéile agus an-láidir i lár na páirce agus bhí Colin Fennelly ag deánamh go maith sna tosaithe.
Beidh Brian Hogan ar ais i ndiaidh gortuithe don chluiche seo, agus cé nach mbeidh Richie Power ar fáil, tiocfaidh TJ Reid isteach ina áit. Is láidre Cill Chainnigh ná am ar bith eile i mbliana – agus ní dhearna an cluiche breise dochar ar bith dóibh ach oiread.
Tá tamall fada ann ó bhí cluiche ceannais na Mumhan ann – cúig seachtaine, agus is fada an tréimhse sin gan cluiche comórtasach. Níl éacht ar bith deánta i mbliana ag Tiobraid Árainn go fóill i mo bharúil. Bhain siad cluichí ar chóir dóibh baint go furast. Ní gá a rá go bhfuil imreoirí maithe ar fáil do Declan Ryan – ach tá rud beag luais caillte ag Eoin Kelly agus bhí air Lar Corbett a fháíl ar ais le ceannaireacht a thabhairt don mhuintir eile. Nuair a amharcaim ar an dá fhoireann, níl mórán eatarthu. Tá siad beirt láidir sa líne leathchúil agus i lár na pairce, agus tá roinnt tosaithe fíorchruinn acu beirt.
Mar a bhí sna cluichí ceannais le trí bliana anuas, tiocfaidh sé anuas chuig taicticí – agus ádh ar ndóigh – ar an lá. Sílim go mbeidh Cill Chainnigh arís ag iarraidh an sliotar a choinneáil ó Padhraic Maher, go mbeidh an dá fhoireann ag iarraidh spás a chruthú sna tosaithe, go mbeidh Tiobraid Árainn ag iarraidh a gcuid fisiciúlachta a thabhairt san áireamh. Thaispeáin An Ghaillimh go raibh laigí ag Cill Chainnigh, ach an dtig le Tiobraid Árainn buntáiste a ghlacadh? Is é seo an cluiche is spéisiúla atá fágtha sa chomórtas. Is fiú luach an ticéid daichead euro é (tá pacáiste an-tarraingteach do dhaoine óga fosta). Ná caill é ar ór na cruinne.
Cluichí na Mionúr Cluiche leathcheannais na Mionúr A : Dé Domhnaigh, 1.30pm : Tiobraid Árainn v An Ghaillimh (Beo ar RTÉ) Cluichí leathcheannais na Mionúr B : Amárach, 2pm Ard Mhacha v Ros Comáin Cill Dara v Ciarraí
Bhí mé an-ghafa leis an chluiche mionúr Dé Domhnaigh seo caite idir An Clár agus Áth Cliath, toradh a bhí ag brath ar earráid réiteora in am breise.
Chaill an fhoireann a b’fhearr i mo bharúil – agus d’aontaigh bainisteoir Átha Cliath. Sílim go mbeidh cluiche comórtasach eile ann Dé Domhnaigh idir curaidh na Mumhan Tiobraid Árainn agus An Ghaillimh a chuir suas 4-20 in éadan Loch gCarman.
Beidh siad beirt compordach go leor i bPáirc an Chrócaigh agus tá mé ag dúil go mór leis an chluiche. Maidir le buaiteoir …… caithimis bonn! Níor imir Ard Mhacha go hiontach Dé Sathairn seo caite in éadan Chill Mhantáin i gcluiche ceathrúcheannais Grád B – ach bhain siad. Níl an cluiche is deacra rompu amárach i mBéal an Átha Mhóir, ach beidh orthu imirt i bhfad níos fearr.
Má tharlaíonn sé sin, bainfidh siad ar Ros Comáin. Bhain Cill Dara rófhurast in éadan Mhuigh Eo (9-22 go 2-2), agus fuair Ciarraí cúl in am breise le teacht fríd in éadan na Mí. Ach cé acu is réidhe don dara cluiche leathcheannais?
Beidh na cluichí leathcheannais sa chamógaíocht ann amárach i bPáirc Uí Nualláin – agus is deas a fheiceáil go bhfuil foirne eile ag brú isteach ar na cumhachtaí is mó sa chluiche.
Ar feadh tamaill fhada, shocraigh an cluiche idir Corcaigh agus Cill Chainnigh Corn Uí Dhubhthaigh. Ansin tháinig Tiobraid Árainn in áit Chill Chainnigh agus le cúig nó sé bliana anuas ba iad Loch gCarman a thug dúshlán Chorcaí.
