Cara Magazine Oct/Nov 2011 by Image Publications

Cara Magazine October/November 2011

October/November 2011

Artist Sean Scully Dublin French Alps Chicago Zurich

Hitting the right note Meet singer

Alicante Joseph O’Connor

Lisa Hannigan and Ireland’s new music-makers

HOT SPOT

Alicante rediscovered

TAKE A TOUR

Go walkabout in Dublin

CHICAGO, CHICAGO Belinda McKeon on her kind of town

ON THE PISTE

Where to ski in the French Alps

INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ZURICH caramagazine.com Where to eat, drink and stay

AUGUST 2011

| 1 COMPLIMENTARY COPY

Your experts on the ground in Ireland. Welcome from Ireland’s leading corporate banking team.

For international companies operating in Ireland AIB is the corporate bank of choice. We’re a corporate bank that thinks globally. We see the big picture – we do everything in our power to support visionary ideas. We’re experienced, with dedicated teams working in sectors in which they have specific expertise. We strive to fulfil all your banking requirements and overseas companies locating here have benefited from that for years. We have a dedicated unit focused on Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland. But we also remember that, for a company setting up a business in Ireland, getting the finance in place is just the first step. Because it’s not just about supporting business requirements, it’s about supporting people, and making the move as simple as possible. In an increasingly complex business world, AIB Global Corporate Banking still believes in keeping it personal. Contact details: Diarmuid O’Neill Head of International Corporate Banking, AIB Global Corporate Banking, AIB Bankcentre, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Tel: +353 1 641 4808 Email: diarmuid.e.o’neill@aib.ie

AIB Global Corporate Banking Making Business Happen

AIB Global Corporate Banking is a registered business name of Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Registered Office: Bankcentre, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Ireland. Registered in Ireland, No. 24173 .

Contents October/November 22

NEWS 06 ARRIVALS We meet Aer Lingus’s frequent ﬂyers at Dublin Airport’s T2

Hot young talent Bressie

09 NEWS DIARY The dates to save for October and November

10 NEWS HOTEL From glamping to pristine suites – check out the latest hotel openings and refurbs 12 NEWS RESTAURANT The latest openings from the seasoned professionals

Chicago dreamscape

FEATURES

22 THE MUSIC MAKERS Tony Clayton-Lea meets the brightest young singers, performers and musicians on the Irish music scene 34 A MAN OF VISION International artist Sean Scully talks to Gemma Tipton about the art of painting, parenting, travel and how he manages living in three places at once 40 A CAPITAL IDEA Four writers go walkabout in Dublin and uncover hidden treasures 50 HIT THE SLOPES It’s snowtime and Karen Creed tests her ski skills on the slopes of Morzine 58 MY KIND OF TOWN It’s love at ﬁrst sight when author Belinda McKeon visits Chicago 71 AIRSPACE Writer Joseph O’Connor’s commemorative poem to celebrate Aer Lingus’s 75th anniversary

The best of Alicante

34 Artist’s impression

14 NEWS SHOPPING Gadgets to Go: Sive O’Brien has new gizmos and gadgets 16 NEWS PEOPLE My Travel Tips: international rugby referee Alain Rolland shares his how-tos 18 NEWS PEOPLE What’s in my suitcase: rising fashion force Simone Rocha on the contents of her case 20 NEWS BOOKS Shelf life: Claire Brophy on the latest must reads

REGULARS 65 AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ZURICH Irish artist Sarah Honner captures her favourite Swiss spots on camera 68 TAKE ME TO THE SUN ALICANTE Paul O’Doherty enjoys a taste of the real Spain 75 AER LINGUS INFLIGHT News, inﬂight entertainment and route maps to while away your journey

96 TRIP OF A LIFETIME Co-skipper Damian Foxall remembers tough times in the Barcelona World Race

Flying high Cover: Lisa Hannigan photographed by Trevor Hart at The Odessa Club, Dublin.

Smart traveller

CONtrIButOrS eDItOral editor Frances Power editorial Consultant Laura George editorial assistant Cassie Delaney Contributors Sive O’Brien, Claire Brophy

When bestselling author Joseph O’Connor was commissioned to write a piece to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Aer Lingus’s first flight, he didn’t want to create a piece laden down with facts and figures. Instead, he wanted to capture the indefinable aura that Irish people feel Aer Lingus has. He wrote “Airspace”, which we begin to serialise this month on page 71, earlier this year when the country was buried in heavy snow, and for a short time, we were isolated from the rest of the world. “Severe snow cut us off from the world for a while,” says Joe. “In a small way, that separation reminded me of the longing we feel for other lands, other dreams, of the connections that Aer Lingus has existed to serve.”

art art Director Clare Meredith aDvertISING account Director Clodagh Edwards, 01 271 9634, clodagh.edwards@image.ie ad manager Mary Ryan, 01 271 9625, mary.ryan@image.ie advertising Copy Contact Derek Skehan, 01 855 3855, dereks@typeform.ie aDmINIStratION Head of Pr & Promotions Linda McEvitt 01 271 9643, linda.mcevitt@image.ie Oﬃce manager Tina Koumarianos accounts Olga Gordeychuk

PrINtING Boylan Print Group OrIGINatION Typeform Cara magazine is published on behalf of Aer Lingus by Image Publications, 22 Crofton Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland, 01 280 8415; advertising sales, 01 271 9625; fax 01 280 8309; image.ie, email info@image.ie. Company registration number 56663 © Image Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. Editorial material and opinions expressed in Cara Magazine do not necessarily reﬂect the views of Aer Lingus or Image Publications Ltd. Aer Lingus and Image Publications Ltd do not accept responsibility for the advertising content. Please note that unsolicited manuscripts or submissions will not be returned. All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. Production in whole or part is prohibited without prior permission from Image Publications Ltd.

Cara Magazine is a member of Magazines Ireland, PPA UK, FAEP and FIPP.

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August 2011

PHOTOGRAPH BY HIROKI KOBAYASHI

BOarD OF DIreCtOrS managing Director & Publisher Richard Power, richard.power@image.ie Chairman Robert Power Director Ann Reihill Director Patrick Dillon-Malone

Belinda mcKeon visited Chicago in June to take part in the Printers Row Literary Festival; she was reading there from her debut novel Solace, which was published earlier this year. “Because my granduncles had emigrated to Chicago in the 1960s, the city had almost mythical associations for me all through my childhood, but despite living just down the road in New York, I’d never spent time in the city until this trip,” says McKeon. “The architecture, the sense of space, blew me away. I couldn’t stop staring. Again, you think I’d be used to skyscrapers, living where I do, but no.” McKeon, who makes a living as an arts journalist and curator, in fact divides her time between Brooklyn and Co Leitrim, which may explain why she needs a ﬁx of majestic skylines every now and then. You can read about her ﬁrst impressions of Chicago on page 58.

Dividing her time between Dublin and Kinsale, writer Gemma tipton loves art, travel and horses. She says that Dublin is best for the art galleries, great bars, family and friends; and Kinsale for the glorious scenery and fabulous food, plus there are brilliant pubs and good friends there. Kinsale is also where the love of her life, her horse, Bosco, lives. “So I’m really spoiled for choice,” she says. Living in two places can be complicated, you have to be very organised about what is meant to be and to happen, where and when. That’s why she’s full of admiration for artist Sean Scully, who she interviews for Cara this month on page 34, and who manages to live in three places: Barcelona, Bavaria and New York. “Although his work is abstract, you can see the diﬀerent kinds of light and senses of those places coming through in his paintings,” says Gemma.

Arrivals Frequent Flyers

 The glamorous CAROL SOLOMON has ﬂown to Dublin from North Carolina to celebrate a friend’s 90th birthday.

Not all frequent ﬂyers are business folk as Cara discovered when we visited Aer Lingus’s home terminal T2 recently to snap some new arrivals. Photographs by Anthony Woods.

 GINNY CALLAWAY, left, and DAVID HOLT, far right, have ﬂown from North Carolina to meet friend JACK LYNCH, centre. Jack and David are renowned storytellers and the three friends are heading oﬀ to the Cape Clear Storytelling Festival.

 Businessman GUIDO FRACKERS is no stranger to the skies. As a travel manager for Symphony Orchestras, he spends 200 days of the year on the go. When he’s not globetrotting, Guido lives in California.

 “It’s lovely to be home,” laughs GARY ARMSTRONG, left, “beautiful cloudy skies again!” Gary and friend GAVIN SMYTH, right, have just ﬂown back with Aer Lingus from Geneva, where they mountain biked through the Alps.

WORDS BY CASSIE DELANEY

film director  English film SOPHIE FIENNES is filming a new in Ireland filming documentary. She and son Horrace were happy to be in front of the camera for once!

 It’s all systems go for CIARA COSGROVE. Working for an Irish company in Frankfurt for the last two months, she is now back in Dublin on business. “It’s my ﬁrst time home,” she says, “I was delighted landing. Seeing the grey skies actually cheered me up!”

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

 “I love your country,” says BLANDINE DE PARSCAU, “especially when there is five five minutes of sun!” She has flown flown from Lyon to Dublin for a wedding and plans to make the most of her week-long trip by visiting Connemara and Galway.

 Frenchman GWENVAEL RONSIN-HARDY has arrived in Dublin for an annual business trip. He has just 24 hours in the city before he catches a ﬂight to Perpignan.

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news DiArY

October/November 3

roisin Fitzpatrick, new York irish artist Roisin Fitzpatrick opens her solo exhibition – her works use silk and fine crystals to reflect light and draw on Celtic mythology and astronomy for inspiration. Runs October 3 to november 16, at the Consulate General of ireland, new york, 345 Park avenue; for more information, roisinfitzpatrick.com. Aer Lingus FLies FROM duBLin TO new York daiLy, and FROM shannOn TO new York, FOuR TiMes a week.

The Little Musuem, Dublin The long-awaited Little Museum opens, oﬀering an eclectic and totally charming view of dublin. Powered by Trevor white, the man behind Cityofathousandwelcomes.com, the collection will grow and change over time – it’s made up of donations and loans from civic-minded citizens. From €5.95. at 15 st stephen's Green, dublin 2; littlemuseum.ie.

What’s happening this autumn

glasnevin Cemetery tour, Dublin For an eery festive thrill, try the Glasnevin Gravedigger Cemetery Tour. Tours are led by Gravedigger Jim, an expert on all the local legends. don't forget your garlic! Family tickets (two adults and up to three children) from €15. Runs October 26 to October 31, Glasnevin Cemetery, dublin 11; glasnevintrust.ie.

Berlin Festival of Light Forget Tinseltown. For twelve sparkly nights, Berlin’s most famous landmarks shimmer and shine in the world's largest illumination festival. For a touch of romance, try a Light Carriage; a 45-minute tour around the city in a horsedrawn carriage (all lit-up, of course). Magic. Runs October 12 to 23; festival-of-lights.de. Aer Lingus FLies FROM duBLin TO BerLin daiLy.

irish Jewellery Celebration, Dublin Passing through Terminal 1 and 2 of dublin airport, you might notice the ﬂash of a blowtorch or the sound of a hammer. it’s just some of the country’s ﬁnest jewellery designers hard at work on their craft. demos and this unique exhibition run november 14 to Christmas week. For more details, giveirishcraft.com.

Taste of Christmas, Dublin yes, Christmas has come early this year. Prepare for the festive season with how-to tutorials from some of ireland’s top chefs, stock up on artisan cheeses, chocolates or get your turkey. and don’t miss the Taste Chef’s Table, where you a get a chance to quiz the experts. Tickets, €15. Runs november 25-27, at the Convention Centre, dublin 1; tasteofchristmas.ie. october/november 2011

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news hotel

esCaPe Smart stays and fresh hotel openings. Corinthia, london

If its glitz and glamour you want, book your room at the new Corinthia in London right now. The revamped hotel (with a £300 million investment) is gloriously lavish, boasting a four-storey ESPA Life spa decked out with a silver swimming pool and semi-submerged glass sauna. The public spaces are just as breathtaking, a David Collins’ designed bar that showpieces a seven-metre long counter which morphs into a grand piano. Seriously. The bedrooms are a little more quietly elegant. And of course, it is just 150 metres from the oﬃcial epicentre of London (Charing Cross Station apparently), so walking distance from the sights. Worth a splurge. Rooms from £450. Whitehall Place, London, 0044 207 930 8181; corinthia.com. aer lingus fLIES fRom DubLIn, ShAnnon, CoRk AnD bELfAST To london heathrow DAILy.

one Fine stay, london

Want to holiday like a local? Check into one of one fine Stay’s properties and you’re staying in the house of a Londoner, given a suggested itinerary compiled by the owner of their favourite places and left to wander round for an explore. It’s a great idea, especially for longer stays. And has all the benefits of a cleaning service and staff on 24/7, if you want them. They’ll even kit out your bathroom with those small bottles of fancy shampoo, courtesy of The White Company. fresh to their list is Trinity Close, a bright, airy spot planted right in the heart of London’s bustling Clapham, perfect for forays into the city. Trinity Close, old Clapham Town. Rooms from £179 per night; onefinestay.com. aer lingus fLIES fRom DubLIn, ShAnnon, CoRk AnD bELfAST To london heathrow DAILy.

Meadow Cottage, east sussex

the Pod, new york

Talk about bijoux. meadow Cottage at Swallowtail hill farm is like a doll’s house on wheels. or a divine caravan. but while it looks tiny from the outside, it actually sleeps four and once you’ve stayed there, you’ll never want to leave. It sits in lovely farmland, all wildﬂower meadows, coppice woodlands and undulating hills and kids can feed the pigs, sheep and chickens. The farm oﬀers plenty to do, from woodland craft courses to archery lessons. from £53 pp per night (minimum stay two nights). Swallowtail hill farm, Rye, East Sussex. 0044 127 53 95 447; canopyandstars.co.uk.

usually a cheap new york hotel means staying out in the sticks, but The Pod hotel’s uSP is that it’s not only budget but slapbang in midtown. It’s a high-design concept with great public spaces – a rooftop terrace for soaking up city views, a Pod Lounge where you can order breakfast, snacks and drinks all day. Rooms come in bunkbed, single or queen – the ﬁrst two share bathrooms on each ﬂoor, the queen has its own pint-sized en suite. And there’s even a Studio Suite available on a monthly basis. Tiny? yes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be funky. Double room from $179. 230 East 51st Street, new york, 001 212 3 55 03 00; thepodhotel.com.

aer lingus fLIES fRom DubLIn, ShAnnon, CoRk AnD bELfAST To london heathrow DAILy.

aer lingus fLIES fRom DubLIn To new york DAILy, AnD fRom ShAnnon, fouR TImES A WEEk.

SAVE THE DATE Love vintage? On November 13, check out the Dublin Vintag e Fashion and Décor Fair where over 50 vintage fans will have their wares on show. At the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laogha ire, Co Dublin from 11.30am to 6.30pm. 10 |

october/november 2011

neWs restAurAnt

food file Check out the new foodie hotspots served up by a host of seasoned professionals. ClodAgh mCKennA At Arnotts, dublin

Shoppers at dublin’s much-loved northside emporium Arnotts may have noticed that its Studio Café has been revamped with the help of one of the country’s busiest food champions, Clodagh Mckenna. now, Homemade by Clodagh Mckenna is just the place to pause for lunch after a hard morning’s work raking through the rails (we hear their new Coach range of accessories is well worth a visit) october sees the opening of the redesigned Aspire restaurant at Arnotts, again with the help of Clodagh, with even more mouthwatering irish goodies. one to add to your shopping list. 12 Henry Street, dublin 1, 01 805 0400; arnotts.ie.

gordon rAmsAy’s breAd street KitChen, london

Take an East London warehouse, add in a sprinkling of Gordon ramsay, a dollop of interior designer russell Sage, and you get the Bread Street kitchen, the human tornado’s latest opening. This is a laidback spot, less ﬁne dining than somewhere to meet friends for a drink and something tasty from the raw bar or the wood-burning oven. The bustle of the open kitchen promises to add a bit of theatre to the space (russell Sage, remember, is the man who glammed up the royal suite at the Goring hotel in Belgravia for the Middletons). Here he has gone with the East End vibe and used reclaimed furniture, vintage armchairs and exposed brick. 10 Bread Street, London, 0044 207 592 1616; breadstreetkitchen.com.

the WhitefriAr grill, dublin

Hardly has Conrad Gallagher left the premises of Salon des Saveurs, than in comes chef Geoff nordell, ex-La Stampa and La Mere Zou, to open his first restaurant, The Whitefriar Grill. Like just about every chef worth their salt these days, he is going big on local, seasonal ingredients with starters like twice-baked Mount Callan cheese soufflé or bone marrow with oxtail marmalade, salsa Verdi and toasted sourdough and mains such as slowcooked rabbit in white wine with pancetta, grain mustard and buttery mash. But he also boasts one other special ingredient – wallet friendly prices – which makes for a winning combo. 16 Aungier Street, dublin 2, 089 46 17 429; whitefriargrill.ie.

Aer lingus fLiES froM duBLin, SHAnnon, Cork And BELfAST To london heAthroW dAiLy.

Alyn WilliAms At the Westbury, london

Having spent four years as Marcus Wareing’s head chef at The Berkeley in London, chef Alyn Williams is finally stepping out alone. The venue was formerly the Artisan at Mayfair’s swanky Westbury hotel, and will no doubt draw London’s power-lunchers. Williams aims to combine flawless service with a relaxed atmosphere and very fine dining indeed. Sample menu? Starters of Aquitaine caviar and Granny Smith apple and full-hearted British produce like Cornish “ruby red” beef with oxtail, parsley and truffle. Puds will pay homage to nostalgia – with goodies such as walnut whip with vanilla and walnut ice cream. Expect richness, grandeur and elegance. Bond Street, Mayfair, 0044 westburymayfair.com. Aer lingus fLiES froM duBLin, SHAnnon, Cork And BELfAST To london heAthroW dAiLy

t, for the annual food festival, with street SAVE THE DATE – October 7 is the day to head to Kinsale, gourmet hotspo gastronomic blowout; kinsalerestaurants.com. cook-offs a tour of the town’s foodie highlights (with tasters) and a black tie 12 |

october/november 2011

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NEWS SHOPPING

GADGETS TO GO

Planning a getaway? Here’s our pick of the slickest gizmos to make your trip easier. By Sive O’Brien.

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7 1 GOLF GPS WATCH Garmin, €166.94 at amazon.co.uk 2 NATURAL SLEEPING AID PROJECTOR LightSleeper, €144 at lightsleeper.co.uk 3 NOISE-CANCELLATION LINX AUDIO HEADSET Able Planet, €44 at ableplanet.com 4 IPHONE 4 COVER Tine Isachsen, €27 at giantsparrows. co.uk 5 PERSONAL 3D VIEWER Sony, to order at Sony stores 6 E-PL2 DIGITAL CAMERA Olympus, €899.99 at Conns Cameras, Dublin 2 7 KINDLE WI-FI €127.67 at amazon.com 8 POLAROID 300 INSTANT CAMERA €109.99 at cameracentre.ie 9 TRIP SOUND SYSTEM SUITCASE €395 at travelteq.com.

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

IT’S TIME FOR

A BETTER

IT’S TIME FOR THE SAMSUNG GAL A X Y TAB Amazingly thin, fast and light. With Android™ 3.1 and Adobe® Flash® Player. It’s the tablet that’s changing the tablet. Welcome to more possibilities on the go.

Android Market, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Talk are trademarks of Google, Inc. Adobe and Flash are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems.

www.samsung.com/ie/galaxytab/10-1

news PeoPle

My Travel Tips Alain Rolland

Former rugby player turned international rugby referee, Alain Rolland, talks to Sive O’Brien. With three Irish caps, 30 Leinster caps and now the title of one of the world’s leading referees for international rugby, there’s not a lot this guy doesn’t know about the game. He has a tough job officiating some of the strongest (and biggest!) men in rugby, but Alain stands apart from his peers, being the only player-turned-ref to umpire international rugby, right now. With two rugby world cups under his belt as a ref, he’s currently on the elite ten-man referee panel for the Rugby World Cup in Auckland. A hectic schedule takes him all over the globe to the largest stadiums and into the heart of the action. When he’s not trying to keep the game moving or reminding players of the rules, he’s working as a mortgage broker for Cornmarket Insurance in Dublin, where he lives with his wife and four children.

OUR 4 TOp RUgby AwAy FixTURes, 2011

world Cup Final, october 23, Auckland Old enemies New Zealand and Australia are tipped to meet in the ﬁnal, which should be an epic. And no better venue than the 100-year-old Eden Park stadium.

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october/november 2011

edinburgh v leinster, Rabo Direct Pro 12, oct 28, edinburgh Murrayﬁeld can lack atmosphere for these Pro 12 games, and Leinster’s record here is not good. But the pubs along Rose Street await, whatever the result.

