Interview with Dublin City FM on Tales from Aulora

listen to ‘Interview with Dublin City FM on Tales from Aulora’ on Audioboo

Interview with Declan of the morning show on East Coast FM

listen to ‘Interview with Declan of the morning show on East Coast FM’ on Audioboo

Review of The Goat or Who is Sylvia

Stevie in The Goat states that life is supposed to run in a straight line when she learns that her husband is in love with Sylvia, who also happens to be a goat. There are some things that a woman can get her head around, be it infidelity with another woman or the loss of love, but to be told by her husband of 25 years that he loves her and a goat on an equal basis is something that Stevie cannot comprehend or the audience for that matter.

When genuine customer service goes a long way

On the 6.35pm train from Heuston-Dublin to Waterford there is a catering attendant who is the epitome of customer service. I regularly see him pushing the food and drinks trolley up and down the aisle with a cheery smile and a genuine demeanour that lifts just about any bad mood. In these days of self service, automated robotic service, carousel-moving-shove-the-goods into the bag as fast as you can service or the 'do I have to deal with you' service, he is a beacon of light in the rise of fake and declining customer service.  In particular his genuine customer service this evening really lifted me and when he wished me a lovely weekend despite me declining a sale of tea or coffee I wanted to thank him for treating me with a bit of decency because I needed it after the bus journey I had just endured.

Holding on for Christmas out now - #txs2 update

Holding on For Christmas the original single for #txs2 is launched. The wait is over and it was worth it. The song is fantastic with its upbeat tempo, catchy lyrics coupled with an amazing bridge that urges us to reach out and show someone that you care. Each of the soloists did an amazing job, Ian Callanan and Brenda Drumm expertly guided us and I feel immense pride that I was part of the choir. Yet underlying this as discussed in my previous blog post this is for Console who work day in and day out to assist those who feel suicidal or those who lost loved ones to suicide. When the first clip of the video to #txs2 revealed that in Ireland 500 people a year die from suicide, the stark reality of it hit me.

 

That is 500 deaths per year, often through violent means and 500 families grieving with their hearts ripped out asking / crying / sometimes screaming why? That's a lot of bloody hearts out there. It is how and why organisations like Console came about as they go some way to easing the hurt and saving lives. So please buy the song, apart from contributing to something special, you get the opportunity to bop to a really great song during the festive season so download Holding on for Christmas from Itunes for only 99c.

                On a final note I think it is both wonderful and ironic that through the power of Twitter, which is so often associated with cyber bullying and cruel trolling behaviour, that in this instance it has brought a group of ordinary people together to sing a song that will aid those in pain by being that helping hand who cares.   

Me at the launch of #txs2 - photo by Brenda Drumm

Twitter Xmas Single (#txs2) - singing for Console

From all corners of the country, be it car, train, bus or in one case by plane from the US, we converged at the Westin Hotel to sing for #txs2 (#twitterxmassingle). The twitter gathering came about in 2011 when Brenda Drumm tweeted ‘wouldn’t it be great if we made a twitter Christmas single’.  Little did she realise what she had unleashed.  Last year 140 people turned up to sing Winter Song to raise funds for the neo-natal unit in Holles Street.  

           On Sunday 11^th November, in response to Brenda’s #txs2 tweet, we came together to sing Holding on for Christmas which is an original song written by Ian Callanan, Brenda Drumm, Gavin Byrne and Alan Chadwick.  This year the charity of choice is Console, an organisation that resonates with me on a personal level.

The price tag on sexual assault / rape in Ireland

I am angry.  I am also worried that there is a trend developing within the Irish judiciary system that facilitates the commercialisation of sexual crimes.  In July this year Anthony Lyons was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 27 year old woman.  He was given a six year sentence whereby five and a half years was suspended and he was ordered to pay €75,000.  Lyons defence was that the effects of the cough medicine, alcohol and medication for high cholesterol "left him unable to resist what he did."

What’s the story? Newbridge: past, present and future

Below is a piece on the history of Newbridge that I read out on Culture Night (21 September 2012) with Cill Dara Writers’ Circle.  We held our event in the lovely St. Patrick’s church in Newbridge, where we also launched our second CD anthology ‘A Way with Words II’.  More details can be found on our facebook page. 

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Here in Newbridge, Culture night coincides with the tail end of the town’s 200 hundred year celebrations.  As such history meets culture this evening and I want to reflect on the intersection of these two.

The Bag Lady reads - Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James

In between the first and second reading of Cloud Atlas I downloaded Fifty Shades of Grey to see what everyone was talking about. Okay I fess up I bought it for the sexy bits.  When I finished the book I gave my review on Amazon, the gist of which was that it was clichéd and poorly written with an ending that was too abrupt for the reader.  I believe it was a manipulative tactic to ensure the reader immediately downloaded books 2 and 3.  I don’t take kindly to these types of parlour tricks so I never bought them.  

The Bag Lady Reads - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I love books, more specifically, I love stories built up by a collection of words.  The more beautiful, the better.  When there is that synergy of language and story-telling that comes from the heart along side characters that linger long after the book has been closed, the reader experiences that sense of contentment that only beautiful books can give.  Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is such a book.  The novel explores the ever-recurring philosophical facet of the human condition; goodness versus evil.

