Ireland's Big Issue 261 (March 2021)

Digital Edition Mar 2021 Edition 261. Vol 19

Michael Collins: Rendezvous with Death

New Digital Edition Until it’s safe to go back on the streets.

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Contents

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How Do We Stop the Trolls?

Michael Collins - Appointment with death

With Piers Morgan and footballer James McClean hitting the headlines for being the victims of cruel trolls, many are asking, what are big tech doing to deal with an issue that can affect anyone online. Liz Scates reports.

Letter to my Younger Self – Sian Welby TV & radio presenter Welby, best-known for her antics on the weather has a word with her teenage self.

Sineád Dunlop investigates the final hours of Collins’ life.

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The Plague Cycle - The Unending War Between Humanity & Infectious Disease “Covid-19 has demonstrated once againhow much we live in a global disease pool.” Samantha McMurdock reports.

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Lockdown Doesn’t Have to Halt Your Learning

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Is it really possible to learn a brand new skill online and implement that skill successfully? Samantha McMurdock takes the plunge to see.

Lockdown and soaring rates of poverty are taking their toll on our kids’ mental health. Sineád Dunlop reports.

Regulars

Talking Point: Digital Poverty & Our Children’s Mental Health

Page 10 Digital Edition Contacts:

Naomi Watts: “Animals can draw out emotions.”

Editor: Sean Kavanagh Ireland’s Big Issue Email: info@irelandsbigissue.com

Watts on telling Sam Bloom’s story of hope and healing (with the help of a baby Magpie) after a tragic accident.

20/21 – Photo World 26/27 – Screen Scene 32 - Book reviews 37 - Dear Liz – Problems

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Bellingcat: Open Source Reporting The News of the Future

Follow us on Twitter

Blogger and high school drop-out Eliot Higgins is redefiing how we thing about news, politics & our digital future. Aimee Knight reports.

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The Making of The Blue Max

@BigIssue Ireland

Filmed in Bray before CGI was a part of film-making, The Blue Max captured stunned film-goers, but audiences had no idea just how dangerous the stunts actually were. Shaun Anthony reports.

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Issues: Talking Point

We Need to Talk About the Trolls!

Liz Scales asks, what can be done about online trolling given the fact big tech don’t seem to care.

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ournalist Piers Morgan recently spoke about being issued death threats on social media by a troll. The anonymous Instagram user commented on a photo of the presenter and his son promising they would kill them both.

The alarming comment stated: “Your [sic] a marked man, calling the police, big tech, or beefing up security isn’t going to stop us getting to you, this isn’t a threat Piers it’s a promise, your [sic] getting killed.”

media trolls in a bid to shame Facebook and Twitter and illustrate that trolls CAN be identified. Signify are now being used by Premier League clubs so they can protect their players (Harry Kane, Granit Xhaka, Antonio Rudiger and Hector Bellerin alone were swamped with 3,500 racist and homophobic posts within a one month period). Signify carried out their research to demonstrate that big tech are NOT doing enough.

Facebook and Twitter were recently criticised for still allowing people to open anonymous accounts without the need to prove identity, but the social media giants

Piers stated he wanted this person “held to account”.

For those unaware of what a troll is, in a nutshell it’s someone who leaves intentionally provocative or offensive messages on the internet in order to get attention, cause trouble or upset someone.

made the argument that it violates the free speech functions of technology, given its importance in political uprisings, such as the protests in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

A couple of years back, Paul Hind from the UK trolled Facebook groups Derry dedicated to young people who’d footballer James McClean died in tragic circumstances and left who plays for Stoke City and his wife This, it would seem could sickening comments and mocked and Erin recently spoke out about the tirade be the problem. Signify mentally tortured devastated families. of abusive social media messages have stated that 90% of When he had access to these groups, they receive “daily” the accounts they flagged he would track down the families and as those of trolls on even the deceased’s accounts and leave Facebook and Twitter “are still active”. revolting comments, deface photos and go through the victims’ friend list, sending offensive messages. Hind was Instagram simply state they will “remove” abusive eventually caught but was only jailed for 14 months. Why accounts, but we already know that when one account is did he do it? For “attention” he claimed! removed, a troll simply makes a new one.

Last year Kenny Gregg from Dundonald, N. Ireland took his own life after trolling on social media. Gregg became so fearful of what was coming next that he screenshot everything, sent it to a solicitor and that night took his own life. He left behind a 2-year-old daughter.

Derry footballer James McClean who plays for Stoke City and his wife Erin recently spoke about the tirade of abusive social media messages they receive “daily” including death threats, racist comments (“Get the f*** out of England”) and now those threats include their home and children. McClean has called on Facebook and Twitter to do more, but their silence is deafening.