FoR THe BesT RUGBY ATMosPHeRe It’s hard to beat Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and the Stade de France in Paris. Both are well worth the trip for the electric atmosphere they generate. I’m lucky enough to referee in the best stadiums in the world and nothing beats the atmosphere at an England v Wales match in Cardiff. Do YoUR ReseARCH Rugby sites like irb.com or planetrugby.com have super travel tips for rugby match destinations and tickets as well as the full run-down on games and venues. BAGGAGe AllowAnCe I’ve recently noticed how strict airlines are with the 10kg carry-on allowance, so make sure you get a good quality nifty bag that fits everything you need for a short trip to a match and weigh it at home before you go. sKYPe If, like me, you travel a lot, make sure your laptop has Skype so you can stay in touch with your family. It’s the most precious thing when you are away a lot to see your children and hear all about what happened in their day. AIRPoRT PARKInG I pay for parking online before I fly, it’s so much cheaper and makes for more efficient travelling. If you’re travelling to Terminal 1 in Dublin airport, park in Block C, Level 3 and stroll straight across to check-in,

Castres olympique v Munster, Heineken Cup, november 19, Castres A clash of two gnarled rugby sides in Pool 1 of the European Cup. It won’t be pretty, but it’s worth a trip into the heartland of rugby in France.

it takes a nifty two minutes. For Terminal 2, park on Level 5 – the closest car spaces to the terminal, just a seven-minute walk. To loUnGe The Aer Lingus lounge at Terminal 2 at Dublin airport is great for some chill-out time before you board. If you’re not a gold circle member, you can pay for the luxury – it’s well worth it. JeT lAG For longhaul flights like New Zealand, stay away from alcohol, drink three litres of water gradually and, most importantly, do some stretching exercises before you board and en route. You’d be surprised how much better you feel when you are less tense. Avoid Rugby World Cup jetlag by staying awake on the London to Hong Kong flight, then sleep from Hong Kong to Auckland so you arrive having just napped. It really helps me get through the first day with ease. It’s what the players are advised to do to keep them in the right time zone and at optimum fitness. In AUCKlAnD The infrastructure is well set up and there are trains and buses from the minute you arrive. Avoid the taxis that approach you at arrivals, they may just rip you off. Instead look out for Rugby World Cup volunteers, they’re everywhere to help you get the most out of your trip.

Bath v leinster, Heineken Cup, December 11, Bath Defending champions Leinster travel to the Rec in the pool stages of the European Cup. Expect the genteel city of Jane Austen to be rocked to its foundations.

LOUIS FITZGERALD HOSPITALITY City Centre Heritage Pubs Dublin & Galway

GRAND CENTRAL 10/11 O’Connell St, Dublin 1 Tel: 01 8728658

Dating back to the 19th century, it was partly destroyed in the 1916 rising. Today you can still enjoy some of the original features, high dome ceilings and hand crafted stone, but now complimented with plush leather seats and dramatic chandeliers. Superb food served daily.

Temple Bar, Ph: +353 1 670 8777 www.arlingtonhoteltemplebar.com

O’Connell Bridge Ph: +353 1 804 9100 www.arlington.ie

Traditional Irish hospitality awaits you in the Arlington Hotels. Boasting 200 Bedrooms in the Heart of the City. Experience the true Dublin and stay with us in these Iconic Locations.

KEHOES

9 South Anne, Dublin 2 Tel: 01 6778312 Situated off Dublin’s premier shopping street, Grafton Street. This is one of the finest, if not the finest, Victorian pub in Dublin. Although it is unchanged since 19th century, this is not a museum, it is a buzzing vibrant pub with a fantastic atmosphere and a special place in the heart of Dubliners. This is a must see.

THE STAGS HEAD 1 Dame Court, Dublin 1 Tel: 01 6793687

Established in the 1700’s, it was last renovated in 1895 and was the first pub in Dublin to change from gas lighting to electricity. A favourite haunt for those in the literary world including Joyce and Kavanagh over the years. Today it still has the authentic feel of a real Dublin pub.

THE QUAYS

11-12 Temple Bar, Dublin 1 Tel: 01 6713922 The Quays, Temple Bar situated in the heart of Temple Bar is one of Dublin’s liveliest pubs with a great mix of locals and tourists. Live Irish Traditional Music everyday makes the pub a magnet for those of us looking for a bit of craic and with a restaurant on the first floor.

THE LOUIS FITZGERALD HOTEL ��

THE BAGGOT INN Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2 Tel: 01 6618758

The Baggot Inn offer you the original and unique ‘Pour your own Pint’ experience. Located in the hub of Dublin’s business centre, we serve a wide variety of hot and tasty food. First Failte Ireland Approved Dublin Pub check out the Baggot inn FREE APP.

THE QUAYS

Quay Street, Galway Tel: 091 568347 The Quays, situated in the heart of Galway city and established in the 1600’s, it has kept the charm which gained it an international reputation for its traditional Irish music sessions. Traditional Irish fare, the best of music and the 'craic' are the order of the day.

� Awarded Irelands Best Value Hotel 2010 � 190 bedrooms

� 21 meetings rooms

� Amazing Wedding packages available Newlands Cross, Dublin 22. Tel: 01 403 3300 Email: stay@louisfitzgeraldhotel.com www.louisfitzgeraldhotel.com

AN POITIN STIL

JOELS RESTAURANT

Award winning thatched Restaurant & Bar with its own Stil and quirky museum. An Poitin Stil is one of Ireland’s Most Famous Pubs.

Modern and bright, Joels is one of Dublin’s livliest dining venues, with an extensive menu catering for almost every taste.

Rathcoole, Co. Dublin Tel: 01 4589244

Naas Rd, Dublin 22 Tel: 01 4592968

A warm welcome awaits you from all the staff at the Louis Fitzgerald Group

www.louisfitzgerald.com

NEWS PEOPLE

WHAT’S IN MY SUITCASE

Simone Rocha If you haven’t heard of this up-and-coming fashion designer – memorise her name, fast. She’s the daughter of one of Ireland’s most celebrated designers, John Rocha, and at the tender age of 25, she’s already a fashion force to be reckoned with. One year out of Central Saint Martin’s college in London and she’s already stepping out from under her father’s shadow. Her first first knockout solo show at London Fashion Week was in September; this month, she shows in Milan as part of the Vogue Talent show, while her first first collaboration diffusion diff usion collection has just launched at high-street giant Topshop. Her designs hang in the hippest hubs: Havana in Dublin, Colette in Paris and I.T in Hong Kong. Travel is part of her life, whether it’s a quick trip to visit manufacturers in Italy, Paris for a fabric fair, Dublin, where her knits are made or Dalston in East London, the place she calls home. One to watch; simonerocha.com. Sive O’Brien 1

5 9 10 7 12

11 1 ACETATE SUNGLASSES Illesteva, €170 at colette.fr 2 IPHONE 4 Apple, €499 at Carphone Warehouse 3 LEATHER AND MESH JACKET Simone Rocha, €1,295 at Havana, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 4 JANE AUSTEN’S MANSFIELD PARK Penguin Classics, €2.65 at Eason 5 GINGHAM BIB Simone Rocha, €170 at Havana, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 6 SILVER CLADDAGH RING €31.95 at ﬁelds.ie 7 QUILTED LEATHER BAG €1,880 at Chanel 8 LIPSTICK Nars, €25 at Brown Thomas 9 WOOL AND KNITTED JACKET Simone Rocha for Topshop, €305 at topshop.com 10 SAGE AND ZINC FACIAL HYDRATING CREAM SPF 15 Aesop, €32 at spacenk.co.uk 11 LIP BALM Carmex, €3.27 at pharmacies 12 TRAINERS Comme des Garçons for Converse, €86 at farfetch.com.

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WHAT A GEM A Dublin jewellery designer has scored a hit in Sean Penn’s latest movie. One man on tenterhooks to see Sean Penn’s latest movie This Must be the Place, which is partly set in Dublin, must be jewellery designer Sean Osborne. In the movie, Penn plays a retired rockstar living in a mansion outside Dublin who decides to track down his father’s executioner, an ex-Nazi hiding in the US. The stellar cast boasts Oscar-winner Frances McDormand, Harry Dean Staunton, and singer David Byrne (the title comes from one of his songs), as well as Irish talent Olwen Fouéré, Simon Delaney and the young Eve Hewson, daughter of Bono. Early reviews are mixed but then Osborne may not be following the plot so much as checking over his own handiwork – he was commissioned to make a knockout ruby ring for Penn’s rocker (in fact, he made eight), and a pair of nose rings for Eve Hewson’s character. It’s not the first time Osborne’s work has hit the limelight. He was recently commissioned to make a special piece for each of the Dubliners by Bono, and further back, he designed the wedding ring for Julianne Moore’s character in Laws of Attraction (Pierce Brosnan presented it to her after the movie). So before the stampede begins, Penn fans wanting to secure a little piece of stardust for themselves can bag a ruby ring, €550 or commission their own Gothic one-off; seanosborne.ie. This Must be the Place screens on October 26 and 27 at the London Film Festival; bfi.org. It goes on general release in Ireland in early 2012.

“One should only buy a diamond or gemstone from someone who has a reputation they are afraid to lose.” John Appleby, 1958

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newS bookS

Shelf life

From coﬀee table volumes to memoir, Claire Brophy reviews the latest titles. Vanishing Ireland: Recollections of Our Changing Times by James Fennell and Turtle Bunbury (Hachette Ireland, £27.99) out October 18. Already well-established as chroniclers of Irish lives – this is the third title in the phenomenally successful Vanishing Ireland series – photographer James Fennell and bestselling author Turtle Bunbury introduce yet more fascinating Irish people, whose lives span a century that drastically changed the face of Ireland. Nostalgic, yes, but Vanishing Ireland is also successful because it maintains the dignity and good humour of the people whose lives it explores, without straying into faux sentimentality. A feel-good book that stores up memories of a time when there was a place for blacksmiths, coal miners and bonesetters. Great Journeys (Lonely Planet, £29.99) out October 19. From Route 66 to the Ring of Kerry, Lonely Planet’s

inspirational Great Journeys features trips ranging from the historic to exotic, with one common denominator – they are all exhilarating. Check out the Coast to Coast walk, the drive down the Amalfi Coast or the iconic Grand Tour. Each of the 78 adventures has four pages of images, maps and information about the fascinating story behind the journey, and tips on how to recreate it for yourself. And each has its own shortcut or detour, depending on your length of stay, and includes the highlights you mustn’t miss. A beautiful book, it will make you want to pack a bag and go.

diagnosed with terminal cancer. Suddenly Des was what he calls “parent to his parents”, and in that role gained a better understanding of his father. Des Bishop’s book is a loving tribute to Mike, who died in February 2011, and a sincere, funny description of what it feels like to grow up that stays just the dry side of sentimental.

Inside the Peloton: My Life as a Professional Cyclist by Nicolas Roche (Transworld, £14.99) out now. Known to his friends as Nico, Nicolas Roche My Dad Was Nearly is about as close to cycling royalty as James Bond by Des you can get. Son of the former Tour Bishop (Penguin de France winner Stephen Roche, and Ireland, £14.99) out nephew to two former professionals, PSST! October 6. Nicolas already has a legion of – the Potter fans Originally a devoted fans for his regular , w ne d, long-awaite te show in the column in the Irish Independent si er harry Pott interactive on g Edinburgh Fringe, My Dad – not to mention his lo . th is mon launches th Was Nearly James Bond is distinguished sporting career. owling has R Jk at th t for factoids devoted to the memory of Inside the Peloton charts the life before abou ed al ve re r neve as how Mike Bishop, once a model, of a young man with a passion magic such the world of ad re or s on ti bit-part actor and, of course, for cycling, and provides a po ew br to stories … very nearly James Bond. And gripping insight into the behind the com. pottermore. this is the crux of the book, as exhilarating and sometimes Mike Bishop gave it all up for his controversial world of cycling, from family. Then, in 2009, Mike was a genuine lover of the sport.

How to decipher the greats of Irish literature? Emma Cullinan joins an unusual book club. I am sitting with a group of people in a grand Georgian building, learning about the context in which Joyce wrote his great works. It is part of a course called “Feel the Fear and Read It Anyway”, run by Eibhlín Evans for the Flying Book Club, a new literary venture modelled on the book club format and aimed at opening up the works of the more complex Irish writers to the reader. “Yis are all Jung and easily Freudiand,” says Eibhlín. She is quoting James Joyce’s comment on those who read his famously complicated Ulysses and hinting that the book included

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references to psychoanalysis. When Joyce wrote Ulysses over seven years at the beginning of the 20th century, the world was undergoing a fundamental change and the novel reﬂects that, says Eibhlín.

Over the next few hours, we learn about the political changes in Ireland and Europe and the quest for a new identity, and begin to unpack the layers in this classic book. Dublin is dotted with literary landmarks. And now, thanks to this enterprise, visitors to Dublin (and native Dubs) can learn how the city was absorbed into Irish literature, and how to get to grips with some of the great Irish writers. The Flying Book Club has one-day and three-day programmes and, like a regular book club, the emphasis is on sharing a book or books, or, in this case, a writer/group of

writers – such as James Joyce, the four Irish Nobel Laureates (William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney). “All you need to bring is your enthusiasm for great writing,” says Eibhlín, who runs the programme. Sessions are relaxed but led by informed tutors – all qualiﬁed scholars of Irish and contemporary writing. The next “Feel the Fear and Read It Anyway” course focuses on Flann O’Brien and runs October 6, 13 or 20, at 7pm, price €18. The next Flying Book Club, on the four Nobel Laureates, runs November 4-6, price €260. For more information, ﬂyingbookclub.ie.

people

Music Makers

The

There’s a world of musical talent in Ireland that goes far beyond U2. Opera buﬀ? Try the Wexford Festival Opera. Jazz more your thing? Check out the Cork Jazz Festival. Tony Clayton-Lea tracks down bright young talent across the Irish music scene. Photographs by Trevor Hart.

usical tastes and cultural attitudes in Ireland have evolved over the decades. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a definite age barrier – the “generation gap” was best exemplified by the sight of your father, agitatedly rustling his newspaper, looking in amazement at your favourite band on Top of the Pops, and asking, “Is that man wearing lipstick?!” But parents now are, by and large, listening to the same music as their children. And if they’re not, then at least cultural reference points aren’t as fractured as they once were – which is why you’ll see a generation bridge, as opposed to a gap, at events such as Electric Picnic, the Cork Jazz Festival and the Wexford Festival Opera.

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While September’s Electric Picnic is the young pup of the trio, it has rapidly evolved into an allencompassing arts/literature/music/ whatever-you’re-having-yourself event, frequented by grandparents and grandchildren alike. The Cork Jazz Festival and the Wexford Festival Opera, meanwhile, have survived decades of exposure by being the best of their type. Each is highly regarded internationally, and features, year on year, the best names in its field. Each is also, crucially, an urban event, which means instant infrastructure, a notents, no-campfire ambience, and plenty of opportunity to soak up what the city or town has to offer in tourist appeal and attractions. Ultimately, though, it’s all about embracing diversity, which is why

the Irish music scene of right here, right now, is so rich. There doesn’t seem to be the same rulebook rigidity that used to be around 20, even ten years ago, and you can put this down to that great creative and social leveller: the internet. The likes of MySpace and Facebook, and music streaming sites such as Spotify (and, really, too many more to list here) have opened up a cultural Pandora’s Box of treats and goodies where people can easily pick and choose what they want to listen to. It’s interesting, however, to note that two of Ireland’s most successful music acts are, creatively and critically, polar opposites: at one end you have U2, at the other you have Westlife. In between you have all manner of rock and pop, folk and jazz, classical and traditional

For someone so critically garlanded and, apparently, self-confident as Lisa Hannigan, it’s interesting to discover that she finds it difficult to watch herself in performance mode. “I haven’t seen a great deal of my performances because of that,” she admits. Of those she has watched – between threaded fingers, no doubt – what has stood out? “My incredibly awkward and rhythmfree dancing.” Well, perhaps, but there is nothing awkward or rhythm-free about her music. Her debut solo album, the Mercury Prize-

nominated Sea Sew, was released in 2008, and highlighted a heretofore hidden talent for quite the most beautiful melodies and smart lyrics. Her new album, Passenger, is similarly imbued with more of the same. She must have the song-writing lark well and truly nailed by this point, surely? “Not in the slightest, though I am learning to not be so afraid of the empty page or the work in progress. I’ve learned that you have to mine through a lot of embarrassing clichés and mawkish sentiments before you get to a shiny thing that can be turned into a song.”

How much of a change is the new album for her? Some musicians like to blindside themselves with each successive record, don’t they? “It feels quite different from the first record,” she muses, “in that this time we’ve been on the road quite a bit, and those shows have served us very well as a band. I felt quite tentative the first time around, with the first album, I mean, but now I just want to get out and perform.” Lisa Hannigan’s new album, Passenger, is out on October 7. See lisahannigan.ie for further details.

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Lisa Hannigan wears dreSS, LISa’S OWN.

Lisa Hannigan, singer and songwriter

musics vying with each other for an audience. Culturally, it’s perhaps a given (and no one is saying this is fair) that the most attention is directed towards those in the rock/ pop areas, but there are quite a few in this category that stand alone, openly and seriously engaging with music genres that, three decades ago, their antecedents wouldn’t have touched with a very long barge pole. For instance, you have singer/ composer Julie Feeney diving headlong into fusing (expertly, it has to be said) pop with classical music; you have classically trained musician Cora Venus Lunny on hand should any passing pop or rock act want svelte, string-driven things on their records; you have sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird blending traditional Irish musical texts with contemporary ambient/electronica; you have traditional fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh staring experimentations with avant garde jazz full in the face; you have Crash Ensemble doing whatever the hell they want to do (whether you like it or not!); you have instrumental bands, such as And So I Watch You From Afar, Adebisi Shank, Halfset and The Redneck Manifesto, not so much pushing the envelope as ripping it apart with sounds that wilfully blend all manner of rhythmic shapes and forms. What all of the above means is that festivals such as Electric Picnic, this month’s Cork Jazz Festival and Wexford Festival Opera (and so many more) are no longer the preserve of niche, specific audiences. Yes, the masses might like to wave their hands along to The Script in very large venues but more and more you realise that smaller events are the most interesting and the most satisfying. You could say exactly the same for the Irish musicians, artists and performers profiled across the following pages; they might not be selling out Croke Park, Aviva Stadium, Dublin Conference Centre, the Grand Canal or the O2 anytime soon, but there’s something very special about each of them that warrants your time, attention and respect. 24 |

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Pádraic Keane, uilleann piper and TG4 Young Traditional Musician of the Year You could say it’s in the blood and the genes. Galway’s Pádraic Keane grew up in a house that swayed and clicked to little else but the sound of traditional Irish music. His father, Tommy, is a noted piper, while his mother’s ﬁngers know their way around the buttons of a concertina. For one so young (he is 20 years of age) Keane is already tipped to become one of the piping greats. “The TG4 award has already given me opportunities that I probably would not have got before,” he says. “Recently, I was asked to be the soloist in a new piece of music written by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11, so that will be a great experience and a big challenge for me.” While he might not yet have the objective

measure of himself as a musician, Keane realises that in order to be the best in his field he must never stop learning. “I listen to recordings of different instruments, not just the uilleann pipes, and you will always hear something new. I suppose as I listen a lot to older recordings – of pipers, especially – I think my own playing has been influenced by them.” Discipline is all, then, but what’s this about Keane having what some people are calling a rock’n’roll sensibility to his playing? “Well, after playing a tune for a while I suppose I would take more chances in a performance – as regards variation, and so on – but I’ve never heard it put like that before!” Pádraic Keane plays with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in Limerick, October 20, and the US, October 24 – November 4; irishchamberorchestra.info

pádraic Keane wears TWeeD jaCKeT, €215; CHINOS, €65; bOTH DR DeNIM aT bT2; LeaTHeR beLT, €55, DIeSeL aT bT2. COTTON SHIRT, €100 aT ReISS.

people

“Quintessential Irish Pub”

The is how this one could be classed. Seated on top of the Dublin Mountains in Glencullen this pub has brought a multitude of visitors to the area, in fact, the footfall figures are an astonishing 250,000 people per year who make the scenic trek up the mountain roads to this “step-back-in-time” pub.

The Food

The Price

Famed for it’s height and also for it’s menu, Johnnie Fox’s truly has it all, from wonderful seafood platters to signature dishes such as Scallops or Mahi-Mahi Diablo and whilst known for the seafood Johnnie Fox’s also has succulent tasty Mountain Steaks, drop off the bone Lamb Shanks and of course a range of other dishes including vegetarian and even a childrens menu.

The € is set “just right” because Johnnie Fox’s steers clear of “early birds” and “lunch specials” by running a special “Value menu” alongside it’s acclaimed a la carte menu and what is more they run it all day every day (and night). The “Value Menu” sees main courses starting from as little as €9.95. and with good selection one can have a 3 course meal from as little as €16.85.

The Hooley Show An outstanding “up-close and personal show” - traditional Irish bands, great food, great drink and the world famous “Johnnie Fox’s Dancers” all combine to make this a real night to remember. Advance booking is required as it fills up very quickly and 48.00 per person one can at only €49.95 see why. This is the show the others try to mimic. Located a stones throw from Exit 15 (M50), 5 mins from Enniskerry, 10 mins from Dundrum Town Centre and 30 mins from Dublin City Centre - phone us and ask about the bus service. Telephone: (01) 295 5647

Email: info@jfp.ie

Website: jfp.ie

Bressie, pop/rock singer Some Cara readers might recall a nifty Irish rock band called The Blizzards; in the mid-Noughties, they released a couple of impressive records and then went the way of the dodo. The band’s main songwriter was Niall Breslin, who, as Bressie, is now back with his debut solo album, Colourblind Stereo. “It’s still pop music,” enthuses Bressie. “I just approached the production side of it diﬀerently. My passion for music was nurtured in the 1980s, and both the production and the music from that decade always interested me massively, so

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I feel some of these inﬂuences have come through ... Ultimately, I love a good hook, a good pop song, and I love hearing an artist deliver it with honesty and belief.” One of the delights of seeing The Blizzards was the frantic nature of their onstage performance. According to Bressie, this wasn’t always necessarily a good thing, so changes are afoot. “I used to always let the adrenaline of playing live take over, and sometimes this could lead to a messy show. I also used to have a few drinks before I played, which I soon found out was a disaster.

There is nothing worse than for a fan to pay well-earned money for a ticket and then turn up to watch the front man mumble and stumble his way through the set. I feel you always owe the crowd your best possible performance, considering they have invested the time and money to come to the show. I always try to give every ounce of energy I have to gigs, so that’ll be diﬀerent this time round.” Colourblind Stereo is released by Sony BMG. Bressie tours Ireland throughout October.

