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.

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.

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.