What can be done?

An Artificial intelligence company in London called Signify recently crunched 800,000 posts to identify social

A recent report by online abuse charity Glitch found that 84% of all hateful comments received come from anonymous accounts. It’s not enough for big tech to state they’ll remove abusive accounts. If a small start-up like Signify can identify trolls, what could these media giants do? The thing is - they don’t care. As long as they give the impression that not asking for I.D. protects freedom of speech, we will continue to have these vile internet monsters wreaking havoc.

I imagine Piers Morgan’s case will be investigated and the troll caught and shamed - too bad it won’t be the same for the public who find themselves in the same position.

Action by Big Tech is needed now!

Have your say on Twitter @BigIssueIreland 5

Issues Life

Letter to my Younger Self Siân Welby

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ach issue we ask a well-known face to write a letter to their 16-year-old self. This issue 34-year-old Sian Welby, known for her tongue-in-cheek puns on Channel 5’s weather (online alone her weather reports commanded 30 million views) - but more recently for fronting the Capital FM Breakfast Show has a word or two for her teenage self. Sian is the face of the NHS campaign Keep Well, Keep Warm, aimed at keeping vulnerable members of society warm during the cold months.

Hey teenage Sian, do me a favour and put down the Juicy Tube lip-gloss and the Jane Norman bag for a second, I’ve got something important to tell you.

I know right now she’s just a sticker on your school organiser, but one day you’ll be sat in your London flat on December 21st wrapping up a Christmas present for Baby Spice…and here’s how you’ll get there.

...you say you’re not going to uni and you’ll be left to Google, “how to be a presenter”.

East Midlands, whilst pursuing that dream career on the side.

Your boss Carla will joke with you at the end of every year, “Shouldn’t you have left by now to be the next Cat Deeley” and you’ll have to laugh it off whilst actually panicking you may never get that ‘big break’ they always talk about in the movies.

Stay strong. Breathe.

Yes, even during the Boxing Day Sales…it won’t be forever.

Your ‘Sliding Doors’ moment will come when a Facebook message from a London agent asks you to come down to star in an advert for New! Magazine. You’ll be offered £175 for the day, but you’ll have to get Saturday off - the busiest day in retail! You’re supposed to be supervising the store that day and technically no-one can cover you, as they’re not qualified to close the shop.

You’ll have a do or die moment and have to make a decision. Trust your gut. You’ll get to London and sit on a plastic chair for 8 hours straight just waiting, feeling sick to your stomach. Your boss will call you, absolutely fuming asking where you are and as you fumble to explain, you’ll suddenly think you made a horrible choice. It’ll get to 4:55pm and just as you think the TV

The teachers at the Minster School, Nottinghamshire won’t have a clue what to do with you when you say you’re not going to 'Uni' and you’ll be left to Google, “how to be a presenter”. YouTube isn’t a thing yet so you’ll have to get creative. Your drama teachers will push you into a corner and tell you, “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t just be a presenter”.

Don’t panic! You’ll dabble with auditioning for drama schools, but after that weird experience at Guildford School of Acting with the hippie teacher who bashed a tambourine and made you all get on top of each-other for the sake of ‘art’, you’ll decide that drama school life isn’t for you. The next 5 years will be incredibly frustrating, as you work part-time at ‘New Look’ in the

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crew have wrapped for the day and aren’t going to use nothing about Cumulonimbus clouds, jet streams or you, they’ll call you in. Something that will do you well the difference between sleet and hail, trust me, just say in your future career, and you must never lose YES! Your chance to break free from the no matter how nervous you are, is weather will once again fall on you your ability to be silly and not being silly. It’ll start with you take yourself too seriously, You’ll be spotted by the world’s media doing little dares during the as during your bit in the from FOX news to TIME magazine for being advert you’ll make the broadcast to make the gallery funny. crew laugh, but this will lead director laugh and without to your hidden puns in a weather you even realising he’ll go on forecast going viral. You’ll be spotted by to give you everyone else’s lines to the world’s media from FOX news to TIME magazine read and this means you’ll feature in Every. Single. for being funny. This will in turn grab the attention Advert. (You’ll find this out years later on another of radio bosses and the next thing you know you’ll shoot with the same crew). be setting your alarm for 4am to do your childhood dream job, hosting the Capital Breakfast show every This ad will then play on loop in the owner of morning with Roman Kemp and Sonny Jay at the Channel 5’s office and 3 weeks later you’ll receive a Global HQ in London’s Leicester Square. Oh, and call saying the commissioner of the channel wants a guess who also works there? Emma Bunton. meeting. Go. This is when your life changes. They’ll offer you a job to be their new weather girl and even A zig-azig ahhhhhhhhh!! though you aren’t meteorologically trained and know

...you must never lose no matter how nervous you are, is your ability to be silly and not take yourself too seriously...