Bressie wears T-ShIrT, €55, VelOUr; jeANS €160, AcNe; BOTh AT INdIGO & clOTh.

people

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Claudia Boyle, opera singer “To make a living and carve out a prolific career,” says Claudia Boyle, “you need to spread your wings. There will always be different productions demanding a huge range of singers at opera houses, and Ireland is just too small to work here full-time as an opera singer. However, there are some great opera companies here and singing to an Irish audience is a real treat for me. Home is home!” In 2009, Boyle graduated from the Masters course at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with first class honours, and from that point onwards has cut a swathe through the European opera world. She admits to

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being something of a perfectionist: “If there was even one tiny thing that I didn’t like in a performance, I will lay in bed at night raging with myself. On the plus side, I make sure it never happens again. My best traits? Hopefully, my ability to inhabit a role and take risks as a performer.” You can have the best voice in the world, implies Boyle, but if you can’t move people what’s the point? “Obviously all the key elements of opera singing should already be in place – that’s a given. But touching an audience and bringing them on a journey with you is where the magic happens. That’s what it’s all

about.” She makes her debut at this year’s Wexford Festival Opera – is this something that ﬁlls her with fear, excitement or delight? “All three! The role of La Comtesse in La cour de Célimène is right up my street. The music is beautiful, charming and energetic, and the character is a lot of fun – feisty and ﬂirtatious, breaking hearts at every turn. Opera has a lot of strong women – that’s a big bonus for me!” La cour de Célimène runs October 21, 27, 30 and November 3 during the Wexford Festival Opera, October 11 to November 5. See wexfordopera. com for further details.

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Claudia Boyle wears red dress, Antonio BerArdi, â&#x201A;Ź1,160, At Costume.

Jennifer Walshe, composer and performance artist It would be unwise to try to deﬁne in a few sentences what exactly Jennifer Walshe does. “What I do ranges quite widely,” she understates. “My work ranges from classically notated scores right through to a wide range of experimental musical notations to drawings, sculpture, installation work, ﬁlm and fashion. As a performer, I focus on voice, but in various performances I’ve operated industrial cranes in a ballet, dressed as a Barbie doll, declaimed Dadaist sound poetry from a tree. In my free improvisation duo with Tony Conrad we might bring violins, broken drums or cuirasses wired with piezo microphones to a session. I have

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eleven diﬀerent alter egos that I make work under, in addition to my own name – which helps keep all this in order, bizarrely enough.” Phew! Does she ever get the word “pretentious” thrown at her? And if so, does it irritate her? “I make the piece,” Walshe explains tentatively, admitting to obsessive attention to detail. “I spend a lot of time and thought doing so, but once it’s sent out into the world, I have no control over how people are going to react.” If she were interested in having this form of control, says Walshe, then she’d be writing music for commercials. “Whether it be in a

concert hall or a gallery, people come in with their own emotions, life experience, even just what they ate for dinner, or a good or bad phone call they had that day, and all of this is going to aﬀect how they hear the piece, how they react. I’m happy with this, because I think that’s what all art should be – something open, which allows the audience member to participate in ﬁguring out what it means to them.” Jennifer Walshe’s “alter egos” are being featured at the Cut & Splice Festival, London, November 4-6. See milker.org for further details.

JENNIFER WALSHE WEARS GOLD DRAPED DRESS, €280, TIM RYAN AT BOW BOUTIQUE.

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Matt Jacobson, jazz drummer Matt Jacobson agrees that jazz music as a genre has opened itself to a far wider audience over the past 20 years. Yet, as he ruefully explains, it isn’t all fun and games in the jazz world. “I find that with my own band, RedivideR, we have a lot of more rocky elements that rock and indie fans might really enjoy, but if you sell it purely as a jazz gig, they will be put off attending because of out-of-date stereotypes about finger-clicking, hip-cat jazz! And on the other side, jazz fans that have a preference for a more traditional version of the music might turn up at my gigs and not enjoy it at all! I think it’s really important to find the right audience – and venue – for the kind of music you are playing.” With the above noted, has it been an easy or arduous journey for Jacobson, career-wise, to date? “Anyone who plays jazz has, at times, played gigs with less people in the audience than in the band, but at the same time I have been really lucky to be involved in a couple of projects,

here and abroad, that have seen great crowds and got very good reactions. I’m much happier playing gigs and making music for a small number of people, and for a small amount of money, rather than being stuck in a job I don’t care about ﬁve days a week. And, of course, having an incredibly supportive family makes things a lot easier, too!” After his performances at the Cork Jazz Festival, Jacobson tours the country with his band before visiting Paris in November with Ronan Guilfoyle’s recently reformed Lingua Franca group. “And in December,” he says, “I have a tour of Switzerland and Germany with a guitar trio called Blowout Fracture.” Matt Jacobson’s band RedivideR perform at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival (October 28 – 31), on October 30. They are also on tour in Ireland from November 2-6. See reverbnation. com/redivider and guinnessjazzfestival. com for further details.

Photographed by Trevor Hart, assisted by Sylvie Cordenner. Styled by Lauren McCreery, assisted by Nicole Crowley. Make-up by Seána Long, hair by Joanne Merriless, both at Brown Sugar, 50 South William Street, Dublin 2, 01 616 9967; brownsugar.ie. Photographed at The Odessa Club, 13 Dame Court, Dublin 2, 01 670 3080; odessa.ie. Our thanks to all at The Odessa.

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MATT JACOBSON WEARS BLACK SUIT JACKET, €400; WHITE T-SHIRT, €60 AND BLACK SUIT TROUSERS, €190; ALL ACNE AT BROWN THOMAS.

PEOPLE

The House of Waterford Crystal

– Guided Tour of Prestige Factory – Opulent Retail Store Exquisite pieces of crystal… Created before your very eyes. House of Waterford Crystal The Mall, Waterford City, Ireland Call: +353 (0)51 317 000 Email: houseofwaterfordcrystal@wwrd.com www.waterfordvisitorcentre.com

interview

vision

A man of

He’s one of our most internationally renowned artists, twice shortlisted for the Turner Prize, with homes in New York, Barcelona and Bavaria, and exhibitions staged across the globe. As Sean Scully’s latest show opens in Dublin, Gemma Tipton catches up with him.

ean Scully must spend a great deal of his time in the air. Dividing his life between homes in Barcelona, Munich and New York, he is one of that rare breed of truly international artists, jetting around the globe for major exhibitions in the world’s leading galleries and museums. When we speak he is at his German home in the Bavarian Forest, desperately trying to shake off a particularly vicious flu in time to take a flight to Greece for another show. “The whole family has it,” he explains, “but I have to get to Athens,” he says, his voice sounding somehow smaller than usual, “I can’t let them down.” Born in Dublin in 1945, and raised in London, Scully is a driven man. “I couldn’t bear to live my life as a normal person,” he has

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said. With a schedule that includes exhibitions in Dublin, London, New York, Athens, Rome, Philadelphia, São Paulo and Barcelona over the next two years, it’s no wonder he feels he doesn’t have time to fall sick. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine him succumbing to any ailment as, even at 66, he is a large, energetic and physical man, built like a boxer. “I’m a fighter,” he agrees. I remember seeing a film of him painting, made at the time he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize (he has been in the running twice – in 1989 and 1993). In the clip, Scully advances towards one of his large canvases, paintbrush raised, as if about to do battle. At the time I was struck by the raw power of his movements. There was something macho about them, and yet they would build up through painted

gestures to create a delicacy of line, and a subtle and nuanced expression of gridded colour. The artist himself, perhaps inevitably, sees his own process of painting differently. As with all highly creative people, time vanishes when he begins to work. “I lose my sense of time, I’m just painting, and I’m really having an extraordinary relationship with the painting. I don’t tell it what to do – the painting has to tell me where it’s going, what it needs, and then I’m riding it. There’s give and take, but if the painting starts to obey you, you’ll get something that’s perfect – but not interesting.” Scully’s interest in art began early, even as a nine-year-old schoolboy he knew he wanted to become an artist. Though his earliest works were figurative, and

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interview

he received a first class degree for his figure paintings from Croydon College of Art, the discovery of an exhibition catalogue by the American abstract painter, Mark Rothko, changed the course of his life and career. He moved on to paint pure abstraction, concentrating on line and colour. His works demonstrate how each of those elements can inflect mood and feeling and create incredibly powerfully affecting atmospheres. The results have been highly successful series, such as Wall of Light, which have sold for hundreds of thousands of euro, and are held in major collections including that of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Guggenheim, the Tate, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Critics have suggested that not all his work is of a similar quality, though this is true for all artists, and some have said that he is Rothko for those who can’t afford to buy a Rothko. Though, given that one Rothko sold at auction for $72.8 million in 2007, this doesn’t seem a particularly searing critique of Scully’s work. At their best, Scully’s abstractions can move a viewer emotionally. The cumulative effect of the paintings in the Sean Scully Room at the Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane is one of a stilled joy, coupled with a controlled sense of energy that infuses the space around the paintings. These ideas are meat and drink to the artist. “If you look at other cultures there’s always abstraction – those cultures that make patterns and don’t show the face of God. They use abstraction to get in to the rhythm of ecstasy and spirituality.” Relating these ideas to his own work, he says, “I didn’t want to make art that was just adored by a few curators – these dry curators that live in dry corridors of art palaces – I wanted to make art that lives.” The Scully Room consists of eight paintings, seven of which were donated by the artist to make a permanent display of his work in the city of his birth. As the Hugh Lane is just a stone’s throw from the Rotunda Hospital where he was born, it has been a long and 36 |

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Sean Scully, above, believes painting is not really teachable – “you can either do it or you can’t”. Left, “Cut Ground Blue Red, 2011” from his upcoming exhibition at the Kerlin Gallery.

global journey to bring him, and the works, back to this place and time, and to a room where colour sings, shimmers and dances on the perfectly balanced canvases. “You can’t teach someone to have a colour sense. It’s not really teachable, neither is painting, you can either do it or you can’t. It’s not fair, and that’s why some people don’t like it.” Despite the flu, Scully is firm in his opinions and doesn’t suffer fools gladly – in fact he doesn’t suffer fools at all and has a reputation for gruffness. But

he can also be utterly charming, with a great deadpan sense of humour. He warms to his theme of fairness. “Jimi Hendrix: that wasn’t fair either. He had a larger bridge between his finger and thumb, so he could play guitar like nobody else.” I point out that we all get to appreciate Hendrix’s music, so maybe it is fair in the end … We pick up the link to music, a subject about which Scully is also passionate. “I’m coming to Dublin for my exhibition,” he says, “and I’m friends with the U2 boys, we’ll be having dinner in their hotel [The Clarence], but I do think it’s very important – rock and roll – it’s like a river of sound. And the drawing in my work is like a rhythm, it has a rhythm that is very connected. You need to have that rhythm and the ability to think and not think […] then the edges are a consequence of the rhythm of work. It’s rigid, and not rigid – and it has a memory of itself.” As we talk, Scully’s voice and presence seem to grow stronger, even down the telephone line, across the

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interview

Sean Scully’S favourite … … city “I live different lives in different cities. new york is less private; people come to the studio a lot, though I’m very good at making my own space. I don’t live in Munich, but in the forest in Bavaria where there is peace and privacy. In Barcelona we have a very beautiful Baronial apartment, with four-metre ceilings. I’m a big person and I like big spaces.” … reStaurant “My favourite place for lunch in Barcelona is the restaurant at the Miró foundation (Parc de Montjuïc, 0034 934 439 470; fundaciomiro-bcn.org). It’s never too crowded and the food is good. And I like Miró’s work, it’s different to mine, it has a lightness about it, a lack of corporeality.”

… artiSt “I’m much more connected to van Gogh and Picasso, they’re movers of matter. There’s also a Berthe Morisot painting I love, of a cradle with a child in it. It has these black lines and shapes [“The Cradle”, on view at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris].” … MuSic “I ran a blues club in Bromley when I was younger, and I sang in a band. I play music while I’m painting. van Morrison, leonard cohen, nick cave, u2, of course – music that has a moral sadness, a melancholic quality, like some of my paintings.” … BookS “At the moment I’m reading a lot of small books about Bob the Builder. He has these diggers and tractors that he talks to and they talk to

Miró Foundation, Barcelona

each other. And there’s a red tractor and a green tractor and a blue tractor … Sometimes one will get stuck in the mud and the others will have to help it. Yes, I know them oﬀ by heart, and my singing voice has improved

European continent from Bavaria to New York, a city that was to to Co Tipperary. Outside I can see become pivotal to his work and how the fields are shaped by walls career. It was in that city that he and hedges, and I’m reminded of also met the painter Catherine two series of photographs the artist Lee. The couple married in 1978, has made: one of the walls of and a year later Scully began windows you see from any a practice of naming one Your own New York apartment, particularly important ScullY and the other of the work per year for Sean Scully’s work is to be included dry stone walls of her. The Catherine in a handbound limited edition collection the West of Ireland. Paintings were first Did they influence exhibited together in of stories from ten writers, including Colm the shapes, colours 1993 in Fort Worth, Tóibín, Sam Shepard, Salman Rushdie and and spaces of his Texas, and the full Anne Enright. The book is the brainchild of paintings? And has series is now held author Roddy Doyle and aims to raise funds he ever considered in the collection for his charity, Fighting Words, which oﬀers coming back to live of the Modern kids free tutoring in creative writing. To in Ireland? “No, the Art Museum of be published spring 2012, starting photographs follow Fort Worth. During price, €1,750. To pre-order, the paintings, they that time, tragedy stoneyroadpress.com. came a lot later, and also struck, when Paul, when I started taking them, Scully’s 19-year-old son from I already had my style.” As a previous marriage, died in a to a possible move to Ireland, the car accident in London in 1983. answer is yes – he did consider it … He channelled his grief into his “I flirted with the idea, but I didn’t work and dedicated his painting go ahead – already it’s complicated in the 1984 influential Museum of enough, my life. Now, I think I’m Modern Art New York exhibition, going to concentrate on Barcelona An International Survey of Recent and New York. Painting and Sculpture, to Paul. In the 1970s, Scully moved Scully is now married to another 38 |

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too … twinkle twinkle little star. Anyway, these are what I’m reading now. Also a book with ﬂaps that fold up to show pictures. You don’t get ﬂaps with Soljenitsin, which is what I’d usually be reading, so these are much better value.”

artist, Liliane Tomasko, and the experience of being a father to Oisín, aged two, has changed him. Once, he said that painting “was the most adventurous, in a sense the most dangerous, the most insecure, and, potentially, the most profound thing I could do,” but now that perspective is shifting. “This is the first time I’ve put family before work, but I’m doing it. In 2013, I’m going to take six months off and travel with my wife and son. He’ll be four, the perfect age to travel. We’re going to go all round the world, to the places we’ve always wanted to go to, like Tibet and New Zealand – I will take my camera,” he adds. The Wall of Light paintings, which began as a tiny watercolour, made in Mexico in 1984, took 13 years to evolve into the stunning series that Scully eventually created. Who knows where his world travels may lead? Sean Scully’s exhibition Cut Ground runs at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, from October 6 to November 19, 2011, kerlin.ie. His work can also be seen on permanent exhibition in the Sean Scully Room at the Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, hughlane.ie.

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A Capital Idea

If you want to explore Dublin, why not try a guided tour? We sent four Dubliners oﬀ to try four very diﬀerent tours of the city. Here’s what they found.

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The docklands Tour

Even a native Dubliner would be hard-pressed to navigate the shiny new squares and glinting architecture of the Docklands. Edel Coﬀey discovers a brave new world.

There’s a saying, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. In Dublin, the saying should be rain is what happens when you make plans. And so, as five hardy souls congregate on the steps of the 18th-century Custom House building, the rain drives in off the Liffey and we take what shelter we can behind the Portland stone columns of the facade. We are here to partake in one

of Architecture Tours Ireland’s guided walks. Led by enthusiastic and knowledgeable architects (today our guide is Carol Ryan), the tours lift the city’s veil to reveal fascinating detail. Carol wears her knowledge lightly as we duck through showers and weave through the newly builtup area of the Dublin. She mixes dates, facts and figures with local knowledge and rich social history, along with architectural details of the buildings along our way. So, on the Seán O’Casey Bridge, we learn that old battles between north and south sides of the river caused enough (unfounded) concern to require a garda to stand sentry on the bridge when it first opened in 2005 in case the local

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people felt duty-bound to re-ignite such historical warfare; and that the bridge has since been dubbed “The Bingo Bridge” due to the heavy traffic of “old dears” who cross over to play their weekly game of bingo. We move from the Custom House down the quays, stopping at the city’s bus station, Busáras, where we discover the Michael Scott-designed terminus was inspired by the French architect Le Corbusier and that there is an unused nightclub on the top floor. Across Amiens Street, we move into the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), which was built in the 1980s as a tax incentive to attract banks and businesses from America. For this reason, the architecture reflects an American style. Running along Custom House Quay is the CHQ building, once a store for tobacco and spirits, now a beautiful shopping centre, which retains the steel structure originally designed by John Rennie (who also built Howth and Dun Laoghaire harbours). Further down the river, we walk across a bridge I have never encountered and with which I fall instantly in love, Spencer Dock Bridge. Its elegant, manta-ray shape 42 |

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and rubberised tarmac underfoot are almost transcendentally pleasing to behold. Reflecting the Blobism style of its creators, husband-and-wife team Future Systems, the manta-ray shape was the ideal fluid curve to accommodate both the Luas tram, which runs above it, and the walkway which runs beneath it, along the Royal Canal. The Convention Centre, which has already hosted Queen Elizabeth, looms next to the bridge and has earned the nickname “The Dyson” for its similarity to the space-age vacuum cleaner’s clear, tubular design. It was designed by Irish architect Kevin Roche, who also worked on Busáras in the 1940s as a student intern. Crossing the Calatrava-designed Samuel Beckett Bridge, which was shipped to Dublin by barge from Rotterdam, I catch a glimpse of the Daniel Liebeskind-designed Grand Canal Theatre, scything through the buildings like an alien predator. This glass, deconstructivist cube is one of the finest buildings in

Previous pages, the Samuel Beckett Bridge; this page, left, Grand Canal Theatre “like an alien predator”; explorer Edel Coﬀey; the Alto Vetro building on Grand Canal Dock.

our cityscape. Outside, the red paving acts as a kind of red carpet, while the American landscape architect Martha Schwartz’s illuminated red poles on Grand Canal Square were inspired by the poles originally used to decontaminate the area (once a gasworks). As our tour concludes, one and a half hours later, I have learned so many hidden facts about my home city, from the secret night club atop the Corbusier-inspired Busáras to the breathtakingly beautiful manta-ray bridge on the canal, that even the rain can’t dampen my new-found ardour. Perhaps future participants might want to bring a raincoat ... just in case. Runs Saturdays, 2pm, €10; €5 for children. Architecture Tours is a joint venture between the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and the Irish Architecture Foundation. Other Architecture Tours cover Georgian Dublin, Temple Bar, the Living City and a children’s activity tour; architecturetours.ie.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANTHONY WOODS

DUBLIN

LITERARY DUBLIN

Why did Edwardian Dubliners have time to spare? David Robbins ﬁnds out as he walks in the footsteps of James Joyce’s ﬁctional character, Leopold Bloom. It is mid-morning in the city centre. We are standing in front of the site of the old Ballast Office on the south side of O’Connell Bridge. The bustle of the city is going on all around us but, mentally, we are back in 1904. June 16, 1904 to be exact, the date on which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses take place. “Back then,” says our guide, Marie Carew, “we weren’t on Greenwich Mean Time at all. We were on Dublin Mean Time, which was 25 minutes behind the time in London.” I thought I knew my Irish – and Dublin – history but this was news to me. It was one of many fascinating factoids about Edwardian Dublin thrown out by Marie during the course of our literary walking tour of the city. Think of all the things we could have done with those extra 25 minutes! Marie is an accredited guide with the Association of Approved Tourist Guides of Ireland (AATGI). She specialises in bespoke walking tours of the city and can put together itineraries and themes based on a group’s particular interest. Today we are doing a Joycean 44 |

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From left, Joycean landmark – Davy Byrnes pub; David Robbins absorbs the literary atmosphere; the splendid former House of Lords; PJ Murphy, volunteer at Sweny’s; wrought iron work at the National Museum.

walk, following Leopold Bloom’s lunchtime meander from the offices of the Freeman’s Journal (now Independent House on Abbey Street) to Davy Byrne’s pub on Duke Street, off Grafton Street. At least, that is the general idea, but we take a diversion here and there as something takes our interest. The Irish House of Lords, for instance, calls to us as we are examining, as Bloom did, the statue of Thomas Moore on College Green. Marie takes us inside the Bank of Ireland on College Green, once the site of the Irish Parliament. The old Irish House of Commons no longer exists, but the House of Lords is still there, a splendid public room, panelled and soaringly high. The room is open to the public during banking hours but is seldom seen by native Dubs. The visitors’ book at the door features names from all over the world, but few from the capital city itself. Rediscovering your own city is one of the joys of a guided tour. We are delighted to see that Davy Byrne’s pub, although much altered and lamentably modern inside, still serves a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of claret, the lunch our fictitious Mr Bloom ordered there over a century ago. We pass on via the National Museum (where Bloom sees the man he thinks is having an affair with his wife) to Sweney’s on Lincoln Place, where Bloom stopped to buy a bar of lemon soap. The premises has not changed much since and, up to

recently, was still run as a pharmacy. It has been taken over by a group of volunteer Joyce enthusiasts who run it as a second-hand book and bric-a-brac shop. You can still purchase a bar of lemon soap (€3.50) there and linger, if you wish, to hear a reading from Joyce’s Dubliners every lunchtime at 1pm. There is also a Ulysses reading every evening from 7pm. The readings are not done by professional actors but by whoever turns up on the day. So it’s a kind of Joyce-for-the-people-by-the-people kind of reading, where one page might be read by a Japanese teacher and the next by a Polish Count. All that walking and history has left us famished and, as Marie leaves us, that gorgonzola sandwich is starting to look blooming good. Members of the AATGI charge €95 for a half-day tour for a small group. For a larger group, the charge is €100. For that, you get three to four hours of gentle exercise and education. To my mind, these guides certainly earn their money. For bookings with AATGI: tourguides.ie. Marie Carew can be contacted on mariecarew@eircom.net.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER MATTHEWS

DUBLIN

THE FOODIE’S TOUR

Macaroons, Milleens and a tipple of whiskey? Restaurant critic Aingeala Flannery joins a gourmet walkabout. If you think Irish cooking is all about bacon and cabbage, think again. This is the ethos behind Fabulous Food Trails, a company that runs tasting tours of the capital, taking eager foodies visiting Dublin off the beaten track to the places where gourmet natives love to shop and eat. The tours are so informative and entertaining that even locals have been known to tag along in the hope of finding hidden gems. As a Dubliner who has been writing about food for a decade, there was, I thought, nothing you could tell me that I didn’t already know. I took the tour regardless, and had to doff my critic’s cap to our guide, Eveleen Coyle, for her in-depth knowledge of the Irish foodscape, which was served with humour and seasoned with fascinating snippets of history that were news, even to me. The stops on the tour are carefully chosen to reflect how Irish eating habits have evolved thanks to the Slow Food Movement and an influx of immigrants in the late 1990s, who brought with them exotic dishes. One of the strengths of this tour 46 |

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is that Eveleen adapts it to the group and the weather, so it stays fresh, and because the groups are small (usually around ten people), they are sociable and relaxed. The group I joined included a mother and daughter who had travelled to Ireland to escape From left, a regular enjoys a cuppa at the August heat in Malta, an The Swan; foodie Australian couple doing a five-week Aingeala Flannery; tour of Europe, and three Canadian Kerryming Sun backpackers on a weekend bunny with a wheel of Coolea; macaroon hop from their year out in London. heaven at Our first stop was Sheridan’s Cocoa Atelier. Cheesemongers, where the staff briefed us on the nuts and bolts of Irish cheesemaking, again peppered us to Camden Street, with its with fascinating anecdotes. We outdoor fruit and flower markets, sampled two Irish farmhouse Middle Eastern grocers and cheeses. One of them trendy bars. Historically SOLO TOURS – Milleens – is an this was where many If you prefer to ﬁnd your internationally celebrated Dubliners bought their own way about the city, check soft rind cheese, meat, though sadly only out Dublin Tourism’s I-walks, free created in Cork’s two butchers remain. podcast audio guides to everything Beara Peninsula by We popped into Veronica Steele, after Hogan’s on Wexford from castles and cathedrals to the hills her husband brought Street to check out of Howth; visitdublin.com. For other home a one-horned the black and white self-guided tours – hunting fossils in cow named Brisket. She pudding, while Eveleen Dublin’s streets, or the Botanic wasn’t much of a looker, thanked the owner for Gardens, for example – try but Brisket’s milk supply an oxtail he’d sold her ingeniousireland.ie. was so prodigious the family during the week. That is resorted to making cheese from part of the charm of this tour it. The rest is culinary history. – the genuine rapport between the A stroll past leafy St Stephen’s organisers and the traders. Green and a short cut through Further up the street, we some narrow side streets brought dropped by Listons – a must-

The two-and-a-half hour tour runs Saturdays, 10am (and occasionally midweek), and costs €45. Also available are Howth, and Cork Tasting Trails; fabfoodtrails.ie.