Tá na Rebellettes fós san iomaíocht i mbliana – ach thug leithéidí An Chláir agus Átha Cliath an-iarracht i mbliana. Agus tá Uí bhFáilí fós san iomaíocht agus sin tuillte go maith acu. Imreoidh Uí bhFáilí curaidh na hÉireann Loch gCarman, agus sílim go dtabharfaidh siad cluiche maith dóibh – ach nach mbainfidh siad. Is iad Gaillimh agus Corcaigh atá san iomaíocht sa chéad chluiche. Tá craobh tuillte ag An Ghaillimh le tamall anuas – ach bíonn ádh de dhíth briseadh fríd. Tá súil agam go dtabharfaidh siad céim eile sa treo sin amárach. Guím ádh mór ar an réiteoir Owen Eilliot as an Bhaile Meánach a bhéas i mbun an dara cluiche agus fosta ar fhoireann Doire a imreoidh Tiobraid Árainn i gcluiche leathcheannais na nIdirmheánach amárach
Rudaí a thug mé faoi deara an tseachtain seo ….
go bhfuil craobhchomórtas Mhuigh Eo ag na cluichí leathcheannais agus an contae fós sa tóir ar Sam. Imríodh na cluichí ceathrú ceannais ag deireadh na seachtaine. Ní hionann sin agus Tír Chonaill! ..
go raibh sé deacair go leor idirdhealú a dheánamh idir dathanna Chorcaí agus na Gaillimhe Dé Domhnaigh, beo ná ar an teilifís. Cad chuige nár iarradh orthu athrú? ..
go raibh traenáil Chill Chainnigh druidte don phobal mhór le cúpla seachtain anuas. Is dócha gur cuimhin libh cúpla bliain ó shin nuair a tháinig thar dheich míle a fheiceáil an raibh Henry Shefflin slán go leor imirt in éadan Tiobraid Árainn sa chluiche ceannais. An bhfuil faitíos anois ar Chody? ..
gur imir Katie Taylor peil faoi aois le Bray Emmett’s agus cumann Feargal Óg i mBré Cuilinn. D’imir na dornálaithe eile Darren O’Neill agus Adam Nolan iomáint faoi aois lena gclub dúchais i gCill Chainnigh agus i Loch gCarman. Má bhíonn an cinneadh, an cur chuige agus an scil ag lúthchleasaí i réimse amháin spórt is féidir leis nó léi deánamh go maith i réimse eile, agus is cinnte go dtiocfadh leis na laochra sin dul chun cinn a dheánamh i gcluichí CLG fosta. ..
go bhfuil an t-iarimreoir sacair, iomána agus peile gaelaí Niall Quinn anois ina bhainisteoir ar an dara foireann sinsear de chuid Bhaile Éide (Eadestown) agus gur bhain siad go furast i gcraobhchomórtas Chill Dara. An bhfaighidh sé bibín Kieran McGeeny roimh i bhfad?
It is unsurprising that the right-wing English newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, should call Ireland’s ambassadorial female boxer, Katie Taylor, British.
Katie Taylor, plastic Brit!
They have a habit of doing that. Like the words they have made their own from possibly every known langauge in the world to make up the English language, the English take the success of other nation’s to boost their self-image.
Irish writers have been victims of this, Seamus Heaney being the most famous. When he was to be included in the 1982 Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry, he wrote the famous lines:
“Be advised my passport’s green/No glass of ours was ever raised/To toast the Queen.”
But the Irish have always been seen to be England’s court jesters. the nation who would entertain them, on TV – Terry Wogan, Brendan O’Carroll, Eamon Andrews – in music (I use the term advisedly) with Westlife, Boyzone and latterly Jedward – and the myriad of comedians that are plying or who have plied their trade across the water – Dave Allen, Ed Byrne, Dylan Moran, Dara O’Briain, Ardal O’Hanlon, Graham Norton and many others.
(Did you know Jimmy Carr was born in County Clare, by the way?)
Now, I’m not in any way tyring to demean any of the above (apart from Jedward) – far from it, but the Irish seem to have a particular role to play in the English psyche – if you can laugh with them or sing along with them, then you don’t fear them. and if you can laugh with them or sing along with them, then you can support them in their sporting endeavours, which is why the English so often support Irish teams in various competitions, often confusing the Irish and embarrassing them as they contrast the bonhomie with their own atavistic antagonism to all things English.