Ways to get your Sian Fix: Listen to Capital FM on DAB Radio, iPhone and Android apps, on FM Radio, at Capital FM online and on your SmartSpeaker (Sonos, Google Home, Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo etc.

Follow Sian on Twitter @sianwelby

Sian co-hosts on Capital Breakfast: Sonny Jay and Roman Kemp

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Digital Poverty Lockdown’s Devastating Effects on Children’s Mental Health

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ur children north and south of the border , are bearing the brunt of lockdown, both mentally and through digital poverty. Sineád Dunlop reports.

As growing numbers of families are being pushed into poverty and children are home schooled, mental health amongst Irish kids is at an all-time low and digital poverty proving a stumbling block both educationally, socially and emotionally.

Toddlers starving.

Dr. Julie-Ann Maney, a consultant in paediatric emergency medicine at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children recently spoke of the “insidious” effects of child poverty in Northern Ireland, revealing that children are driven to such levels of hunger they’re stuffing their nappies with toast, “We have seen little 14-month-old infants here who are so hungry when you offer them toast and milk they stuff toast into their nappies.”

education, physical and mental health. Thanks to the fiasco that is, Universal Credit (UC) - an all-in-one benefit currently being rolled out in the north, which has plunged out-of-work and low-income families even further into hardship (not to mention putting them into debt with rent & rates due to the 5 week waiting period for UC which is not back-paid) children are bearing the brunt as school gates close, free school dinner tickets end and those without Internet or a computer are left in limbo.

Things just as bad in the Republic.

Things are the same in the south with 202,000 children living well below the breadline.

It’s very sad to say that a large portion, both north and south of those living in poverty are the ‘working poor.’ What does that teach our children about the attractiveness of employment if both parents are working and still needing assistance from food banks and cannot afford the essential technology and broadband connection to facilitate a basic education?

(It can’t help that our nurseries and pre-schools are currently closed establishments that provided breakfasts - meals relied on by many struggling families).

We have seen little 14-month-old infants here who

In an article The working are so hungry when you offer them toast and milk published poor. they stuff toast into their nappies. recently, Maney stated that the Caoimhe (30) lives in divide between the rich and Portaferry, Co. Down. Caoimhe has 3 children aged 7-11 poor has become “vast and accelerating” and went on to and when her hours (as a learning disabilities carer) were explaining how the impact of Covid-19 has aggravated increased by just 1.5 hours, she and her husband were this issue, no longer entitled to free school meals (a loss of almost

“….Government policy has driven up asset prices for the rich while the less fortunate are enduring withering declines in living standards.”

Nearly a third of children in the north live in poverty that’s 121,000 kids who are not only living in destitution now but are also at risk of worse outcomes in terms of

£40 per week). During the first lockdown, Caoimhe’s husband had a mental breakdown and could no longer work. Unable to afford childcare and her husband unable to take care of the kids, Caoimhe had to stop work and sign on to UC, “The one positive is that my rent and rates are being paid [previously, her full month’s wage was required to pay her 8

private landlord rent/rates] but I’m now over £750 in debt to my landlord due to the five week wait for UC and because it’s not back paid, it’s owing, so I’m having to pay him each fortnight from our UC….”

both chronically lonely and give kids a distinct lack of purpose, direction and academic stimulation.

Recently paediatric psychiatrists have been describing lockdown as a “tsunami” for poor mental health in kids. Since last July there has been a sharp rise in kids presenting with mental health difficulties to children’s hospitals and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). Clinicians report seeing increasing numbers of distressed children presenting with conditions such as suicidal ideation, self-harm and eating disorders. The north has had similar increases in kids presenting with these mental health issues.

Caoimhe’s descent into the realm of the ‘working poor’ could happen to anyone, “*Aiden’s in first year at high school, we can’t afford the Internet right now and he’s supposed to log-in at a computer for 9.30 each morning for check-in. The school has said that a laptop is required for online schooling but the family laptop had to be sold during our five week wait for UC after my husband got ill. My When we know that other son is in his kids are 40% less likely last year of primary to catch Covid when school and is exposed to someone supposed to complete with the virus than test papers and adults - I think we’re email them through getting near that stage each afternoon but where we need to ask again we’re stuck.