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Behind the scenes at the Dead Zoo, lawn bowling in the city centre. Whatever next? Bridget Hourican ﬁnds out. I forgot to bring something to eat. The e-vite mentioned “a slight, though not obligatory, favour: to bring one type of food that you could share with a few people”. There are about 14 of us assembled. It’s Saturday morning and we’re doing the Le Cool walking tour around the Merrion Square/St Stephen’s Green area. Le Cool is an online publishing company that started in Barcelona in 2003 and now operates in eight European cities, plus Moscow and Istanbul. It lists and reviews hip, unusual events around the city. Sign up and it mails you the weekly online newsletter. It has published “weird and wonderful guides” to five cities in Europe (not Dublin yet). The walking tours are actually a Dublin initiative, which is now being copied by the other cities. I’m on tour No 6. The first was held in May. Le Cool picks a

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CON O’DONOGHUE

stop for Dublin’s gourmet shoppers. Wine, bread, chocolate, cheese, charcuterie … Listons has it all. And it won’t break the bank – something you don’t hear in Ireland very often these days. Next stop: the eco-friendly, impossible to find Cake Café, behind Daintree paper shop, where the coffee is great and the staff is notoriously laid back – until you ask for the recipe for its famous lemon cake. With the rain falling ever harder, Eveleen wisely suggested a quick tipple of twelve-year-old Powers whiskey in The Swan Bar at the top of Aungier Street, before heading back to the city centre. The Swan is a characterful Victorian establishment, with a false door panel in the wall that was used as an escape route to the nearby tenements during the Civil War. Or so the barman told us. Suffice to say the Blarney flows freer than the Guinness at The Swan. There was more Victoriana through the wrought-iron gates of George’s Street Arcade, where Lolly and Cooks served us slices of their heart-stopping “Savage” sausage roll. Right around the corner on Drury Street, we visited the master chocolatiers at Cocoa Atelier – always popular for their colourful macaroons. Our final pitstop was the beautiful Powerscourt Townhouse, and The Pepper Pot – a recently opened café that was news to me. Here, we ate homemade bagels, with cream cheese and thick buttery slices of wild smoked salmon – an appropriate reminder of what Irish food producers do best. Fabulous Food Trails tasting tours are a great way to see obscure pockets of the city on foot, and are especially helpful if you go at the beginning of your trip to Dublin. How else will you find the best places to eat while you’re in town? Be prepared to loosen your belt a notch or two, the tasting portions are nothing if not generous.

From top, try outs for lawn bowling; Bridget Hourican on the trail of something diﬀerent; Canadian moose at the Dead Zoo.

different area to explore each time and promises a mix of rare and familiar sights, pop-ups and oneoffs. I’ve lived near Merrion Square for years and it’s not exactly pop-up or alternative, so I’m sceptical about its ability to show me anything unknown and cool. First stop, the Natural History Museum (or the Dead Zoo), is well-known to me but not to most of the group, although almost all are Dubliners. But it’s my first time getting a tour from the keeper, Nigel Monaghan, and he shows me stuff I didn’t know about (including a 3D Edwardian frog). Then we’re whisked down an alley and into a small working stables. There is sawdust and a palpable smell; OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

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apparently it’s used by Garda horses. Once all the houses on Merrion Square had stables attached but this is the only one left and is now a Landmark Trust building, open to the public two days a year. Michael, our guide, is pretty chuffed at the serendipity of it being open today. Back on the alley we’re confronted by a trestle table with plates of food and places set – for us! We all sit down feeling terribly Alice at the Mad Hatter’s Tea party, and produce the food we’ve brought. Most people are as useless as me but one girl has a home-made batch of glittery rice-crispy cakes. She is instantly the most popular person in the group. Turns out we’re now participating in a photo-shoot to advertise the nationwide community initiative “Street Feast”, which is being held the next day. (The idea is to organise a street party and meet your neighbours.) After eating we’re marched off to the bandstand in St Stephen’s Green to hear St George’s brass band, founded over 70 years ago. Curiouser and curiouser. Then we double back to Fitzwilliam Square. This is one of the last squares in Dublin open to residents only. (I did get in once before, for an open-air film night.) They haven’t opened just for us – it’s Heritage day – but they have laid on lawn bowling for the group. So we line

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up to take instruction in this sedate and ancient sport. There are no flamingos or dodos but I’m still thinking Alice … But then this was the Merrion Square tour – the Smithfield tour was all high design and artisan food by the looks of it. I can vouch that Le Cool will show you the rare and unexpected in your neighbourhood and is well worth checking out. People in our group were mostly in their 20s and 30s, which I guess is a function of having “cool” in the title, but there’s nothing on the tour a reasonably fit septuagenarian couldn’t manage. Le Cool Tours generally run on Saturdays and Thursdays, €15; for dates see lecool.com/dublin. For more information on tours around Dublin, check out visitdublin.com.

Above, a tea break, Le Cool style, and, below left, St George’s brass band.

best tours … For the sociable A brilliant idea for ﬁrsttimers to the capital – sign up on the website of city of a thousand Welcomes to get paired with a well-versed Dubliner who takes you out for a cup of tea or a pint. Deﬁnite insider’s view of the delights of dirty oul’ Dublin, and free; cityofathousand welcomes.com. For the snap happy Led by a professional photographer, the Dublin photography Walking tour takes you on walkabout as you learn to capture atmosphere, compose a shot and create drama with lighting. Three-and-a-half hours long, you’ll learn as you go. From €125; viator.com. For the bookish pub lover Pubs and prose make a good match in Dublin, and this guided pub crawl is an award-winner. Visit four pubs, with time for a bevvy in each, while the guides, actors all, re-enact works from Wilde, Joyce, Behan

and Beckett, 01 670 5602; dublinpubcrawl.com. For the thrill seeker Fancy something diﬀerent? Try a segway tour around Dublin’s modern Docklands or through the picturesque Phoenix Park (a Segway, in case you don’t know, is a big-wheeled scooter-type contraption – you stand on it and it does the work). From €50 per person, 01 822 3388; glidetours.ie. For the Fleet Want a fast-paced way to see the sights? Try sightjogging Dublin for tours around the city’s parks or Docklands. All you need is a pair of trainers, and some stamina. Customised tours are also available, from €20 pp per hour; sightjoggingdublin.com. For cyclists Avoid city-centre traﬃc with the Downhill to Dublin bike tour from Dublin city bike tours. The tour leads cyclists from the peaks of the Dublin– Wicklow Mountains towards the city centre. Full day tour

(includes along the coast to Howth) from €70 per person, contact 087 134 1866; dublincitybiketours.com. For sailors See Dublin from a whole new perspective! From the deck of a 54-foot yacht, as you sail beautiful Dublin Bay with Go sailing tours. You’ll pick up how to tie knots, hoist sails, you even get to steer. Two-hour morning sail, €35 per person, or three-hour evening sail with supper, €55, contact 087 092 2913; gosailing.ie. For hikers Take a hike into the Wicklow mountains, Glendalough, Lough Tay, or one of the other beauty spots Wicklow has to oﬀer, with Walkabout Wicklow. Choose from three- to four-hour hikes, from beginners’ level to diﬃcult. Available year round, from €35 pp, including a courtesy bus pick-up from the city centre. Contact 086 792 9579; walkaboutwicklow.com.

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Let Dublin truly capture your imagination! From shopping and dining to visitor attractions, festivals and events, Dublin has it all!

Visit Dublin’s Ofﬁcial tourist information and booking ofﬁces The Dublin Tourism Centre, Suffolk Street 14 Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 Also: Dublin Airport T1 and Dun Laoghaire Ferry Port

escape

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Hit the slopes Having mastered the basics, Karen Creed falls head over heels for skiing in the French Alps.

ccident-prone people are generally a danger on the slopes, which really should rule out ski holidays for me. However, if there are mountains and snow, I can’t resist putting my ski gear to good use. I have tumbled my way down the slopes of Vermont, grasped the basics in Tignes, and then glided down a blue piste in Lillehammer so, by the time my fourth ski holiday came around, I was feeling rather confident. Some skiers are like sun worshippers – they go back to the same destination year after year. But for me, a ski holiday isn’t just about soaking up the mountain air and

improving my parallel turns; it’s also the perfect excuse to tick a place off my bucket list. This time, I was heading for the French resort of Morzine, highly regarded because of its easy access, traditional atmosphere and gentle, tree-filled slopes, where lack of snow is rarely a problem. Given the landscape, it’s no surprise that skiing is one of France’s most popular outdoor activities. As most of its resorts were villages before they became ski destinations, they have retained a certain rustic charm and Morzine is no pile-’emhigh, ski-’em-cheap experience. Here, mountain tourism has stayed on the right side of rampant, while still offering a variety

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night it serves the same produce in a charming cosy dining room behind the shop. Like most other leisurely skiers, my itinerary rarely changes – morning ski, followed by a hearty lunch, afternoon skiing and aprèsski drinks before a three-course dinner. While elegant candlelit restaurants and cheap and cheerful towards steep reds packed with pizzerias such as L’Etale (0033 moguls and jumps. My wobbly ski 450 790 929) flank the main legs weren’t quite ready for that; streets of Morzine, my package instead I continued to zigzag down was all-inclusive with a meal served the mountain, trying to avoid the each evening in our base, Chalet domino effect when the skier in Delphine. I was slightly dubious front took a tumble. My fellow about dining en masse at a log skiers were all men, and just like table each night. And I like eating with driving, I found they didn’t out; in fact, after a stop for like to be overtaken on the Skiing hot chocolate on the slopes, slopes. Luckily, I had found with kidS? dinner is my favourite my ski match with my part of a ski break. But chalet mates; not just in Sign the youngsters up to Bernard, our Irish chalet pace but in priorities too, Easy2ride ski school ((0033 450 chef, convinced me I as they were keen to stop 790 516; morzineski.fr), or if they’re wasn’t missing out as for a hot tipple once we too young for the slopes, try L’Outa he whipped up threehad mastered a deathnursery, in Morzine, which caters course extravaganzas defying black slope. We for children from three months each night. He is just one sat on deckchairs al fresco to ﬁve years old (outaof many Irish using their and kept snug with our hot morzine.com). skills to work as chalet chefs drinks, while we rated the in resorts like Morzine. We level of skiers and snowboarders grew more and more envious of his charging down the mountain. lifestyle and that of our chalet hosts, Morzine is a ski resort so wellAlannah and David, who spend endowed with restaurants that, their days skiing for free when they if your priority wasn’t to ski, you aren’t on duty. They also showed us could crawl from restaurant to that Morzine isn’t just a resort for mountain hut to snack bar all day. exhilarating ski days, it also has a Croque Monsieur and fondue were big après-ski nightlife which starts just some of the hearty French fare early and goes on until the small we feasted on for lunch at two of hours. Most of the action takes the mountain-top restaurants, Chez place on Taille de Mas du Pléney Flo (chez-flo.com) and Le Vaffieu or Bar Street, a noisy strip of (Le Pléney; 0033 450 790 943). restaurants, bars and cafés running Down at base camp, Le Piquebetween the Le Pléney lift and Feu (0033 450 791 473) is a cheap Morzine’s tourist office. Straight off alternative for food by day, and at From left, skiing down into Morzine, above, one of the bedrooms at Chalet Delphine.

of well-organised, connected ski areas and accommodation that ranges from hotels and self-catering to modern chalets. A string of lively bars and modest takeaways brings a refreshing balance of budget options to the town, which is known for its upmarket wine bars and designer clothing stores. The pièce de résistance, however, is the slopes – all 177 kilometres of them. Waking up to cloudless skies, sun and perfectly powdered slopes is the reality in Morzine, from December through to late March. My four chalet mates and I, all strangers to each other, arrived late morning and so had missed the first half of the day, but spared no time in kitting out for the fresh snow. In the past, I have wasted hours getting the right ski boots fitted in rental stores, often taking the best part of a morning. But our ski package with Highlife organised everything in advance, which meant we were decked out with ski boots, skis and helmets and on the gondola heading for the top of Le Pléney in no time. The package also included guided skiing, which, depending on your guide and your ability, meant you could cover several pistes in a matter of hours. We were all keen for some high mileage so our guide steered us away from the graceful blue slopes 52 |

OctOber/nOvember 2011

Left, Karen Creed takes time out, and, above, from the slopes, cloud ﬁlls the valley around Morzine.

the slopes, you can pop in to sample a glass of wine and some cheese at the more elegant La Chaudanne (0033 450 791 268; lachaudannemorzine.com) or, if you are keen to party well into the night, it is hard to resist the ever-popular L’Opera (Taille de Mas du Pléney) where the policy is to play anything that will get you dancing. Like other premier ski areas, Morzine has wised up to the fact that skiers love to relax after a hard day on the slopes. You can organise a ski detox easily, especially if you have the luxury of a Jacuzzi or sauna in your chalet, we had an outdoor hot tub! The town is crammed with spas, fitness centres and beauty salons for those who feel they need to be re-energised or pampered, or to relieve the muscle tension in those glutes. I was in need of the latter after taking a few too many tumbles on the last day. A deep tissue massage was a reality check

BEST SKI RESORT FOR … … FAMILIES Méribel is made up of a number of peaceful hamlets, which surround the charming village centre. The resort beneﬁts from great facilities for non-skiers and children, and a number of its mountain restaurants can be easily accessed by pedestrian lifts. Four-night packages, excluding ﬂights, with departures on December 3 and December 10 2011 start from €440 for an adult and €372 for a child aged eleven or younger. Call 01 677 1100; highlife.ie. AER LINGUS FLIES FROM DUBLIN TO LYON, MON, WED, FRI AND SAT.

… ADVANCED SKIERS Promising fresh mountain air and more than 120 slopes, SkiWelt is the largest ski-linked area in Austria. Reliable snow conditions, attractive ski runs and trails featuring all levels of difficulty are what make this ski paradise exceptional. Topflight offers ski packages from €349 with flights and accommodation included. Call 1890 240 170; topflight.ie. AER LINGUS FLIES FROM DUBLIN TO MUNICH DAILY AND FROM CORK TO MUNICH, TUE, THUR AND SAT.

… BEGINNERS Livigno in Italy is perfect for newbies because it has plenty of gentle blue runs. Learning to ski can be arduous so there is plenty of downtime to be found in the form of duty-free shopping in the well-stocked pedestrian centre. Just spare some change so you can enjoy the thriving bars and restaurants that the resort is also renowned for. Package deals, some including ﬂights, are available from approx €500. Call 1890 201 205; directski.com.

… SNOWBOARDERS Courcheval is part of Les Trois Vallés complex in the French Alps with 600 kilometres of trails and unlimited off-piste terrains, chutes, cliff drops, and mogul runs. It’s also perfect for beginners, with wellgroomed greens, plenty of nursery slopes and blue runs to build your style. A buzzing nightlife adds to its attractions. Packages for four, from £570, include accommodation and food, equipment, lift pass and airport transfers, excludes flights. Call 0044 247 668 6835; pleisureholidays.com.

AER LINGUS FLIES FROM DUBLIN TO MILAN LINATE DAILY.

AER LINGUS FLIES FROM DUBLIN TO LYON AS ABOVE.

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How to book tHe best ski Holiday book your holiday off peak. If you choose to go in December when the season is just beginning or late March as it nears an end, you pay a fraction of the price compared to the peak times of Christmas, New Year and February mid-term. It is impossible to bag a bargain during these times. ski school can hike up the cost of a ski holiday. If you are with a group all of similar ability, club together to pay for private ski lessons. This can save you a chunk of money and you might just improve your ski techniques faster because of the individual attention from your instructor. Private ski lessons of three hours cost approximately €100, which works out as relatively inexpensive if there are four or more in your group. Rather than buy ski clothing, borrow from a friend or else stock up on ski gear in one of the discount stores, such as TK Maxx where ski jackets retail from €40 and ski pants from €30. Don’t, however, scrimp on cheap ski socks or gloves. Also don’t underestimate the importance of ski goggles, as you don’t want to suffer from ski blindness. A small sun cream for your pocket is essential. Wait until the last minute and you could be rewarded with a bargain. With tough competition among ski operators, you can often find prices drop significantly as the ski season nears an end. You can sometimes find week-long packages for as little as €350 to well-known resorts in France, Italy and Austria. Self-catering can work out as hugely cost effective if you decide to take turns cooking each night or are on a family holiday. On the other hand, chalet holidays may sound expensive, but add up the expense of seven nights’ eating out and you could be saving money by booking one.

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Morzine isn’t just a resort for exhilarating ski days, it also has a big après-ski nightlife which starts early and goes on until the small hours.

Top, Morzine has kept its traditional Alpine village atmosphere. Above, time for a hot chocolate!

that a ski break doesn’t need to leave you aching – it is now top of my list for my next snow trip. While parents might not have the luxury of checking out ski pampering every evening, there is plenty to keep the kids amused. If a day on the slopes doesn’t have the children sleeping soundly, parents can tire them out with an eclectic range of activities from tobogganing to ice hockey. Events such as kiddie discos are also organised regularly in Morzine throughout the ski season. Over the few days of my holiday, children whizzed past me on the

slopes, so I guessed this was a prime resort for families, and I later spotted the ski school and nursery at the base of the slopes. That’s not to say free-riding snowboarders and high-voltage skiers won’t enjoy it here. However, slope-bashers who want to cover the entire Portes du Soleil circuit will have to take a bus and cable-car or several lifts to the neighbouring resort of Avoriaz. As someone who has yet to master the art of carrying skis with ease, the transfers from our chalet to the ski slopes was one of the main perks of this all-inclusive package. It was the first time in my skiing history that I hadn’t had to pack everything down to the loo roll, which, coupled with having breakfast and dinner served, made the holiday hassle free. Sharing a ski chalet with strangers was not the potential minefield I had expected – fortunately I was paired with a lively bunch who were keen to socialise each evening. Most nights our intention was to venture out but, because the chalet was so comfortable, the drinks flowed and the fire was piled high, we stayed put.

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Morealps

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Munich

ESCAPE

Zürich

At a glance A Geneva Lyon

MORZINE Tignes

Milan

Méribel

MORZINE The traditional mountain resort of Morzine has a prime position in the middle of one of the most extensive ski areas in the Alps, the Portes du Soleil. Boasting oﬀ-piste terrain and groomed slopes, and situated just 46 kilometres from Geneva, Morzine allows you to be on the slopes within a few hours of touching down. WHAT TO PACK Sun screen is crucial (you can get fried on the slopes), also lip balm, the all-important ski goggles, and layers, layers, layers. The weather can change very quickly in the mountains. Try breathable, thermal underclothes, hat, waterproof warm socks, ﬂeece, turtlenecks, gloves and hat, and ski safe with a helmet.