The future Irish writers

It is my belief that classic writing comprises of three aspects; a good story (heart), strong characters and quality writing.  Tonight I had the pleasure to listen to four young writers on KFM who all show promise in producing classic writing.  Each of them are a member of WriTeen Scene, a creative writing group that was formed last year by Brenda Drumm, Margaret Kane and myself.  So the reader of this blog may go ah...here is the bias.

Review of Trade

It’s a strange paradox that confessionals largely occur either with the priest or the prostitute.   Trade makes use of the confessional between an older man and a young rent boy whose services he has procured previously.   The play is stripped back to its bare essentials with a minimalist dialogue, a dingy B&B bedroom and two characters that remain nameless.  Yet despite the simplicity of the story and setting, there is nothing simple in the execution of this play.  It is honest, raw and cleverly places the audience as voyeur and witness to the complexity of both men’s lives.

A way with words - connecting the traditional with the digital

In his essay ‘Story-telling: The Gaelic tradition’ Declan Kiberd states that for “the past eighty years in Ireland, the short story has been the most popular form of all literary forms with readers,” and that it has “been the form most widely exploited by writers”.  Kiberd highlights that Patrick Pearse saw with “uncanny accuracy” that the future of Irish literature lay in the short story rather than the folk tale.  That essay, which formed part of a collection on the Irish short story, was published in 1979[i].  Over thirty years later the short story form continues to be widely exploited by Irish writers today.

Letting Go?

In the good mother’s way with her sons;
The fledged bird is thrown
From the nest – on its own
But the peasant in his little acres is tied
To a mother’s womb by the wind-toughened navel-cord
                                                        (excerpt from The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh)

In the summer of 2002 I visited an unusual place in the Garden County. Just outside Roundwood is an Indian Sculpture park called Victor’s way. This oddity in rural Ireland is owned and managed by Victor, who inherited the land and developed it into a philosophy park. The sculptures are strategically located around the place to enable the visitor to reflect upon the various stages of life.

Rejection: a fact of life

There are things we have to do in life and things we have to experience in life.  In order to survive we have to breathe, drink, eat, sleep and shelter from the elements.  As we develop emotionally and psychologically we experience a wide range of emotions, navigate relationships and ourselves.  To a greater or lesser degree we can control our emotions, avoid relationships and avoid experiences.  But there is one area of experience that we cannot avoid…that ever perennial problem of life; rejection.

Success - To fear or not to fear

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you…,”
                                                                           “Return to Love” by Marianne Williamson*

Despite the plethora of advice that tells us to think positive or use affirmations to heal or visualize the perfect life, career or lover, there is one crucial aspect missing from all this advice, which is the utter fear and dread of success. As odd as this sounds, many of us are terrified of it.

The two realities of Christmas

Christmas is a magical time; a time of being with family, friends, loved ones. A time of sitting round an open fire or a gas fire or an electric fire or no fire. A time of stuffing our faces with rich laden food, drinking too much alcohol and too many fizzy drinks. A time for experiencing the delight in children’s faces when they open their presents. It is a time of getting in touch with our Christian roots and our Pagan roots. It is a time of myth making, Santa Claus and believing in things that do not exist. Father Christmas and the birth of Jesus on the 25 of December are fictitious but both are representative of gift giving and new beginnings. There is celebration of a new hope and a new beginning but in order for that to happen there has to be death of the old. At Christmas time all above the ground is dead whilst below the ground new life is emerging.

The Demise of the Letter

In The Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane, Keane opens with a preface on the humble letter, stating that it is “the simplest and most permanent form of communication”.  Furthermore, he sees the epistolary form as a vastly underused resource in the literary world. John B. Keane put together a collection of ‘novelettes’ as he terms them from a series of “stock” Irish characters that includes the farmer, the matchmaker, the parish priest and the T.D. (a government representative in the Irish parliament).  Writers such as Samuel Richardson and Daniel Defoe used the letter as a literary device to give the reader an insight to the character's thoughts but also as a means to further the plot through time and life-like realism.  This resulted in the emergence of the novel as we know it today.  The epistolary was the earliest genre used for the novel.

Film Review: Adam & Paul

If Trainspotting is accused of glamourising heroin addiction and creating heroin chic, then Adam & Paul  is its grim, socio-realist counterpart, but there is nothing chic about this film. On any given day hooded scagheads lurch around the streets of Dublin city centre. They either have a look of desperation to score their next fix or they are spaced out in heroin heaven. Figures of hate, derision, fear or pity, they are the untouchables of Irish society. Adam & Paul charts the day in the life of two such addicts. It is an intensely funny and tragic film. It is a very Irish film that juxtaposes humour with pathos. Originally released in 2004 and written by Mark O’Halloran, the film is set during the height of the Celtic Tiger boom with Dublin as its epicenter. The life of Adam and Paul is contrasted sharply against this bright new consumerist world.

Beauty; in the eye of the cardholder?

Five hours (and who can do it less in?)

By haughty Celia spent in dressing,
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocade, and tissues.
                 (excerpt from The Lady’s Dressing Room by Jonathan Swift)

Written in 1732, The Lady’s Dressing Room deconstructs and mocks the fashionable dress of court women by detailing and parodying the products that created the ‘haughty Celia’.  Consumerism was rampant amongst the eighteenth century aristocracy which trickled down to the remaining social classes in England [1] causing Swift to challenge this rise of materialism in The Lady's Dressing Room.  The poem challenges manufactured female beauty and mocks those men who fall for it.