But the English have, with the onset of devolution, have had to look at themselves, ask who they are, what the stand for, how they see themselves in the future, in a “United Kingdom” or as an independent nation.
I read a Scottish writer – I’ll give him credit when I get the source – who wrote that when the English look at themselves, they see the English Defence League because no-one else has come up with a more expansive definition of Englishness. The dominant tenets of Englishness are seen as exclusiveness, mistrust and, the constant companion of a superiority complex, fear.
They see Britishness – a term I’ve never, ever heard properly explained – standing for inclusiveness, pride, forward-thinking. No wonder the English are so fond of it as a self-moniker. They just want to be loved and will bond with anybody who can help their self-image.
John Terry beats Usain Bolt - not!
We’ve all seen the satirical made-up pictures of John Terry taking part in various impossible victories, they are in a way a reference to the current state of the English psyche.
Little wonder then, the Daily Telegraph would turn Katie Taylor into a Brit, plastic or otherwise.
But the Sunday Independent is telling us we’ve moved on as a nation. We’re more mature now. Don’t we just love Britain’s wee queen and all her kith and kin, like the royalty we never had.
At least the Telegraphy doesn’t claim the whole of Ireland as British any more, just our Katie, so they’ve moved on too. Be thankful.
One of the most enjoyable nights I every spent in my native city was on Belfast’s first Culture Night, a balmy evening filled with wonderment and magic and smiles.
The Cathedral Quarter was like the bit of The Wizard of Oz which goes from monochrome to technicolor.
On September 21st this year, Culture Night will return spreading its magic out across the city in what promises to be an unforgettable experience.
Here’s most of the official press release. It this doesn’t whet your appetite, hold your wrist and check for a pulse.
The countdown clock has begun ticking on Belfast’s biggest, most colourful and inclusive cultural celebration.
On Friday 21 September 2012, Culture Night Belfast will once more radically transform the streets of Belfast, indoors and out, upstairs and downstairs, in a magical evening of exploration and adventure.
Last year, over 180 organisations and individuals performed, presented, curated, cultivated, illuminated, showed, screened, told and generally opened up to over 20,000 people across the city centre and beyond.
Culture Night Belfast Manager Adam Turkington said CNB 2012 would deliver an evening of free family-friendly fun, which would build on the success of last year: “During last year’s festivities, it was wonderful to witness the evening unfold as the city centre became a vast, colourful canvas for families and individuals, locals and tourists, artists and audiences to participate and contribute to. There was a real sense of ‘Belfast at its very best’. But this year, the gloves really are off!”
Culture Night Belfast 2012 will be the boldest yet, with a vast array of venues, galleries, artists, artists’ studios, performers, historic buildings, cultural organisations, churches, restaurants and many more already signed up to offer free performances, events, talks and tours.
Revealed early tasters include Transatlantic Diner (a one-off live link-up between local dining legends Blinkers and a New York diner) and the Belfast Film Festival’s screening of the crowd-sourced Star Wars Uncut. Forum for Alternative Belfast and NI Opera will transform the beautiful Tivoli Barber Shop once more with cacophonously cutthroat excerpts from Sweeney Todd.
Elsewhere there’s a Meditation Flash Mob on the loose, a mysterious Street of Magic, a perplexing Perspex Pyramid, and of course Belfast vs the Flying Saucers.
These are just a few of the awe-inspiring range of activities and events taking place across the city centre and beyond that will make the fourth Culture Night Belfast an incomparable interactive extravaganza for all.
Organisers won’t give much more away until the Culture Night programme launch on 30 August, but have disclosed plans for a centrepiece, sixties-inspired, ‘Love and Peace Parade’ which will take place on Donegall Street throughout the evening to mark World Peace Day (which also just happens to falls on 21 September). Big, shiny, non-contentious parades aside, CNB 2012 promises something exciting around every corner, suitable for all ages, tastes and shoe sizes.
All Culture Night events are absolutely free and open to everyone in Belfast’s “big night out”. If you have an idea or suggestion or want to find out more, you can interact with Culture Night Belfast on Facebook, Twitter (@CultureNightBel) or culturenightbelfast.com
MacGiolla Bháin, the story of the meltdown of the biggest club in Scottish soccer.