THE INSIDER’S GUIDE For Northern Irish ski buﬀ and former chalet girl Karen Colwill, left, Morzine has it all, but then she did meet her husband there. “I worked in Morzine for two seasons, winter and summer, a few years ago, and try to get back at least once a year, if not twice. My favourite time to head to Morzine is near the end of the season. Although the lower slopes get quite slushy in the afternoon, Avoriaz always has good snow, and there’s nothing better than snowboarding in a T- shirt and enjoying the sun at lunchtime with a bottle of local brew in hand! While on the mountain, visit Lhottys (crepu-lhottys.com) at the top of the Nauchets Express lift, and Rosettaz, at the top of La Rosta lift, both on the Les Gets side of the valley, for a great mountain lunch. On the MorzineAvoriaz side of the valley, my lunch stop of choice is Le Crêperie at the bottom of the Lindarets lift – helped by the fact that it’s at the bottom of what is my favourite run in the Portes du Soleil – Star Wars (run no 14). Snowboarders, beware of the top of the run from Avoriaz down to the Super Morzine lift – keep up the speed or you’ll have a long scoot ahead of you – though the long, wide runs of Zore and Tetras which take you down to the bottom are worth the energy expelled.

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For après ski, my favourite place is Lhottys sister bar Le Crepu (crepu-lhottys.com), a small, fun bar, with fantastic music and staff in the centre of town, beside the late-night bar The Cavern (Taille de Mas du Pléney), and nightclub L’Opéra (on the same street) – where I met my husband. Bar Robinson (Route de la Plagne) is a must in order to try the famously strong Mutzig lager – so intoxicating, even the boys drink demis. For restaurants in town, try either L’Etale (Taille de Mas du Pléney), near the Le Pléney cable car, for the world’s best ribs, or La Flamme (laflamme-morzine.fr) for amazing pizzas, fondues and pirades – and don’t miss their white hot chocolate when getting off the Super Morzine cable car. For accommodation, I have to recommend staying with Simply Morzine (simply-morzine.co.uk), where I worked for my summer season, and have stayed many times since. With chalets close to town, with all the luxuries you would expect in a top ski chalet – great food, wine, hot tub, and top staff (though I might be biased there) to match – groups of any size and make-up are guaranteed a great holiday.”

The chef at one of Simply Morzine’s chalets cooking up a gastro feast.

We left the chalet early on the last morning, our hosts waving us off with breakfast packs filled with fresh croissants. All my resolutions never to go back to the same resort, never mind the same area, were dumped by the roadside. I was already planning my return to Morzine and Chalet Delphine. If the plan to round up a group of friends doesn’t work out, the alternative could be signing up to become a chalet girl. Karen travelled to Morzine with Irish ski company Highlife, which runs ski breaks from December 3 2011 to April 22 2012; prices from €805 for adults and €658 for children under twelve for seven nights half board. Short breaks are also available from €499. Prices cover accommodation, food, wine, a complimentary bar, minibus transfers to and from your chalet and Highlife ski guiding. For full details, call 01 677 1100; highlife.ie.

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chicago

My Kind of

Town

Writer Belinda McKeon’s ﬁrst glimpse of Chicago was in her mother’s photo album back in the 1970s. When she visited the city for the ﬁrst time, this year, she was still awestruck.

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rowing up on a farm in Co Longford did nothing to stop me staring at the city of Chicago. Vast, blocky and sun-bleached, its skyscrapers occupied almost the entirety of a photo album from the early 1970s, the souvenir of a trip by my mother and her mother, which had become the stuff of family legend. Back then, I’d never seen a building taller than the ESB power station in Lanesborough in Roscommon, so I was fascinated – and more than a little unnerved – by the notion of the Sears Tower, as it was still known, with its 108 floors, its stern black exterior, its strange white antennae seeming to plug the city into the sky.

And around it, in those photos, was a jostling sea of towers in glass and gold and silver, and stretching away from them, looking itself so much like a sea, was the vast, unblemished blue of Lake Michigan. And then they went and made Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) in this city. Oh, Chicago. I was eight, and you were my kind of town. But I grew up and moved to New York. And in New York, I became so accustomed to a skyline worth neck strain, a skyline that sparkled at night like a fistful of diamonds, that I thought Chicago could do nothing to surprise me. And then I went to the city for four days, to give a reading at the Printers Row literary festival and, once again, I found it

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CHICAGO

PHOTOG RA

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KI KOBAYA

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impossible not to stare. It’s the architecture. Not just the individual buildings, from the Art Deco statements to the modern eco jewels, but the sense of the city as an intricate architectural feat, laid out confi confidently, dently, proud of the many angles from which its sweep and scale can be revealed. Manhattan’s high-rise impact is best appreciated from a vantage point off the island – from a bridge in Brooklyn, from a Hoboken park – but Chicago shows itself off from the inside. You turn a corner to find that the city has thrown itself wide open in front of you. It’s a culture shock for a New Yorker; can this be a city, when it accelerates the heartbeat not by hemming you in and teeming over you, but rather by framing you in an arrangement within which there is space to stare? On that trip, the first couple of days were spent in Printers Row itself, a neighbourhood south of the downtown area known as The Loop, which was once the printing

The glorious Art Deco landmark of the Carbon and Carbide Tower, inset above, writer Belinda McKeon says, “Chicago shows itself oﬀ from the inside”.

STAY AT …

The Drake Hotel SPLURGE The Drake Hotel is legendary, largely because it has hosted more legends than you can reasonably name-drop without looking ridiculous. Vast public areas of 1920s grandeur;

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big, modernised guest rooms. From $269 pps. 140 East Walton Place; 001 312 787 2200; thedrakehotel.com. MIDPRICE Within walking distance of most major downtown sights, The Affinia (formerly the Fitzpatrick Chicago) offers good-sized rooms with views over the Magnificent Mile. Rooms from $249; 166 East Superior Street; 001 312 787 6000; affinia.com. BUDGET Ray’s Bucktown Bed and Breakfast has eleven airy, cheerful rooms, a steam room and sauna, and the rate includes an acclaimed, cooked-to-order breakfast. From $70 pps. 2144 North Leavitt; 001 773 384 3245; raysbucktownbandb.com.

EAT AT …

Intimate, opulent and just as highly polished as the surface of “Cloud Gate”, Henri (18 South Michigan Avenue; 001 312 578 0763; henrichicago.com) is the brainchild of Billy Lawless, who also owns bustling gastropub The Gage, almost next door (24 South Michigan Avenue; 001 312

The Purple Pig

372 4243; thegagechicago.com). But if you’re looking for unusual mid-price grub in the downtown area, try The Purple Pig (500 North Michigan Avenue; 001 312 464 1744; thepurplepigchicago. com), a tapas-like place where it pays dividends to order as much as possible from the huge (and pork-centric) menu. Head to the Wicker Park neighbourhood (the Brooklyn of Chicago, it seems) for global vegetarian fare at Mana Food Bar (1742 West Division Street; 001 773 342 1742; manafoodbar.com), which is small in size (and price) but big on menu choice. And for the quintessential boozy brunch, head to Sable Kitchen & Bar (505 North State Street; 001 312 755 9704; sablechicago.com).

SHOP AT …

You’ll ﬁnd all the big name stores (Barneys, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales) in and around Michigan Avenue, but for more interesting shopping and independent labels, head to the Wicker Park and Bucktown neighbourhoods, which are packed with small, well-curated boutiques such as Tangerine (1719 North Damen Avenue; 001 773 772 0505) and Helen Yi (1645 North Damen Avenue; 001 773 252 3838; helenyi.com), where you’ll ﬁnd threads by a couple of Michelle Obama’s designers of choice, including Derek Lam. Men can get a lookin at Apartment Number 9 (1804 North Damen Avenue; 001 773 395 299) which stocks

PHOTOgrAPH BY PETEr MATTHEWS

centre of the Midwest and must have rattled like a city bridge with the sound of typesetters at their trade. (Before it was home to the city’s printers, by the way, it was home to the city’s prostitutes, so no great changes in ambient noise there.) Handsome in industrial red brick, the area hasn’t housed a printing shop since the 1980s, when buildings were converted into loft condominiums, but it boasts what must be one of the world’s most beautiful antiquarian bookstores, Printers Row Rare and Fine Books, which, with its copper ceilings and bookshelves with windows of stained glass, is like a little museum all to itself, and that’s before you get to the books. John LaPine, the bookshop owner, offers everything from a $3 pulp fiction edition of The Scarlet Letter to a signed Ernest Hemingway, going for $225,000. And if the Hemingway, at that price, would want to have a story (it’s inscribed, with a comment about its resale value, to the doctor who delivered Hemingway’s children), so too does Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter: it comes from the library of a film editor who worked on one of the schlockiest of all cult

classics, The Blob (1958). Speaking of schlock (I realise this does not exactly constitute a neat segue), but The Blob brings us to The Bean, the local pet name for Anish Kapoor’s enormous public sculpture “Cloud Gate”, a highlight of Millennium Park – a public space which, because of its placement above a parking lot and a railway station, apparently counts as the world’s largest rooftop garden. A mark of “Cloud Gate’s” success as a piece of public art (Kapoor’s

brands such as Nicole Farhi and John Varvatos, as well as Warby Parker frames. And for a Chicago success story, visit the ﬂagship store of hometown label Eskell (1509 Milwaukee Avenue; 001 773 486 0830; eskell.com). Meanwhile, Greer (1657 North Wells Street; 001 312 337 8000; greerchicago. com) is famous for its beautiful stationery. For unique ﬁnds in vintage homeware and clothing, head out to the West Town area for Dovetail’s selection (1452 West Chicago Avenue; 001 312 243 3100; dovetailchicago.com).

BE CULTURAL AT …

The great Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1650 North Halsted Street; 001 312 335

Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” sculpture in Millennium Park, nicknamed “The Bean”.

first in the US) is the fact that it’s the spectacle of people reacting to the piece, interacting with it, which comprises the work of art, rather than its composite of 168 steel plates. The second they’d finished polishing those plates, “Cloud Gate” became a bean with people attached. They press up against it. Their elongated reflections appear like unnerving outgrowths of themselves, shooting out of their limbs, soaring from their crowns. The city hovers behind them in

1650; steppenwolf.org) is an Illinois original; the fall/winter season oﬀers opportunities to see Clybourne Park, a play about racial politics and gentriﬁcation by the company’s longtime collaborator, Bruce Norris, as well as a production of Enda Walsh’s black comedy, Penelope, starring John Mahoney of Frasier fame. Open to the public since 1887, the Newberry Library (60 West Walton Street; 001 312 943 9090; newberry.org) hosts high-quality author events and exhibitions. If you enjoy the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 East Chicago Avenue; 001 312 280 2660; mcachicago. org), you might also venture out to The Renaissance

Society (5811 South Ellis Avenue; 001 773 702 8670; renaissancesociety.org) on the University of Chicago campus hosts exhibitions of major international artists. At the Lyric Opera (20 North Wacker Drive; 001 312 332 2244; lyricopera.org), late 2011 brings productions of Boris Godunov and The Magic Flute. And don’t miss the Chicago Humanities Festival (November 2-13; chicagohumanities.org), which brings an array of cultural events to the city, or iBam (November 12-13; 001 773 282 7035; ibamchicago.com), a cultural festival on all things Irish (full disclosure: I’m among its extensive line-up of Irish writers this year).

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THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO THE BLUES

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PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER MATTHEWS

CHICAGO

Martina Sheehan, right, is a writer, linguist and ice-cream enthusiast who lives in Chicago. “With relatives in both Ireland and Germany, I’m often expected to present visiting guests with various ‘essential Chicago’ experiences. Some of these Windy City dreams – tracking down the best deep-dish pizza or the ultimate Chicago hot dog, for example – are relatively easy to fulfill (the answers are Pequod’s and Superdawg, by the way). Other requests are not so simple, especially when it comes to ‘authentic’ Chicago music. When people think Chicago, they think the blues. And they want to hear the blues, and expect to find soulful elderly men crooning their woes to amplified electric guitar licks on every street corner. But most of the city’s legendary clubs, Pepper’s Lounge and Theresa’s among them, disappeared off the map in the past few decades – with equal blame on the end of the Great Migration from the South in the late 1960s and, of course, changing tastes in black music. But if you know where to look, namely outside the commercialised, blues-tourist baiting clubs of the city’s North Side, a few worthwhile blues dens remain, offering that increasingly hard-to-come-by ‘essential Chicago experience’. Rosa’s Lounge (3420 West Armitage Avenue; 001 773 342 0452; rosalounge.com), which bills itself as the city’s friendliest blues lounge, is one such spot. An Italian immigrant, inspired by meeting blues great Junior Wells in Milan, opened the club in 1978, drawing notable regulars such as Pinetop Perkin and, until he passed away in August, David Honeyboy Edwards.

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The Checkerboard Lounge (5201 South Harper Avenue; 001 773 684 1472; checkerboardhydepark.com), meanwhile, is one of the city’s most famous Chicago blues clubs, and, at its original location in the rougher-hewn Bronzeville neighborhood, drew high-calibre acts such as Junior Wells, Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones. But the club lost some of its charm, and cache, when it relocated in 2005 to a strip mall in the Hyde Park neighborhood (best known as home to the University of Chicago and President Obama). For a look at a true weather-worn Chicago blues icon, Buddy Guy’s Legends, above, (700 South Wabash Avenue; 001 312 427 1190; buddyguy.com) is the place. Just south of downtown, it’s occasionally over-run by the tourist set, but a chance at seeing the blues legend-turned-proprietor Buddy Guy himself hop unexpectedly on stage makes it a worthy stop. Since opening in 1989, the club has featured live acts seven nights a week, with Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley and Lou Rawls taking the stage over the years. Deep on the South Side, the perfect mix of authentic venue, authentic blues and authentic crowd awaits at Lee’s Unleaded Blues (7401 South Chicago Avenue; 001 773 493 3477; leesunleadedblues.com). This is the place to dance on the thick red carpet under a mirrored ceiling – just like Tyrone Davis, Johnny Taylor and Otis Clay once did. And when you’re done, check oﬀ the ‘blues’ box on your list of authentic Chicago experiences. You’ve lived it fully.”

Kapoor’s polished steel, distorted out of its elegant symmetry – which, in this city, is the biggest distortion there could be. Across the plaza from “Cloud Gate”, the Art Institute of Chicago is a blissful place to spend a morning; here, you can come face to face with four people who weren’t quite ready for morning; the figures in Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting “Nighthawks”, on which Hopper began work in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbour. Nearby hangs Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”, which has turned every pitchfork lying around every farmyard into a tool of art parody in the making. The Institute’s permanent collection is staggering and, as well as the paintings and sculptures, includes many, many masterpieces of furniture, architectural fragments and jewellery from around the world, as well as holdings of arms and armour, which are strangely compelling to contemplate. And there’s the Ando Gallery, a space designed by Tadao Ando for the display of environmentally sensitive Japanese screens. Intimate, silent and lowly-lit, it’s a slice of Zen – but it might be worth bearing in mind (not least by the gallerists who want

to protect their priceless Japanese Make the river and stay in the city until you’ve done cruise your ﬁrst it (unless of course your stay happens screens ...) that it’s also known as stop – it gives you a to be during Chicago’s cruel winter, the “Make-Out Room”, suggesting sense of the city’s that, had it been around in 1986, layout and its most in which case you’re excused). It’s it, too, might have had a visit from famous buildings. 90 minutes of brilliance. The tour Ferris Bueller (director John Hughes guides are architecture graduates shot a long sequence of the film in (and, incidentally, volunteers) who the Art Institute, featuring several know what they’re talking about and of his own favourite works). know how to traverse those historical So many of my fellow readers layers – more than 50 sites are at the Printers Row festival told pointed out and discussed – with me to go on the architectural intelligence, wit and clarity; river cruise that I almost even if you don’t think Wright on didn’t do it – by the 20th you’re that bothered about Legendary architect Frank recommendation, it came architecture, take this Lloyd Wright made many a mark to seem like a typical tour for the beautiful on the Chicago landscape and his tourist trail activity in river voyage, and for the home – which he used as an architectural the face of which the views, and trust me, lab – and studio are open to the public. only sensible response you’ll surprise yourself. Booking ahead advised, 001 312 994 was a brush-off; It’s impossible not to be 4000; gowright.org. Or take a tour surely, I thought, there fascinated by the story of his designs with the Chicago must be some road-lessof how Chicago came Architecture Foundation; taken through the layers back from the great fire of of the city’s architectural 1871 – and how that event, caf.architecture.org. history? Listen to me, and which almost completely to all the other people who will destroyed the city, created a tell you the same thing once you near-blank slate on which the most arrive in Chicago: do not miss the talented architects of the era could Chicago Architecture Foundation realise their diverse visions. river cruise. Do it before you do This hasn’t stopped; in Chicago, anything else – it will give you a old and new buildings share workable sense of the city’s layout, breathing space with ease, so that a as well as a meaningful sense of its three-year-old Trump Tower can most famous buildings. If you miss shoulder its way in beside two 1920s it, cancel your flight out of Chicago landmarks, the Wrigley and Tribune

towers, and somehow gain from their grace rather than becoming bloated with its own vulgarity. But it’s mostly grace, especially if, like me, you have a soft spot for the streamlined swoops of Art Deco, and there’s a story – and usually a nickname – to go with every building. And a story to go with every space, even the blank ones – an ingloriously abandoned site close to Lake Michigan, we were told on my tour, was bought by an Irish bank just before the recession and, well, we all know the rest of that story. It might make Irish passengers feel better to hear that the traditional story of how the 1871 fire started – when an Irish farmer’s cow kicked over a lantern – was uncovered, after all, as a fake, invented by an unscrupulous reporter to give his story a little more colour. Until you learn, that is, that the crooked newspaperman was called Ahern. Oh, well. Did I mention that the Coq d’Or bar at The Drake does the meanest of all martinis? Belinda McKeon’s debut novel Solace (Picador, £12.99) is out now.

aer Lingus ﬂies from Dublin to Chicago daily.

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Celebrating an Amazing Year

Your friend, Cammie Hi, I’m Cammie the Chameleon, and I’m celebrating the first anniversary of the opening of The Convention Centre Dublin. In our first year we’ve hosted over 300 events, with over 190,000 delegate days! We’ve welcomed guests from all over the world to our wonderful venue, showcasing the best of Irish Hospitality, in this amazing city. Among our visitors has been an impressive range of international associations, corporations, and a host of VIPs. From renowned business leaders like Johan Gorecki, founder of Skype, to eminent politicians, academics and medical pioneers. From Hollywood stars including Pierce Brosnan and Brendan Gleeson, to popular music artists like Westlife and David Gray. And, not forgetting, the recent historic visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Irish President, Mary McAleese. Our client feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with tremendous praise given to our wonderful team whose innovative approach to every event ensures an unforgettable experience. Now we want to welcome you to The CCD! So celebrate with us and contact our friendly sales team today to enquire about your next event, and tell them Cammie sent you!

Image of The CCD lit for Google event courtesy of Marc O’Sullivan

Contact our Sales Team on: Tel: +353 1 856 0000 Email: sales@theccd.ie Or visit our website: www.theccd.ie

 Funky and kitsch, ALPRAUSCH has men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and a huge range of scarves. If you like gingham, then stop here (Werdmühleplatz 4; alprausch.com).

 My favourite chocolate shop is LÄDERACH at Merkur Conﬁserien – I love the slabs of piled-up chocolate and how they contrast with the perfectly formed chocolates. The smell is wonderful and you can watch the chocolatier work away at the back of the shop. (Bahnhofstrasse 106; laederach.ch).

ZURICH AN INSIDER’S GUIDE  SWIMMING IN THE RIVER LIMMAT IN SUMMER. Where else could you do that in the middle of the city? My favourite Badi is the Frauenbadi, a beautiful old wooden bath, whose design is copied from Venice and Budapest, right in the middle of the town. It is also a wonderful place to go for a drink in the evenings (barfussbar.ch).

Where to get the best coﬀee coﬀee and chocolate in Zürich? Irish artist Sarah Honner shares her favourite hangouts in her adopted city.

five  RIFFRAFF is one of fi ve or six small cinemas around the city, which are charming to visit for a movie; they always have an interval halfway. The food at its Bistro is also delicious. (Neugasse 57; riffraff.ch).

MORE ABOUT SARAH

Artist Sarah Honner studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, and met her Swiss husbandto-be Simon at the Neptune Rowing Club. She moved to Zurich seven years ago. These days – apart from being a mum to her two daughters – she curates shows for the local Theater Rigiblick, paints and has a show next year at Up the Rock (uptherock.com), and has gone back to rowing on the Zurich Lake. To see her work, sarahhonner.com.

 My favourite coffee coffee place, LES GOURMANDISES DE MIYUKO, has incredible cakes and coff coffee. ee. (Beckenhofstrasse 7/9; miyuko.ch).

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INSIDER’S GUIDE

 The KUNSTHAUS ZÜRICH, the contemporary art museum, is great and I try to visit regularly. It also has a good art bookshop (Heimplatz 1; kunsthaus.ch).

 There are three famous churches in Zürich: the GROSSMÜNSTER, above left, a big Romanesque-style church built in the twelfth century with two towers like two rockets (Grossmünsterplatz; grossmuenster.ch); the FRAUMÜNSTER near the Rathaus, with its famous stained-glass windows designed by Chagall, and ST PETERSKIRCHE, above right, with its big clock tower (St Peter Hofstatt 1; st-peter-zh.ch).  It may sound strange but going to a supermarket is always interesting and it does not get more Swiss then the MIGROS. It has a very good own brand and Frey chocolate is superb, cheap and pure Swiss chocolate.

 Swiss knitwear? Check out BEIGE (Josefstrasse 10; beige.ch) for cool designs.

 Right in the centre of the old town, and on the River Limmat, STORCHEN ZÜRICH is a great place to stay (double room from €498 B&B; Weinplatz 2, 0041 44 227 27 27; storchen.ch).

