The brand-leader – promoted at great expense – has a habit of sucking the oxygen out of the room for everyone else. This is no less the case with authors, and books, than with anything else. Ted Hughes was taking tea with the Queen while Basil Bunting, virtually unknown, was commuting to his newspaper job […]
Delighted to see the new review from Anne Cunningham, syndicated across a number of Irish newspapers, of Owen Dwyer’s new novel The Garfield Conspiracy. The book tells the tale of a successful novelist whose world unravels when he begins a relationship with an attractive young publishing assistant while researching his stalled book on the assassinated […]
We all want to be kind. It is fundamental to our well-being. Yet we live in a world of profound inequality, where only 1 percent of titled land is owned outright by women. Of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty, 70 percent are women or children, and nearly seven out of ten illiterate adults […]
Around a century ago, Ireland was plunged into a bloody civil war. The conflict pitted neighbour against neighbour, divided families, and resulted in an estimated two thousand deaths – a large number for a small country. When the shooting stopped, how was the simmering conflict resolved? Ultimately, a great deal of the healing was done […]
Happy Bloomsday all. I was going to post about our new fiction imprint, Ely’s Arch, coming your way on 14 July, but that can wait. We often forget that, among other things, James Joyce was an enthusiastic exponent of new technology. After all, he helped launch Ireland’s first commercial cinema, the (short-lived) Volta. If he […]
I don’t know if “enjoyed” is the right word, but last night’s RTÉ One programme on #partition, as part of the #DecadeofCentenaries, certainly made for satisfying viewing. Michael Portillo, who will be more familiar to many as a railway enthusiast than as a one-time prospective future leader of the UK Conservatives, was an engaging presenter, […]
Great launch last night for #ThePursuitofKindness by Éamonn Toland. Many thanks to legendary (and sprightly!) editor Alan Rinzler for launching, Hannah Bright of Midas PR for hosting, and all the attendees, for some insightful questions. Most of all, to the man of the moment, Éamonn, who talks a good game as well as writing a […]
At the weekend, I was lucky enough to get to the National Gallery to see the exhibition New Perspectives: the artworks the gallery has acquired over the past decade. Alongside some fine oil paintings – which you might have been expecting – there are plenty of photographs, as well as line drawings, along with one […]
Many moons ago, I was a student in a tutorial on Late Anglo-Saxon England – a growth area in historical research at the time. (Hard to believe that there are growth areas even in such staid professions, but there you have it.) Our tutor passed around a number of grisly-looking weapons of war for our […]
“Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realise his wishes. Now that he can realise them, he must either change them or perish.” –––William Carlos Williams For much of modern human history, it has been believed that survival of the fittest holds sway. Or, to put it another way, […]