Dinner at the House of the Dead.

Sad to note that the House of the Dead on Ushers Quay in dear old Dublin has now closed and will not be available, this coming Bloomsday (16th June) for the wonderful Joycean dinner hosted by my great friend Brendan Kilty  that were such a joy in the years gone by.    This is a review...

The Bus Pass

Used my bus pass for the first time today. Caught the No: 13 from outside of  the Guinness brewery at St. James’s Gate; top deck front seat, out of the liberties through scruffy scruffy, down at heel Thomas Street,  out onto the glories of Christchurch and then down the gentle slope of Dame Street in...

Coffee Morning talk on the Roger Casement Painting.

  The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, holds a series of coffee morning talks on the paintings on exhibition in the gallery.  Such talks are for about 40 minutes, followed by questions and then to coffee for a continuing discussion.   This was my talk, on the 22nd June 2016,  given before the great canvas (10'...

The English Soldiers who came to crush rebellion

This piece was originally published in "An Cosantoir" (The Defender), edited by Wayne Fitzgerald and appeared in the 1916 -2016 Commemoration issue of March 2016 Who were they and where did they come from, those stern English soldiers, marching now towards the city, marching from Kingstown, marching through the spring Dublin sunshine, into the second...

Art Exhibition – Artists investigate the boundaries of privacy

Implicated is an exhibition by six artists in which they seek to investigate the boundaries of privacy.  As investigations go, this rather ephemeral and the exhibits are quite difficult to understand.   But one of the exhibits, by Billy Ward, a London based Englishman with a Fine Arts degree out of Chelsea College of Art surely...

Dermot Bolger’s adaptation of Ulysses – Edinburgh Fringe

If you were to seriously sit down and attempt to adapt Joyce’s Ulysses for the stage then you possibly ought not to do so without being supervised by a consultant psychiatrist. Alternatively you could prepare for such an epic task by ensuring a good supply of whiskey, perhaps a bottle per chapter, a continuous intravenous...

Sherwood Foresters who died in Dublin

To the memory of the 31 soldiers of the Sherwood Foresters Regiment who were killed in this and other areas of Dublin during the Easter Rising 1916 -Lest we Forget- (your can read their story here and here) L/Cpl Barks (Newark); Private Barnett (Loughbourgh); Private Blissett (Nottingham); Private Bradford (Alfreton); 2nd Lieut. Browne (Nottingham); L/Cpl...

You will grow to hate Dublin Taxis

Believe me, if you stay in Ireland for any period of time, you will grow to hate Dublin Taxis. To begin with there is simply no consistent method of determining whether an approaching or passing cab is free for hire. True they have oblong, rather tatty illuminated signs lashed to their roofs, but most such...

Twinkle Egan, Barrister, remembered.

She has been gone now for over six years, but still I see her striding through the law library, still hear her infectious raucous laughter, still remember her little, and not so little acts of kindness to new unsure and hesitant barristers making their way in that tough and daunting cauldron of Dublin’s law library....