 If you prefer to stray oﬀ the beaten track to shop, try Josefstrasse and quirky shops such as LILLI TULIPAN, for jewellery, slippers, ﬂower garlands … (Josefstrasse 18; lilli-tulipan.ch).

great views of the city and the TOP TIP Take a boat ride on the River Limmat for minutes at Landesmuseum, lake – most take about 55 minutes. Board every 30 h or dinner and a dance; zsg.ch. day trips are also available, some with brunch, lunc 66 |

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 THE MARKET AT BÜRKLIPLATZ in the Altstadt, open Tuesday and Friday morning to 11am, is the place to stock up on picnic goodies such as Swiss cheese, speciality breads and organic fruit.

Aer Lingus ﬂies from Dublin to Zurich daily, except Sat.

Blarney Castle & Gardens Renowned for bestowing the gift of eloquence See and feel Irelands heritage, built nearly six hundred years ago by one of Ireland’s greatest chieftains...

Open all year round 5 miles from Cork Open Monday- Sunday 9-5 www.blarneycastle.ie info@blarneycastle.ie c

Buy before you fly... Tax savings for all passengers Available from Hour Passion Watch & Jewellery Store, T2, Dublin Airport. Swatch Store T1 Tel: +353 (o)1 944 6463

Let Dublin truly capture your imagination! imagination From shopping and dining to visitor attractions, festivals and events, Dublin has it all!

Visit Dublin’s Ofﬁcial tour tourist formation and information ooking ofﬁces booking The e Du lin Tourism Dublin Suf Street Centre, Suffolk Co 14 Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 Also: Dublin Airport T1 and Du Dun Laoghaire Ferry Port

Take me To The Sun Slug

Alicante

The Spanish port has sandy beaches, a buzzing restaurant and tapas scene and, this autumn, plays host to the Volvo Ocean Race teams. Paul O’Doherty visits Alicante for a taste of the real Spain.

f the very mention of Alicante conjures up images of high-rise blocks and package holidaymakers, you might want to visit this Mediterranean town again – and spend a weekend exploring. Most holidaymakers fly in and drive straight out – up the Costa Blanca to holiday homes in Javea or the bustling town of Denia – but they are missing out on the buzzing old town here, El Barrio, the swish marina, a

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lively beach, and cutting-edge restaurants and tapas bars, not to mention the views of the town and bay from the medieval Castillo de Santa Bárbara on Mount Benacantil. Culture lovers will enjoy the wonderful refurbished art museum. And, unlike some other Spanish hubs, very few Irish or English holiday here, most visitors are Madrileños down to enjoy a weekend at the seaside.

SEE AND DO

The start of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, the eight-month ocean marathon, is a guaranteed adrenaline rush and, this autumn, Alicante not only plays host to the competing teams but is the location for the start line on November 5 (the finish line is in Galway in July 2012). During October, visitors can explore the Race Village in the marina, and from October 14 to November 5, can view the Legends Regatta, with its vintage yachts, the Pro-Am Race and the In-Port Race, where the boats compete at close quarters (volvooceanrace.com). Overlooking the city, the Castillo de Santa Bárbara is a necklace of fortifications built by the Moors that hangs from the shoulders of Mount Benacantil. Accessible by lift from El Postiguet beach, it’s eye-catching, monstrous, and now home to the Museo de la Ciudad de Alicante (0034 965 152 969) , the recently opened city museum. Closer to sea level, the best sandy beach – La Playa de San Juan – is less than eight kilometres out of the city and well worth the excursion for its stunning backdrop and long stretch of bliss, with numerous restaurants and bars nearby. For the cultural experience, the Museo de Bellas Artes Gravina (C/ Gravina; 0034 965 146 780; mubag.org) is an exquisite fine art museum set in a gorgeous building that’s as attractive to the eye as the artworks it holds and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante (Plaza de Santa Maria 3; 0034 965 213 156) has just been

Castillo de Santa Bárbara seen from the harbour in Alicante, and, above, from across the town. Right, the Santa Cruz area of the old town.

refurbished and is well worth a visit. That said, Alicante is best appreciated while walking the old town or strolling its numerous parks, such as Parque del Morant on the fringe of the city or Parque de la Ereta, on the slopes of Mount Benacantil.

EAt At ...

While Michelin stars are to be found in the surrounding area, there are none in the town itself. However, fine restaurants abound. For example, port-side, La Dársena (Muelle Levante 6, Marina Deportiva; 0034 965 207 589; darsena.com), is a bit of “arroz a banda” heaven – the typical local fisherman’s paella dish – with wonderful views of the harbour. In a similar search for regionality, if it’s tapas you want, try Cerveceria Sento (C/ Teniente Coronel Chapuli), off Calle Rambla, a small gem of a place that’s typically Spanish and frightfully inexpensive. A lot more elegant and near Castillo de Santa Bárbara, Restaurante La Ereta

(Parque de la Ereta; 0034 965 143 250; laereta.es), serving Valencian specialities, is perched high above the city, oﬀering stunning views of the bay and the surrounding landscape. While it is magniﬁcent, particularly at night, booking in advance is strongly advised.

SLEEP At ...

A short walk oﬀ Explanada de España, with El Postiguet beach and the marina a little further on, Hospes Amérigo (rooms from €150 per night: Rafael Altamira 7, 0034 965 146 570; hospes.com) in the old town is a renovated 19thcentury Dominican convent with an eye-catching façade, elegant bar and roof-top terrace and pool that upholds its tradition for worship of one kind or another. It’s all about proximity to the Mediterranean at Sercotel Suites del Mar (rooms from €125 per night: Plaza Puerta del Mar 3; 0034 965 147 021; hotelspaportamaris.com), with stunning balcony views that cry out for a dry sherry or glass of cava in the mid-afternoon, if you’re not taking a dip in the pool or lounging on the terrace, before setting out to one of the restaurants in the nearby marina by night. Again, close to the hub in the old town, Gravina Cinco (rooms from €70 per night: C/ Gravina 5; 0034 965 147 317; hotelgravinacinco.es) is on the money for reliability and convenience. Aer Lingus ﬂies from Dublin to Alicante, Mon, Wed, Fri and Sun and from Cork to Alicante, Wed and Sun, and from Belfast to Alicante, Tue, Thur and Sat.

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UPGRADE YOUR TRAVEL EXPERIENCE

Fly Business Class to the USA and enjoy the luxury of our Lie Flat Sleeper Seats, restaurant quality dining and on-demand-in-flight entertainment with movies, TV, music and games. And every seat has its own power point for your laptop. As an experience, we’d have to say it’s the business. Why not upgrade your flight at aerlingus.com?

Great Care. Great Fare.

Airspace

It’s 75 years since Aer Lingus’s first flight took to the air. To celebrate, author Joseph O’Connor was asked to write a commemorative piece and here, we publish the first two chapters, along with their author’s introduction.

hen I was asked to write a text that would commemorate the 75th anniversary of Aer Lingus’s first flight, I began to think about Ireland in May 1936, the month in which that inaugural journey took place. The country of my grandparents’ youth was a poor one, only recently founded, facing immense challenges, yet its cultural traditions had survived and there was optimism that this small new democracy might one day be a place of freedoms. In our old literature, in our ballads and songs, in our poetry and legends, the imagery of flight appeared with striking frequency; a touching testament to the hopes

of an island people who, as Yeats said, “have gone about the world like wind”. It struck me as remarkable that a nation which not very long previously had been engaged in violent conﬂict and Civil War had progressed so quickly to establishing an airline. It also seemed to me that the story of Aer Lingus closely tracked the story of independent Ireland, sometimes in counterpoint, sometimes in parallel. We have long been a migrant people – we still are, today – and every ﬂight is an anthology, a collection of stories, some happy, some poignant, all our own. So, rather than write a fact-laden article studded with statistics

and the names of aircraft, I asked if I could approach the commemorative piece as a series of verse-lyrics that might attempt to record the unique and indeﬁnable aura that Irish people feel Aer Lingus has. “Airspace” was the result. I wrote it between Christmas 2010 and January of 2011, a month in which severe snow cut us oﬀ from the world for a while. In a small way, that separation reminded me of the longing we feel for other lands, other dreams, of the connections that Aer Lingus has existed to serve. I hope you enjoy reading the piece. Joseph O’Connor

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JOSEPH O’CONNOR

I Flightlines Soul-deep in old stories, Our smouldering for flight, Like the ache In the longing of an island people For the god-shaped space in the sky. In our legends, scattered myths, Tattered sagas, cluttered touchstones; Sweeney in the branches, The Children of Lír. In the songs of Moore and Mangan, The snowy-breasted pearls Of Rosaleens exiled. The Flight of the Earls. Hawk-man. Spéirbhean Woman of the sky. Faeries, wisp-sprites, Airborne imaginings, These, our protagonists, Our Easter Island giants But hovering our rootedness, Out of reach. We were beached, Triple-earthed, So we looked to the sky. Reminder we were not alone, That the rain gives us music, That the snowfall’s gift is silence, That the planets feed our children, That the darkness, too, is a gift. That the place of truer freedoms Is the sky in every mind That can never be quenched Or conquered.

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Iron-deep in our bloodstream Like a vein through black marble, Since the lover tore the air With that Carrickfergus cry: Ah, the sea is wide, And I can’t swim over, And neither have I Wings To fly. Hear the longing in the grace-notes Of a sean-nós lament The air climbing higher, Like an Aran Island tern, Circling, weaving, lost in the slipstream, Transcendent grace. A yearning given form.

Zone of the heroes, The birds and the angels, Flightpaths of liberty, Ocean on high. Over annals of invasions, And rock-strewn fields, Conspiracies founded To make us take root. But we dreamed that at least The sky could be ours. On the stones guarding Newgrange, The spirals of the stars.

Airspace. Dream-place. Realm we ascend to. Windstreams of hope Over Everests of cloud.

That the place of truer freedoms Is the sky in every mind That can never be quenched Or conquered.

II First flight of the Iolar – 27 May, 1936 A state barely born, New oaks not yet leafed, Their roots not deep, The orchards unripe, And the wounds of Civil War Yet open and bleeding. A whirl of propellers Chopped crisp Dublin air. The engines coughed A scutter of smoke And wept an oily tear.

Unsure, perhaps, what all of it was for, But at last a risen people. May twenty-seven, In the year of thirty-six, A dark year for Europe And the storm-clouds black, But hope climbed the sky On that morning in May For a people grown weary of horror.

The musk of the fuel Drifted low on the breezes Mixing with the incense of forget-me-nots and clover In a flutter of grass by the runway.

We had seen so much hatred. We knew what it cost When brother fought brother. That morning, at last, A metaphor of better Ascending the clouds Like the bird of a nation’s hopes.

The biplane so small; A squeeze for five passengers. What it meant was immense. The impossible done. We could lift ourselves up, Be as good as the world, And hold our heads high As the cold Irish sky, As the clouds over brave Baldonnel.

Over wheat-fields of secrets, Buried shames, Impossible beauty, Forgotten boys’ names, Fraternal betrayals, The de Havilland sputtered, Banking hard to the east With Ireland’s Eye Seeming to watch from the sea.

We had known the dawn-lit knock, The shadow of the gunman, The chapel and the kips And the fumble in the till. The riddle of bullets By a lake in Roscommon, The blindfold, the boycott, The bayonet, the bomb, The neighbour spurned, His place of worship burned, Labour beaten down, The penny on the rates, The sanctity of slum, The plaster saints.

Howth’s heather lay below As the small plane turned, A speck in the blue, And the trawler-men stared. As the raucous gulls Of Dublin Bay Whirled with the startled guillemots.

Now we rose with the Iolar, Over townland and steeple. Imperfect. Poor. Riven by our shames, Torn to the marrow by the cruelties of war,

Yeats had imagined, years before, A lonesome Irish airman’s thought, As from the skies of Europe dark, He fought a foe he did not hate. Nor public men, not cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove this tumult in the clouds.

But now we chugged a rain-lashed flight Across the bitter Irish Sea That once divided land from land, The de Havilland climbed and rattled through Ten thousand feet of battering wind. Icebergs of suspicion, loathing, loss, Injustice, fear, they rolled below, As O.E. Armstrong, pilot bold, Began to write a newer poem. In the backstreets of Bristol, As he levelled to land, A tramp in a doorway glanced up from his song, And the words in his mouth, His only inheritance, Carved on the tombstones Of all his lost fathers, Rose in the air line like an afterthought of smoke And he wept with something like pride. Last night As I lay dreaming Of pleasant days gone by; My mind, being bent on rambling, To Ireland’s isle did fly. I stepped on board a vision And I took it with a will. And I thought I saw James Connolly’s ghost In the slums of Arbour Hill. His flag, a torn fragment of the map of the sky, Bullet-ripped, scorched, but longing to avow One last truth of hope in the emblem of the broken. No banner of hatreds, But a Starry Plough. Flightlines. Sightlines Of heart and wanting. Alive in our ballads Like DNA in tears. An island people, Suspicious of gravities, Yearning to fly Into better, braver years.

The biplane so small; A squeeze for ﬁve passengers. What it meant was immense. OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

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InFlight

Welcome Aboard ........................... 76 Aer Lingus News ............................78 Entertainment ................................80 Wellbeing ..........................................86 Route Maps ......................................87

for your guide to our new and exciting on Demand movies and television programmes, including The Kennedys (pictured), turn to page 82.

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WelcomeAboard Aer Lingus is delighted to welcome you on board Tá áthas ar Aer Lingus fáilte ar bord a chur romhat

For your comfort and safety Please pay attention while the cabin crew demonstrate the use of the safety equipment before take-off. Also, make sure to read the safety instruction card, which is in the seat pocket in front of you. Seat belts must be fastened during takeoff and landing, and whenever the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign is switched on. We recommend that you keep your seat belt loosely fastened throughout the flight. Your seat must be in the upright position during take-off and landing, but can be reclined by pressing the large button in the armrest. Other buttons (in the armrest or above your head, depending on the aircraft) may be used to operate your reading light and air vent, or to call a cabin attendant.

Ar mhaithe de do chompord agus le do shábháilteacht, iarraimid ort aird mhaith a thabhairt, ar an bhfoireann cábáin ag tús na heililte agus iad ag taispeáint conas an fearas slándála a úsáid. Iarraimid ort an cárta threoraca slándála atá i bpóca an tsuíocháin os do chomhair a léamh chomh maith. Caithfear criosanna sábhála bheith ceangailte le linn éirí agus tuirlingthe agus ag aon am a bhíonn an comhartha “Fasten Seat Belts” ar iasadh. Molaimid duit an crios sábhála bheith leathcheangailte agat i rith an turais. Le linn éirí agus tuirlingthe, ní mór do shuíochan bheith sa suíomh ingearach. Ag am ar bith eile, is féidir an suíochán a chur siar ach brú ar an gcnaipe mór atá ar an taca uillinne. Tá cnaipí eile ann (ar an taca uillinne nó os do chionn, ag brath ar an eitleán) chun úsáid a bhaint as an solas léitheoireachta nó as an ngaothaire, nó chun glaoch ar bhall den fhoireann cábáin.

Portable electronic equipment Portable electronic equipment may interfere with aircraft equipment, creating a potentially hazardous situation. With safety as our priority, we ask you to pay particular attention to the following: Mobile phones and all other personal electronic equipment must be switched off and stowed safely as soon as the aircraft doors are closed. It is not permissible to use any electronic device to transmit or receive data during the flight, however devices equipped with flight mode, or the equivalent, may be used. Flight mode should be selected before the device is switched off. Devices permitted at ✔ any time: Devices powered by micro battery cells and/or by solar cells; hearing aids (including digital

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devices); pagers (receivers only); heart pacemakers. Devices permitted in ● flight but not during taxi/take-off/initial climb/

approach landing: Laptops with CD ROM or DVD drive, palmtop organisers, handheld calculators without printers, portable audio equipment (eg Walkman, CD-player, Mini-disk player, iPod and MP3player). For the comfort of other passengers, audio devices should be used with a headset. Computer games (eg Gameboy, Nintendo DS).

Video cameras/recorders, digital cameras, GPS handheld receivers, electric shavers, electronic toys. Bluetooth devices with mobile phones in “Flight” mode, devices with “Blackberry” technology with “Flight”/Flight Safe” mode selected, Laptops, PDAs with built-in Wi-Fi with “Wireless Off” setting selected. Devices prohibited ✘ at all times: Devices transmitting radio frequency

intentionally such as walkie-talkies, remote controlled toys; wireless computer equipment (eg mouse,

keyboard); PC printers, DVD/CD writers and Mini-disk Recorders in the recording mode; digital camcorders when using CD write facility; portable stereo sets; pocket radios (AM/ FM); TV receivers; telemetric equipment; peripheral devices for handheld computer games (eg supplementary power packs connected by cable); wireless LAN (WLAN). Laptops with built-in WLAN (eg Centrino) may be used during flight, provided the WLAN option is turned off and subject to the restrictions associated with the use of laptops detailed above.

The cabin crew will do everything possible to ensure that you enjoy your flight, so please don’t hesitate to ask them for assistance or advice Tá an fhoireann cábáin anseo le cinntiú go mbaineann tú taitneamh as do thuras, mar sin ná bíodh leisce ort aon chabhair nó comhairle a iarraidh orthu.

Food and bar service

Seirbhís Bia agus Beáir

A new range of food items – including sandwiches, confectionery and a range of snacks – is available for sale on all Aer Lingus scheduled services to and from the UK and Europe. A charge applies for all drinks on UK and European flights in Economy class. On long haul flights, there is a charge in Economy class for alcoholic drinks, while soft drinks are complimentary. Details of all items available for purchase are contained in an information leaflet, which is in all seat pockets.

Tá raon nua bia ar fáil anois ar sheirbhísí sceidealta Aer Lingus a dhéanann freastai ar an Riocht Aontaithe agus ar an Eoraip. Ina measc, tá ceapairí, milseogra agus rogha sneaiceanna éagsúla. Ní mór íoc as gach deoch sa ghrád barainne ar na heitiltí seo. Ar eitiltí Trasatlantacha, tá costas ar dheochanna neamh-mheisciúla go fóill ar fáil saor in aisce. Tá sonraí faoi gach rud is féidir a cheannach ar bord foilsithe sa bhileog eolais atá i bpóca an tsuíocháin os do chomhair.

News, music and movies On long haul flights, we offer you an extensive programme of viewing and listening options. For full details, turn towards the back of this magazine. We hope you have a comfortable and pleasant flight. Thank you for choosing to fly with Aer Lingus.

Nuacht, ceol agus scannáin Ar eitiltí Trasatlantacha tá clár leathan féachana agus éisteachta ar fáil. Le hagaidh tuilleadh eolais, féach deireadh na hirise seo. Tá suil againn go mbíonn turas compordach taitneamhach agat agus go raibh maith agat as taisteal le hAer Lingus.

Smoking In line with Irish government regulations, Aer Lingus has a no-smoking policy onboard its flights. Smoking is not permitted in any part of the cabin at any time.

Tobac De réir rialacháin Rialtas na hÉireann, tá polasai i réim ar eitiltí Aer Lingus nach gceadaítear tobac a chaitheamh. Ní cheadaítear d’aon duine tobac a chaitheamh in aon chuid den eitleán ag aon am.

Fearas iniompartha leictreonach Is féidir le fearas iniompartha leictreonach cur isteach ar threalamh an eitleáin, rud a d’fhéadfadh bheith contúirteach. Agus sábháilteacht mar phríomhchúram ag Aer Lingus, iarraimid ort aird sa bhreis a thabhairt ar an mír seo a leanas: Caithfear gach guthán póca agus gach fearas pearsanta leictreonach a mhúchadh agus a chur i dtaisce a luaithe agus a dhúntar doirse an eitleáin. Ní ceadmhach úsáid a bhaint as uirlis leictreonach ar bith chun sonraí a tharchur nó a ghlacadh i rith na heitilte. Is ceadmhach, áfach, uirlisí le cumas “mód eitilte”, nó a chomhionann sin, a úsáid. Caithfear an lipéad “modh eitilte” a roghnú sula múchtar an uirlis. Gléasanna a bhfuil ✔ ceadaithe i gcónaí: Gléasanna a bhaineann úsáid as

micreaceallairí agus/nó fotaichill; cluaisíní chúnta (gléasanna digiteach san áireamh; glaoirí (gleacadáin amháin); séadairí.

Gléasanna atá ● ceadaithe i rith na heitilte, ach nach

bhfuil ceadaithe le linn don eitleán bheith ag gluaiseacht ar talamh/ag éirí de thalamh/ ag tabhairt faoin dreapadh tosaigh/ ag díriú ar thuirlingt/ag tuirlingt: Ríomhairí glúine le tiomántán dlúthdhiosca (CD ROM) nó diosca digiteach ilúsáide (DVD). Eagraithe pearsanta boise. Áireamháin láimhe gan phrintéiri. Clostrealamh iniompartha (ms Walkman, seinnteoir CD , seinnteoir Mini-disk, iPod, seinnteoir MP 3). Ar mhaithe le compord na bpaisinéiri eile, níor choir na gléasanna seo a úsáid ach amháin le cluaisíní. Cluichí

ríomhaire (m.s. Gameboy). Níl cead gaireas forimeallach a úsáid le cluichí láimhe ríomhaire am ar bith (m.s. paca forlíontach cumhachta a cheanglaítear le cábla). Físcheamaraí agus fístaifeadáin, trealamh digiteach san áireamh. Ceamaraí digiteach. Glacadóirí láimhe chóras suite domhanda (GPS). Rásúir leicreacha. Bréagáin leictreonacha (seachas bréagáin chianrialaithe). Gléasanna “Bluetooth” i gcomhar le gutháin phóca agus iad i “modh eitilte”; uirlisí a bhaineann feidhm as teicneolaíocht “Blackberry” agus “mód eitilte” nó “slánmhód eitilte” roghnaithe orthu; ríomhairí glúine; ríomhairí boise (PDA) le Wi-Fi ionsuite agus an lipéad “raidió múchta” roghnaithe orthu.

Gléasanna a bhfuil cosc ✘ iomlán orthu: Gléasanna a tharchuireann minicíocht raidió

d’aon turas. Siúlscéalaithe. Bréagaín chianrialaithe. Aonaid fhístaispeána le feadáin ga-chatadóideacha. Trealamh ríomhaire gan sreang (m.s. luch). Printéirí PC. Schríbhneoiri DVD, CD agus taifeadáin Mini-disk atá sa mhodh taifeadta. Ceamthaifeadáin digiteacha agus iad ag athscríobh dlúthdhioscaí. Steiréónna iniompartha. Raidiónna póca (AM/ FM). Glacadóiri teilifíse. Trealamh teiliméadrach. Ní cheadaítear fearas LAN gan sreang (WLAN) a úsáid. Is féidir ríomhairí glúine a bhfuil WLAN ionsuite iontu (m.s Centrino) a úsáíd le linn na heitilte ar choinníoll go bhfuil WLAN curtha as agus faoi réir na srianta a bhaineann le húsáid ríomhhairí glúine (thuas luaite).

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AerLingusNews Aer Lingus join forces with Click & Go and the Travel Department.

From left, Bob Haugh of ClickandGo.com, Christoph Mueller, CEO Aer Lingus and Paul Hackett of ClickandGo.com.

A big “Thank You” to all our customers. Aer Lingus and Unicef would like to extend their warm gratitude to Aer Lingus passengers for the recent East Africa Appeal. A staggering €225, 575 was raised onboard Aer Lingus flights. This great outcome will go a long way to support the essential work of Unicef in East Africa. Thank you to all involved.

Great Care Great Fare Our recent sales campaigns highlight Aer Lingus’s commitment to quality customer service. Aer Lingus has recently appointed Irish International as its new creative advertising agency. Irish International has overseen our new campaign which recaptures our dedication to excellent customer service combined with great value fares, as summed up in our new tagline, ‘Great care, Great fare’. David Kelly, director of marketing and sales at Aer Lingus, says. “We’ve chosen this message as it re-emphasises what Aer Lingus is all about; going that extra mile for our customers and providing them with great value fares. 78 |

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ClickandGo.com and the Travel Department have recently announced a new partnership to provide an extensive range of holidays from Ireland on aerlingus.com. In major news for the Irish travel industry and Irish consumers, “Holidays with Aer Lingus” will combine the flexibility of scheduled flights with quality assured accommodation and transfers, giving holidaymakers the complete holiday package solution. There is a wide range of sun holidays, city breaks, escorted holidays and cruise holidays to most Aer Lingus destinations and this convenient one stop shop solution will give the consumer total flexibility, choice, value and protection.

Hertz, for a better Journey …

hotel deals Thinking of taking a break this winter? Look no further than aerlingus.com for all your flights and hotel needs. Whether it’s a city break to New York, a relaxing stay by the beach for some winter sun or skiing in the Alps, we have hotels to suit all budgets, from five-star deluxe to budget accommodation. With more than 140,000 hotels worldwide, you will surely find your perfect hotel or flight + hotel package. Log onto aerlingus.com and click on our Hotels or Flights + Hotels icons to browse for the best offers.

Whether your journey is for business or pleasure, we have it covered so drive more than the ordinary this autumn. With Hertz you get the best selection of top cars to choose from – all at great value prices. With great deals throughout Europe and America, rest assured that the Hertz service and quality will make your journey, whatever the reason, a journey to remember.

INSURANCE

Need the ultimate travel partner? – the New NeverLost Hertz Navigational system gives you turn by turn directions with the most up-to-date European and US mapping, making driving far from home easy. So drive like a local, find your hotel or the closest parking to the beach every time. To book your NeverLost and these great car hire rates, simply log onto aerlingus.com and click on the Hertz icon. Alternatively call reservations on +353 1 813 3844. If you are travelling and haven’t booked your car yet but would like to get a great deal on car-hire, simply call to the Hertz desk on arrival with your boarding card.

It’s a breeze arranging TRAVEL INSURANCE! Whether travelling to Europe or beyond, it’s essential you’re protected in case the unexpected happens. We make it easy to arrange the travel insurance you and your family need for your holiday.

You can simply include it as an option to your online flight booking. Travelling regularly? Our Annual multi-trip policy may suit you better. Terms and conditions apply.

Check it out next time you visit www.aerlingus.com

INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

Movies

Green Lantern

FLIGHTS TO THE USA

From Dublin to Boston, Chicago, New York and Orlando; from Shannon to Boston and New York; from Madrid to Washington. Movies available are listed below. All movie details and ratings can be accessed through your personal screen.

GREEN LANTERN

THE HANGOVER 2

MR.POPPER’S PENGUINS

In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected.

In the follow-up to the record-breaking hit comedy The Hangover, Phil, Stu, Alan and Doug travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. After the unforgettable bachelor party in Las Vegas, Stu is taking no chances and has opted for a safe, subdued prewedding brunch. However, things don’t always go as planned. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can’t even be imagined.

In this family comedy, Jim Carrey is Mr. Popper, a driven businessman who is clueless when it comes to the important things in life – until he inherits six penguins. Popper’s penguins turn his swanky New York apartment into a snowy winter wonderland – and the rest of his life upside-down. Filmed on a refrigerated soundstage with real Emperor Penguins, Mr. Popper’s Penguins is a contemporary adaptation of the classic book.

Action / Adventure (PG 13) 114 minutes

Stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Tim Robbins, Peter Sarsgaard Director Martin Campbell

Comedy (R) 102 minutes

Stars Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha Director Todd Philips

Comedy (PG) 97 minutes

Mr.Popper’s Penguins

Stars Jim Carrey, Carla Gugino, Angela Lansbury Director Mark Waters

More Movies On Demand:

The Hangover 2

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 THE TREE OF LIFE Sean Penn  x-Men: first class James McAvoy  zookeeper Kevin James  The Art of getting by Emma Roberts  Bad Teacher Cameron Diaz  Arena Samuel L. Jackson  Monte Carlo Selena Gomez  Hurricane Season Forest Whitaker

 The con artist Donald Sutherland  The river murders Ray Liotta  Lennon NYC John Lennon  My girlfriends boyfriend Christoper Gorham  Hood winked too! Hood vs evil Voice of Glenn Close  Yogi Bear Voice of Justin Timberlake  cars Voice of Owen Wilson

Movies

Bridesmaids

FLIGHTS FROM THE USA

From Boston, Chicago, New York and Orland to Dublin; from New York and Boston to Shannon; from Washington to Madrid. Movies available are listed below. All movie details and ratings can be accessed through your personal screen.

BRIDESMAIDS

CARS 2

SUPER 8

Annie is a maid of honor whose life unravels as she leads her best friend, Lillian and a group of colourful bridesmaids on a wild ride down the road to matrimony. Annie’s life is a mess. But when she finds out her lifetime best friend is engaged, she simply must serve as Lillian’s maid of honor. Though lovelorn and broke, Annie bluffs her way through the expensive and bizarre rituals. With one chance to get it perfect, she’ll show Lillian and her bridesmaids just how far you’ll go for someone you love.

John Lasseter and his team have hit the creative accelerator in the brilliantly delightful Cars 2. The rare sequel that improves on its predecessor is a lightning paced caper-comedy that succeeds in shifting the franchise into high gear with international intrigue, spy-movie spoofery and more automotive puns than you can shake a stickshift at. This sequel is a treat for all the family as it handles its hilarious subject matter with sophistication, speed and effortless panache.

In 1979, after the Air Force closes a section of Area 51, all materials are transported to a secure facility in Ohio. A train carrying some of the materials derails during an accident and something escapes from one of the cargo cars. A group of kids making movies with their Super 8 cameras accidentally capture what escapes on film.

Stars Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Matt Lucas Director Paul Feig

Starring voices Of Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Bonnie Hunt Director John Lasseter

Comedy (R) 125 minutes

Animation / Family (G) 110 minutes

Mystery / Sci-Fi/ Thriller (PG 13) 112 minutes

Cars 2

Stars Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler Director J.J. Abrams

More Movies On Demand:

Super 8

 Transformers: Dark of the moon Shia LaBeouf  Midnight in paris Owen Wilson  pirates of the caribbean Johnny Depp  Something borrowed Kate Hudson  Submarine Sally Hawkins  too big to fail James Woods  The Trip Steve Coogan  The conspirator

Robin Wright  Last night Keira Knightley  Henry’s crime Keanu Reeves  Love, Wedding, Marriage Mandy Moore  The perfect host David Hyde Pierce  Alpha and omega Voice of Christina Ricci  animals united Voice of James Corden  legends of the guardians Voice of Abbie Cornish

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Television

Mildred Pierce

ON DEMAND

On Demand TV allows you to control your TV content and select the most up-todate comedy and drama. New Comedy Highlights feature Mike and Molly, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, How To Make it in America, The Office and Futurama. Classic Comedy takes in Fawlty Towers and Sex and the City. Drama features brand new show The Borgias (the saga of a crime family set in Italy in 1492) starring Jeremy Irons. Also available is Dexter and fresh from HBO Game of Thrones and the award-winning Kennedys, as well as the most watched show in the world CSI. Available exclusively to Aer Lingus is Mildred Pierce, the five-part brand

The Kennedys

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new mini-series from HBO starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce and Evan Rachael Wood. Described by critics as “Magnificent and captivating” (Rolling Stone); “Stunning … Winslet is at her best” (Vogue) and “Unlike anything on TV” (Variety). Don’t miss three episodes of BBC’s hot new drama Zen. Zen has been touted as the detective drama of the year and is compelling, intelligent and stylish. Rufus Sewell stars in this series from the makers of Wallander. Available are five episodes of new drama Blue Bloods starring Tom Selleck. Created by The Sopranos alumni Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green, Blue Bloods is a solid, character-driven, multi-story serial drama. Selleck’s character serves as the anchor for four generations of police officers. The first-class medley of Drama TV also takes in five episodes from Season 2 of the critically acclaimed Good Wife, and fresh from HBO seven episodes of the very impressive Boardwalk Empire. Variety has described this series as “Television at its finest”. Teens onboard can enjoy Glee, Hannah Montana and Wizards of

Dexter

Waverly Place. Kids will enjoy brand new Irish animation exclusive to Aer Lingus in I’m A Monster as well as other favourites Spongebob Squarepants and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Documentary highlights feature Inside the Actors Studio, Arctic with Bruce Parry, Madagascar, How It’s Made and more. Sport, lifestyle and music highlights include America’s Game, Rugby World Cup Classic Matches, Top Gear, Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals and more.

inflight ENTERTAINMENT

Radio ON DEMAND

barry Dunne Barry Dunne plays three hours of Dublin’s Best Music Mix to kick oﬀ your workday on 98FM Monday-Friday from 10am-1pm. You can hear anything from chart toppers like Jessie J and Bruno Mars to classics like U2 and Bananarama.

98fm’s classic hits On 98FM’s Classic Hits with Darragh O’Dea, weeknights from 7pm to 9pm, you will hear everything from David Bowie, Eric Clapton, ELO, Howard Jones, Hall and Oates, Simple Minds, U2, Simply Red, Toto, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Jackson, Lionel Ritchie and loads more!

fitzpatrick hotels

aer guitar

clear for take-off

Non-Stop 80s

This is a contemporary easy-listening collection of songs from both sides of the Atlantic, brought to you compliments of The Fitzpatrick Hotel Group USA. With 2 hotels in downtown Manhattan, Grand Central and Fitzpatrick Manhattan, Fitzpatrick’s is the place to stay in NYC.

Marty Miller is on air weekdays from 2pm on Dublin’s Radio Nova 100FM playing seriously addictive music and having a lot of CRAIC along the way. Tune into AER Guitar – Guitarbased music, while you’re in the air.

You’re cleared for take-off with Pat Courtenay from Radio Nova 100FM. Tune into Pat Courtenay every morning 6 until 10am Monday to Friday. Then put down your refreshment tray for Nova Breakfast Reheated every Saturday from 8 until 10am.

Dee Woods from Dublin’s Radio Nova 100FM is on a journey of Non-Stop 80s. Remember the decade that gave us stilettos, shoulder pads and leg warmers? Dee Woods takes a nostalgic look back at the good stuff from the 80s: the rock! Let Dee take you back to the good old days with classics from icons like David Bowie, Steely Dan and Phil Collins on Non-Stop 80s.

cooper’s collection Steven Cooper on 98FM brings you the biggest dance ﬂoor fillers every Saturday night with six hours of remixed chart toppers and biggest dance-ﬂoor fillers. Steven Cooper presents his weekday show on 98FM from 1pm to 4pm, Monday to Friday, and Coopers Club Collection on Saturday nights from 6pm to Midnight.

lyric fm classics

the big 10 The Big 10 on 98FM features ten songs with a connection. Tune into this countdown every Sunday morning at 10am as we count down The Big 10, ten songs with a connection. Each week a diﬀerent set of songs feature, all with a diﬀerent connection such as the biggest Irish acts, the biggest comebacks in music and the biggest female artists of all time.

in tempo Join Paul Herriott for the usual broad blend of classical music, including full works and his CD of the Week. In Tempo features classical music by Bach, Shostakovich, Smetana, Dvorak and more. The featured CD stars German soprano Juliane Banse and our Coffee Concert highlights the RTE NSO with soloist Gavan Ring and conductor Gavin Maloney.

RTÉ lyric fm is the only recording label for classical music in Ireland and showcases a wealth of Irish musical talent. Our aim is to promote classical music, Irish musicians and composers at home and abroad by creating a commercially available, quality record of how much incredible music is being made in this country.

blue of the night

Jazz alley Blue of the Night connects different musical landscapes and is presented by Carl Corcoran from Monday to Thursday on RTE lyric fm (96-99fm). There’s a world of sounds on Blue of the Night – variety, scope and joy in the endless richness of centuries of music make the Blue of the Night the best late-night radio in the land.

Take a stroll down Jazz Alley with Donald Helme of RTE lyric fm (96-99fm). This featured show is a special tribute to George Shearing, the Britishborn pianist who died on February 14th 2011. Donald Helme presents an hour of his music in tribute to one of the alltime jazz greats. october/november 2011

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inflight ENTERTAINMENT

Radio ON DEMAND

céilí house

Documentary on one

south Winds blows

Céilí House is Irish traditional music and song from some of the country’s finest performers. This show comes from the Conservatory of Music and Drama in Rathmines, Dublin with the Traditional Music Ensemble and tutors.

The multi awardwinning radio documentary strand from RTÉ Radio 1 is currently the most successful documentary unit in the world, telling stories about real life in Ireland and abroad.

Singer, musician, broadcaster and film-maker Philip King brings his unique and wideranging musical knowledge to the airwaves from the picturesque setting of the Dingle peninsula.

the rolling Wave

risin’ time

ronan collins show

The Rolling Wave is a prize-winning RTÉ Radio documentary by Peter Browne telling the amazing story of Andreas Rogge, who made his way from East Germany and a term of political imprisonment to become a top class Uilleann pipe maker.

Shay Byrne’s Risin’ Time eases RTÉ Radio 1 listeners into the morning with an easy mix of classic and contemporary music, all delivered in Shay’s own unique style.

Ronan’s daily programme The Ronan Collins Show airs from 12-1pm weekdays and continues to be one of the biggest radio shows in the country. So for a break from all that news and information throughout the day, check out Ronan Collins on RTÉ Radio 1 at midday where you’ll find a feast of music and laughs.

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fully charged

sPin hits with nikki hayes

the big handbag

Fully Charged with Ryan and Tracy on SPIN 1038 can be heard weekday mornings from 06.45 to 09.45 and is the best way to start your day! Tune in for 3 hours packed full of music, hot celebrity interviews and ingenious games with brilliant prizes.

SPIN Hits with Nikki Hayes is all about the music! Nikki plays 10 SPIN hits in a row featuring the biggest hits on the planet. Watch online with SPIN TV and keep in touch on facebook.com/spin1038 or at spin1038.com.

The Big Handbag is presented by Becky Miller of SPIN 1038 and is stuffed full of amazing tunes to get you in the mood for your Saturday night. This is an awesome mix of 90s dance-floor classics, hits you will be hearing in the club on and future hits we love and think are going to be MASSIVE!

sPin balance

sPin cinema

sPin hits

Balance is presented by Paul Webb of SPIN South West and is the premier home-grown dance show in Ireland. Known for playing the hottest music before it hits the other clubs, Webb is an internationally recognised DJ.

SPIN Cinema presented by Peter Murphy airs on SPIN South West every Sunday from 8:45am. This show premieres the best in new movie releases, the latest DVDs and hot entertainment gossip every week. Throw in a couple of soundtracks from your favourite movies, sprinkle it with popcorn and this movie show will make your radio sound 3D!

SPIN South West plays the most music and 10 SPIN hits in a row is what we do best! Every Monday to Friday, Eoghain is joined by the SPIN team as they travel the South West with great giveaways.

Green on Red is presented by Ashley Keating of “The Frank and Walters” fame and is aired every Sunday from 7pm to 10pm, on Cork’s Number 1 radio station for Hit Music, RedFM. Green on Red features the very best of Irish music, signed and unsigned. The show is the soundtrack to what’s up and coming on the Irish music scene. Green on Red has scooped “Best Weekly Show” at the 2003 PPI National Radio Awards and continues to shine the spotlight on Irish talent. You can listen live on www.redfm.ie or on our iPhone App which can be downloaded from iTunes free of charge.

Moncrieff Moncrieff is a lively mix of funny, engaging and irreverent features. Its insightful format gives listeners a unique listening experience. Tune into Moncrieff every weekday from 1.30-4.30pm on Newstalk 106108fm for a lively mix of phone-ins, text messages and stories from around the world and down your street. Text 53106, email afternoon@ newstalk.ie or follow Sean on Twitter @SeanMoncrieff

Phantom Rock

Andy Preston

Phantom Rock is 60 minutes of great songs that will make you want to turn the volume up to 11! With the best in rock from Ireland and around the world, Phantom Rock is presented by Michelle Doherty of Phantom 105.2 – the home of rock in Dublin! Michelle presents Finest Worksongs, MonFri from 10.30am to 2.30 pm on Phantom 105.2

FM104 is Dublin’s Hit Music Station, and we play nothing but hits! Presented by FM104’s Andy Preston, we’ve packed in the hottest artists and songs into this 60 minute show.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IRISH TIMES

Green on Red

Copeland Classic Hits Copeland Classic Hits is brought to you courtesy of Louis Copeland and Sons, a name synonymous with men’s tailored suits. From Brioni, Armani, Canali, Versace to Hugo Boss and more, visit www. louiscopeland.com.

Larry Gogan

Rick O’Shea

Legendary broadcaster Larry Gogan brings the best tunes to RTÉ 2fm. From one-of-a-kind features and interviews to the famous “Just a Minute Quiz”, it’s not difficult to see how legendary broadcaster Larry Gogan has become a familiar and much-loved voice in households across Ireland. Larry spun the first-ever disc on RTÉ Radio 2 (as it was then known) back in 1979.

Rick O’Shea presents his weekday radio show from 2 to 4.30pm on RTÉ 2fm. Along with Cormac Battle, his trusty provider of Pointless Pieces of Research of the day, Rick and Cormac play the best of contemporary and classic tunes with lively audience interaction. You can tweet Rick later at @rickoshea

Dan Hegarty Dan Hegarty is a familiar name to listeners of late night radio with his show on RTE 2fm. The show mixes a wide spectrum of acts, including Toro y Moi, the Rolling Stones, Tinariwen and far beyond.

Phil Cawley’s Classic 9

The Lighthouse

Test your musical knowledge with Phil Cawley as he plays nine tracks from the same year. With some clues to help you along, see how quickly you can guess the year that these chart-toppers hit the airwaves!

Musician and DJ Dave Couse presents an eclectic music show every Sunday evening on Today FM featuring the best alternative pop classics. This show takes a closer look at the best music from New York City.

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Wellbeing Aer Lingus is pleased to bring you some suggestions and light exercises to enhance your comfort and wellbeing during your ﬂight: Suggestions and light exercises to enhance your comfort and wellbeing during your flight: ● Wear loose-fitting clothes on board to allow your skin to breathe, and apply a good moisturiser throughout. ● Stretch your legs as much as possible by taking a stroll through the cabin. ● Exercising your feet and legs periodically helps to reduce any possible effects of long-duration travel. ● Circle your ankles clockwise and anti-clockwise. Bend and straighten your ankles in a brisk manner with the knee straight. ● Trace the letters of the alphabet with your foot by moving your ankles. ● Avoid sitting or sleeping in the same position for too long and gently stretch muscles to improve your circulation. ● And remember to move your neck and shoulders during long flights to prevent stiffness. We wish you an enjoyable experience.

reducing the eﬀects of jet-lag To help reduce the effects of travelling and jet-lag before, during and after your flight, we have introduced an audio programme (available on Channel 6), which will play every other hour, offering 60 minutes of soothing and relaxing audio environments. The programme is designed to enhance your physical and mental wellbeing during the flight. Apart from tuning in to the inflight relaxation programme, here are some other simple things that you can do to prepare for your journey. ● Ideally, avoid heavy food, alcohol, tea or coffee the day before you travel. ● When you arrive at your destination, try to adjust your activities gradually to the new time zone. ● Mild exercise on arrival will also help to stimulate your circulation.

carry-on baggage

Passengers with wheelchair requirements Our priority is to always ensure the safety and comfort of all passengers. We encourage passengers who may need assistance to contact us well in advance of their date of travel to enable us to assess their needs. If you are a wheelchair user or require wheelchair assistance when travelling on Aer Lingus services, please advise us of your requirements at least 48 hours in advance, quoting your booking reference number. Our contact details are as follows: email: specialassistance@ aerlingus.com telephone: ● (Ireland) 0818 365 011 08:00 - 18:00 Mon-Fri & 09:00 - 17:00 Sat & Sun ● (UK) 0871 718 20 21 ● (Europe) + 353 1 886 8333 ● (USA) 516 622 4222

Carry-on baggage on Aer Lingus services is restricted to one piece per person, as well as to the weights and measurements, illustrated below. aer lingus

55cm (22ins)

aer lingus regional

Maximum weight

43cm (17ins)

10kg (22 lbs)

20cm (8ins)

Maximum weight

7kg (15 lbs)

40cm (16ins)

28cm (11ins)

20cm (8ins)

Additional small items, such as cameras, personal stereos, overcoats and handbags are allowed on board. EU security rules regarding liquids, gels and aerosols in cabin baggage apply. Flights departing the USA are subject to TSA security rules. Passengers in Row 1, or at an emergency exit, MUST store baggage in an overhead bin.

safety brief We would like to bring your attention to the following safety and security measures: ● Please pay attention to any instructions given to you by the cabin crew. ● any behaviour towards a fellow passenger or cabin crew that is deemed to be threatening or abusive (including the use of offensive language) is a serious matter. ● as our priority is the safety of all passengers, it is important not to interrupt the cabin crew while they carry out their duties, and not to interfere with aircraft equipment. ● as a service to passengers, alcohol is served in the airport

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lounges and on board. in the interests of safety, aer lingus may refuse to allow you board if it is thought too much alcohol has been consumed. While the majority of passengers are responsible, there have occasionally been incidents where intoxicated passengers have caused serious safety hazards. Passengers are reminded also that during the flight you may not consume any alcohol brought onto the aircraft by you or any other passenger. the consumption

inflight of Duty free alcohol purchased from the sky shopping service is also prohibited. this measure is, again, necessary in the interests of flight safety. if incidents of this kind occur during a fl ight, the cabin crew is obliged to contact police on arrival at your ﬁ nal destination. the aircraft captain may also divert the fl ight enroute in order to remove disruptive passengers. should this happen, aer lingus will not be responsible

for getting you home, your ticket money will not be refunded, and – in addition to the authorities awaiting you on landing – you could be heavily ﬁ ned and/or be liable to a prison sentence. in many cases, other airlines may subsequently refuse to allow you to fl y with them. ● We emphasise that while on board the aircraft our priority is your safety. as always, we wish you a safe and enjoyable flight, as well as a safe onward journey.

RouteMaps EUROPEAN ROUTE NETWORK Helsinki

Vilnius Hamburg

Dublin

Berlin

Amsterdam

Warsaw

Dusseldorf

Brussels

Paris

Krakow

Prague

Frankfurt Stuttgart

Vienna

Munich

Budapest

Zurich Geneva Milan

Bordeaux

MALPENSA

Toulouse

Bilbao

Milan

LINATE

Lyon

Venice Bologna

Bucharest

Nice Perpignan

Dubrovnik Rome

Barcelona Madrid

Bourgas

Naples

Palma Majorca

Lisbon Alicante Faro

Catania Malaga

Aberdeen Glasgow

Blackpool Manchester

Dublin Birmingham

Fuerteventura Lanzarote

Tenerife

Edinburgh

Cardiff

Bristol

London (Heathrow) London (Gatwick)

Gran Canaria

Jersey

To & From dublin austria Vienna

croatia Dubrovnik

belgium Brussels

czech republic Prague

bulgaria Bourgas

finland Helsinki

canary islands Fuerteventura Gran Canaria Lanzarote Tenerife

france Bordeaux Lyon Nice Paris Pergpignan Toulouse

germany Berlin Dusseldorf Frankfurt Hamburg Munich Stuttgart hungary Budapest italy Catania Bologna Milan (Linate) Milan (Malpensa) Naples

Rome Venice

romania Bucharest

lithuania Vilnius

spain Alicante Barcelona Bilbao Madrid Malaga Palma Majorca

the netherlands Amsterdam Poland Krakow Warsaw Portugal Faro Lisbon

switzerland Geneva Zurich

united kingdom Birmingham Edinburgh Jersey London (gatwick) London (Heathrow) Manchester united kingdom

with Aer Lingus Regional Operated by Aer Arann

Aberdeen Blackpool Bristol Cardiff Edinburgh Glasgow

â&#x2013; Aer Lingus Regional routes operated by Aer Arann october/november 2011

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inflight ROUTE MAPS

EUROPEAN ROUTE NETWORK

Edinburgh

Glasgow Knock

belfast Manchester

Dublin

Birmingham

shannon

cork

Bristol

Amsterdam

London Heathrow lonDon gatWick Paris Munich

Nice Rome

Barcelona Palma Majorca

Lisbon Alicante Faro

Malaga

Las Palmas Lanzarote

Tenerife

To & From belfast, cork, shannon & Gatwick from belfast canary islands Lanzarote Tenerife

from cork united kingdom London Heathrow

italy Rome

france Nice Paris

Portugal Faro

germany Munich

spain Alicante Barcelona Malaga

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canary islands Lanzarote Tenerife Las Palmas

italy Rome

october/november 2011

from gatWick Portugal Faro Lisbon spain Alicante Barcelona Malaga Palma Majorca the netherlands Amsterdam united kingdom London Gatwick London Heathrow

united kingdom

with Aer Lingus Regional Operated by Aer Arann

Birmingham Bristol Edinburgh Glasgow Manchester

from shannon

ireland Cork Dublin Ireland West Airport (Knock) Shannon

france Paris

spain Malaga

united kingdom

united kingdom London Gatwick London Heathrow with Aer Lingus Regional Operated by Aer Arann

Birmingham Bristol Edinburgh Glasgow Manchester

â&#x2013; Aer Lingus Regional routes operated by Aer Arann

USA ROUTE NETWORK

Boston

Chicago New York

Washington

Shannon

Dublin

Madrid Orlando

To & From dublin, shannon & madrid from Dublin

from shannon

from maDriD

usa Boston Chicago New York Orlando

usa Boston New York

usa Washington DC

october/november 2011

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inflight ROUTE MAPS

Connecting europe, the usA & canada Edmonton

Calgary Winnipeg

Vancouver Seattle Portland OR

Minneapolis

Salt Lake City Denver

Kansas City

Sacramento San Francisco

Las Vegas

Oakland

chicago

Omaha

Detroit

Indianapolis Cincinnati Saint Louis Louisville

Long Beach

Los Angeles San Diego

Phoenix

Houston

Portland ME boston

neW york

Columbus Baltimore Washington Washington (National) (Dulles) Lexington Richmond Raleigh - Durham Charlotte Atlanta

Dallas (Fort Worth)

Austin

Syracuse Rochester

Pittsburgh Burlington

Cleveland

Nashville Burbank

Toronto Buffalo

Jacksonville

New Orleans Tampa Fort Myers

Miami

Orlando West Palm Beach Fort Lauderdale

Aguadilla

San Juan Ponce

FLY BETWEEN THE FOLLOWING CITIES VIA dubLIn, shAnnon, neW YorK, bosTon & chIcAGo new destinations with aer lingus, in partnership with Jetblue, united airlines and aer arann Getting to the US from destinations throughout Europe has never been easier. Now US, Irish and European based customers can book a single low fare reservation between Ireland, Europe and a wide range of continental US destinations using JFK New York, Boston and Chicago as stopovers.

■ neW york connecting with Jetblue at Jfk: When you arrive from Dublin, pick up your bags and clear customs Then all you need to do is drop off your bags at the Aer Lingus transfer desk before hopping onto the AirTrain to JetBlue’s Terminal Five for your domestic connection. Passengers travelling from the US to Ireland and Europe will be able to check in bags at the JetBlue domestic departure point and then pick them up again in Shannon or Dublin.

■ boston connecting with Jetblue at boston logan international airport: When you arrive from Dublin, pick up your bags and clear customs. Turn left towards the Aer Lingus transfer desk, where you drop off your bags and then take a short walk to Terminal C for your JetBlue domestic departure. Passengers travelling from the US to Ireland and Europe will be able to check in bags at the JetBlue departure point and then pick them up again in Shannon or Dublin.

■ chicago connecting with united airlines at o’hare chicago international airport: On arrival at Terminal Five from Dublin, pick up your bags and clear customs before rechecking your bags at the United Airlines Recheck Desk (which is to the right of customs). A nearby escalator takes you to the ATS (Airport Transit System), which runs every four minutes, to Terminal Five and your UA domestic departure point. Passengers from the US to Ireland and Europe can check in bags at the UA departure point,

then exit security in Chicago O’Hare to take the Airport Transit System to Terminal Five for the onward Aer Lingus flight, and pick up their bags in Shannon or Dublin. ■ Dublin connecting with aer lingus regional (operated by Aer Arann) at Dublin airport: Aer Lingus’s interline agreement with Aer Arann allows passengers connect to Aer Lingus transatlantic flights via Dublin Airport, where they can through check their luggage directly to their final US destination.

All routes correct at time of going to press

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october/november 2011

Aberdeen Edinburgh

Glasgow

Dublin

Manchester

shannon

Birmingham Cardiff

Bristol

London (Gatwick)

Jersey

Berlin

Amsterdam

London (Heathrow)

Warsaw

Dusseldorf Brussels Krakow

Frankfurt Paris Vienna

Munich

Geneva Venice

Milan (Linate)

Dubrovnik Rome

Barcelona Madrid

Naples

Palma Majorca

Lisbon Alicante Faro

■ via Dublin with aer lingus                        

Alicante Amsterdam Barcelona Berlin Birmingham Brussels Dubrovnik Dusseldorf Edinburgh Faro Frankfurt Geneva Jersey Krakow Lisbon London (Gatwick) London (Heathrow) Madrid Malaga Manchester Milan (Linate) Munich Naples Palma Majorca

    

Malaga

Paris Rome Venice Vienna Warsaw

■ via Dublin with aer lingus regional operated by Aer Arann     

Aberdeen Bristol Cardiff Edinburgh Glasgow

■ via shannon with aer lingus  London (Gatwick)  London (Heathrow)  Manchester ■  Paris ■ via neW york with Jetblue  Aguadilla

                          

Austin Baltimore Buffalo Burbank Burlington Charlotte Denver Fort Lauderdale Fort Myers Houston Jacksonville Las Vegas Long Beach Los Angeles New Orleans Oakland Orlando Phoenix Pittsburg Ponce Portland ME Portland OR Raleigh-Durham Rochester Sacramento Salt Lake City San Diego

     

San Francisco San Juan Seattle Syracuse Tampa West Palm Beach

■ via boston with Jetblue                 

Baltimore Buffalo Denver Ford Lauderdale Fort Myers Jacksonville Las Vegas Long Beach Los Angeles New Orleans Oakland Orlando Phoenix Pittsburg Portland OR Raleigh-Durham Richmond

       

San Diego San Francisco San Juan Seattle Tampa Washington (Dulles) Washington (National) West Palm Beach

■ via chicago with united to usa                        

Atlanta Austin Charlotte Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Dallas (Fort Worth) Denver Detroit Houston Indianapolis Jacksonville Kansas City Las Vegas Lexington Los Angeles Louisville Miami Minneapolis Nashville New Orleans Omaha Phoenix Pittsburgh

       

Portland OR Raleigh-Durham Sacramento San Diego San Francisco Seattle St Louis Tampa

■ via chicago with united to canada     

Calvary Edmonton Toronto Vancouver Winnipeg

■ Aer Lingus Regional routes operated by Aer Arann october/november 2011

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FlightConnections

CONNECTING TO ANOTHER AER LINGUS FLIGHT AT DUBLIN AIRPORT

FLIGHTS ARRIVING AT TERMINAL 2 FLIGHT CONNECTIONS Connecting ﬂight departs Gates 401 - 426 Arrivals Route to Baggage Reclaim from Gates 400s

FLIGHT CONNECTIONS Connecting ﬂight departs Gates 100s - 300s

To Gates 100s 300s

Immigration

Aer Lingus Flight Connections Desk

Immigration

Security Check

Lifts to Gates 401 - 426 Escalator to Gates 401 - 426

Terminal 2 Arrivals

If you already have a boarding card for your connecting flight, and your baggage has been tagged to your final destination, simply follow the sign for Aer Lingus Flight Connections Desk, which you will see on your left hand side as you enter the Immigration Hall. By following this sign, you will proceed to Immigration and Security Check. After clearing these points, check the information screens and proceed to your boarding gate.

If your baggage has not been tagged to your final destination you must clear Immigration, enter the baggage reclaim area, collect your bag, exit through the Customs hall and proceed to Aer Lingus check-in on the departures level. Once you have reached the departures level, check the information screens for your onward flight information, and proceed as directed to the appropriate check-in desk.

If you have any queries, or need further assistance, please go to the Aer Lingus Flight Connections Desk, which is located in the baggage reclaim area in Terminal 2, where our staff will be glad to help.

Please note: eu regulations concerning the carriage of liquids apply to your connecting flights at Dublin airport

CONNECTING AT HEATHROW AIRPORT Transferring to an international flight at Heathrow? Please disembark from the rear of the aircraft where a dedicated coach will take you to the Heathrow Flight Connections area and reduce your journey time by an average of 20 minutes. PLEASE DISEMBARK FROM THE BACK OF THE AIRCRAFT IF:

PLEASE DISEMBARK FROM THE FRONT OF THE AIRCRAFT IF:

 You are an international connecting passenger and all your luggage* is checked through to your final destination

    

*Pushchairs checked to London can be collected from the back of the aircraft

London is your final destination Your onward connection is to a domestic UK airport Your luggage needs to be collected from Heathrow You would like to leave the airport between flights You or someone you are travelling with needs special assistance

Michelin Bib Gourmand

Cloghan Castle Cloghan Castle is a fully restored 12th Century Norman Castle, it is an exclusive, self catering venue which is ideal for that fairy tale wedding reception, birthday party, family reunion or special event in the rolling hills near Loughrea, Co. Galway in the West of Ireland. The Banquet hall can seat up to 120 guests, luxurious drawing room ideal for drinks reception or a relaxing afternoon by the open fire. The castle has full central heating.

RENT A CASTLE Intl Tel: + 353 91 870102 Email: info@cloghancastle.com Web: www.cloghancastle.com Proprietor: Micheal H Burke, Chanelle Group

inflight SKY SHOPPING

Men’s Ultimate Shave Collection by liz earle Naturally Active Skincare

This award-winning collection of hard working, no-nonsense products really makes a difference to the look and feel of skin. The kit includes everyday essentials to wash, shave and moisturise, for clean, clear skin at home, at the gym or when travelling. What’s insiDe? • Sensitive Shave Cream 100ml • After-Shaving Moisturiser 50ml • Face and Body Wash 30ml • Face Scrub 30ml • 1 towelling cloth and zip-up kit bag

Anitah Black Patent Leather Purse by ted baker As practical as it is glamorous, this Anitah black patent leather purse from Ted Baker features a contrasting metallic interior with 8 slots for credit cards and a coin

section with a satin rose lining. The iconic vintage style clasp ensures all your valuables will be protected and there’s even an external zip on the rear of the purse.

Eternity for Men Summer by calvin klein

Eau de Toilette - 100ml

Aer Lingus Fun Plane with free key-ring Aer Lingus fun plane with realistic engine sounds and ﬂashing lights. It comes complete with batteries for hours of fun. Also included is a free gift of a miniature plane key-ring.

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october/november 2011

The tranquility of the summer sun and a warm breeze rustles through lush fields of grass, capturing far off memories in a fresh fougère fragrance. Citrus, mint, coriander, star anise and cedarwood invoke the sensuality of summer. Fresh, crisp, serene.

DOESN’T TIME FLY? aer lingus - its history

This book highlights the significant contribution the airline has made to the development of Irish aviation and to Irish society in general. It draws heavily on the company’s extensive archive of photographs, posters and advertisements, as well as the ephemera and memories of our former and current staff. This hardback book contains many images from the earliest days, from the founding of Aer Lingus in 1936 and through its subsequent 75 years. It will be of interest to passengers who’ve flown with us, those connected with the airline or who are fascinated about how the company transported Irishness over the seas. Mike Cronin, the author, has written widely on Ireland’s history including a book to mark the 125th anniversary of the GAA.

Scott Black Sunglasses by ted baker New from Ted Baker, these sleek men’s shades feature a gunmetal frame and logo detail on the temples. Designed to complement all face shapes, with durable spring hinges and adjustable nose pads for added comfort. Offering full UVA and UVB protection, these sunglasses come complete with a travel case, cleaning cloth and a 1 year guarantee.

Daisy Eau So Fresh by marc Jacobs Eau de Toilette - 75ml Vibrant, charming and whimsical, Daisy Eau So Fresh is the spirited new version of the original Daisy. It is a bright, floral, fruity fragrance. Playful with a whimsical spirit, this

scent radiates with crisp raspberry, sensuous wild rose and deep warm plum. Lose yourself in a field of flowers with Daisy Eau So Fresh! Fresh, fun, free.

Sky Shopping

Aer Lingus welcomes you to our extensive range of amazing quality items and reduced prices onboard during October/November

Sekonda Fashion Watch Contemporary watch with round plastic case with rotating bezel. Black dial with magnified date window and black silicone strap. Water resistant to 50 metres. Guaranteed for 2 years.

Women’s Silver Mesh Gold Case Watch Stainless steel appeal. Signature Skagen silver mesh bands connect to a slim stainless steel IP gold case with gold border. The vertically brushed chrome dial features 12 indicators made with CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski elements. Lifetime warranty on the movement.

Sniﬀy Basset Hound by russ berrie Look who’s making eyes at you! Sniffy, the Basset Hound is a new addition to the Lil’ Peepers collection and this wide-eyed cuddly hound is the perfect gift for everyone.

SShkopyping

Sky

Shopp h o p ping ing ngs S ...ex tra savi whe n you f ly

...ex tra savings ...e when you f ly

1936-2011

Doesn’t time fly?

Please check your sky shopping brochure for all prices october/november 2011

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TRIP OF A LIFETIME

TRIP OF A

lifetime

Screaming winds, wild seas and a broken forestay didn’t deter co-skipper Damian Foxall in the Barcelona World Race ...

ince the first round the world yacht race in 1968, a dozen different ways to race around the planet have been conceived, all involving varying degrees of hardship, starting from tough and ranging to extreme. A new event – the Barcelona World Race – was introduced in 2007 and it proved irresistible, even though I had a few circumnavigations under my belt already. Limited to a crew of two co-skippers, a fleet of Open 60-foot yachts would begin a three-month, non-stop sprint around the world over a 28,000-nautical-mile course back to the start/finish line off Barcelona’s coast. Equipment fatigue as well as human stamina is critical to the outcome of any deep-ocean racing campaign so when I joined forces with French yachtsman, and co-skipper, Jean-Pierre Dick, our preparation of Paprec Virbac for the race was intensive. And to make it

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

harder, just five months earlier, my wife Suzy-Ann had given birth to Oisín, our first child. Being separated from my family was a new experience. Nine boats started the race in November 2007, leaving the balmy waters of the Med for the Straits of Gibraltar and the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Ahead lay the brutal Southern Ocean that circles Antarctica with its vast stretches of empty sea, filled only with icebergs, whales, the occasional barely habitable island chain, all swept by constant storm-force winds. As the fleet neared the infamous “roaring forties”, the nickname for the line of latitude in the Southern hemisphere, the casualty list started growing. One by one, several of the lead contenders were bounced out of the contest after being dismasted close to South Africa. Jean-Pierre and I held our nerve. We had led the fleet almost from the start and had a lead of several

Top left, Oisín with Damian, victorious on his arrival back in Barcelona. Above, Damian and co-shipper, JeanPierre Dick aboard their winning boat Paprec Virbac.

hundred miles by the time we entered the “furious fifties”. But a late surge in performance by the Hugo Boss crew of Alex Thomson and Andrew Cape threatened to become a match race as we circled Antarctica staying just north of the ice-fields. Once again, pre-race preparation proved decisive. Thomson and Cape had sustained gear damage and, halfway through the race, pulled into Wellington in New Zealand to carry out repairs and re-provision. This meant they incurred a time-delay penalty. We carried on although we slowed for a day to carry out repairs before sailing on to build up a 900-mile lead on the approach to the famous – and deadly – Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. However, after completing their repairs, the Hugo Boss team gained ground and closed on us as we battled up the South Atlantic on the homeward stretch to South America. We kept it quiet at the time but our race nearly ended off the coast of Brazil when our forestay broke and, flailing wildly around like a medieval chain mace, threatened to dismast us as well as cause serious injury. A wild and gusty ride through the Straits of Gibraltar was our final test. We crossed the finish line at Barcelona in first place. And for once we weren’t obliged to carry out a customs check; even after three months at sea, our last port of call had been Barcelona. After finishing the race, I went home with Suzy-Ann and Oisín, where myself, Jean-Pierre and our project team were received at Arás an Uachtaraín by President Mary McAleese. It was even better to return to Caherdaniel and the Co Kerry harbour of Derrynane where I had first learned to sail. The story of the Barcelona World Race is told in Ocean Fever – The Damian Foxall Story by Damian Foxall and David Branigan (Collins Press, €17.99) out October 15.

Your experts on the ground in Ireland. Welcome from Ireland’s leading corporate banking team.

AIB Global Corporate Banking Making Business Happen

Cara Magazine October/November 2011

October/November 2011

Artist Sean Scully Dublin French Alps Chicago Zurich

Hitting the right note Meet singer

Alicante Joseph O’Connor

Lisa Hannigan and Ireland’s new music-makers

HOT SPOT

Alicante rediscovered

TAKE A TOUR

Go walkabout in Dublin

CHICAGO, CHICAGO Belinda McKeon on her kind of town

ON THE PISTE

Where to ski in the French Alps

INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ZURICH caramagazine.com Where to eat, drink and stay

AUGUST 2011

| 1 COMPLIMENTARY COPY