- wouldn’t it be better Our 7-year-old all round to have daughter does her our children back at activity sheets and school. After all, our luckily her teacher is mental health units are a friend of a friend stretched to capacity who lives a 15 and the pandemic has minute walk away created a whole new and the teacher lets me post her work through her letterbox and then demographic of families in poverty, struggling she texts me her marks and posts that week’s to provide laptops and Internet - so schoolwork through my door on a Caoimhe’s descent into the realm of surely if our kids were back in Sunday night .… I’m sure that school, this would fix both probably isn’t even allowed. I the ‘working poor’ could happen to of these pressing issues. worry that not having access anyone…. to a computer is putting my * Aiden, not real name. youngsters at a big disadvantage.

I’ve worked every day since I was 16, my ** As I finished this piece Caoimhe has applied hubby’s under the care of the outpatient community mental health for free wi-fi vouchers and is “optimistic” that she will team, I’m at home all day with the kids, I’m doing all I can but receive them and is delighted that her family are in line how can I afford a computer when two weeks ago I had to get a to receive a second-hand laptop from a donate a laptop parcel from the food bank?” charity drive in the next couple of weeks, “It’s a bit of a weight off my mind, it’s just a matter of Julie Healy head of programmes at Barnardos recently getting the kids back up to speed again … it’s frightening spoke of how our kids’ mental health is suffering as, how going through financial hardship can affect your kids “For many children, school is their lifeline …. their safe opportunity to learn….. none of us should have been left space.” in this situation. Kids shouldn’t feel marginalised because they’re from poor families….”

Separating kids from their normal routine, their friends and the structure of the classroom environment is harming more and more children’s mental health - add into that mix the kids who have no access to online Have your say on Twitter @BigIssueIreland lessons and interactions with peers and it must be 9

Life Issues

Naomi Watts: “Animals can draw out emotions”

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hen Naomi Watts first heard Sam Bloom’s story – of hope, healing and a baby magpie named Penguin – she knew she wanted to share it with the world. The Big Issue Australia spoke to the actor about optioning Bloom’s initially tragic, but ultimately uplifting, tale. Aimee Knight reports.

The path to healing is rarely black and white, even when your travelling companion is a magpie called Penguin.

(2012), for which she earned praise and award nominations aplenty.

Based on the true story of Samantha Bloom and her avian confidant, Penguin Bloom is “a remarkable story of survival” says Naomi Watts. The two-time Oscar nominee brings depth and integrity to her portrayal of Sam – who, while recovering from a lifealtering accident, forms a restorative bond with a baby bird – in this heartfelt biopic from Australian director Glendyn Ivin (The Cry).

“When you take on a person that’s still around, it’s a lot of pressure,” Watts says from New York City. She says she feels an immense responsibility to get it right, especially when the subject has lived through something extraordinary, as Sam has. “You don’t always know how open they’re going to be. It’s different every time,” she explains. “With Sam, I felt so easy. She made herself so available.”

Still, Watts felt awkward asking personal questions. She suspected she was getting greedy with Sam’s time. Then one day, during pre-production, Sam handed Watts the diaries she’d kept during recovery. Her on screen conduit was stunned.

Thailand, 2013: Sam is on holiday when she falls from a rooftop after leaning on a rotten railing, “I knew she’d reached some pretty dark fracturing her skull, places in that first year of healing,” says rupturing her lungs and Watts.

“When I saw it written by her shattering two vertebrae.

Jacki Weaver and Naomi Watts in own hand, not censored in any way, it Penguin Bloom.

She makes it home to became even clearer.”

Sydney paralysed from the chest down. Grief and confusion cloak the household as Sam enters a depressive She resolved to honour Sam’s truth with the utmost respect. The film doesn’t shy away from Sam’s complex spell, drifting away from her husband and their relationship to living with a disability, but Watts three sons. focused on “making sure that people are Sam is on holiday A few months later, middle when she falls from a rooftop able to empathise with the situation”. Her child Noah saves an injured after leaning on a rotten railing, physical performance was guided by Sam, too. magpie fledgling, whom the kids She makes it home to Sydney dub Penguin. Drawn together paralysed from the chest But achieving Penguin Bloom’s affecting by the bird’s fuzzy plumage and down. realism came with a unique challenge, and anyone plucky charm, the Blooms find common who has experienced springtime in Australia will likely ground again. When Watts encountered this story, she relate. was touched by “what [Sam] lost and how she restored herself with the help of her family and this magical “I’m not super cosy with magpies,” says Watts. “At least, bird”. She quickly signed on – not only to play Sam, I wasn’t when I went into this.” but to produce the film, too.

Raised in England, Wales and Sydney, Watts is perhaps best known for her breakthrough role in the neo-noir Mulholland Drive (2001). She’s also portrayed historical figures, namely the late Princess of Wales in the 2013 biopic Diana, and a character based on the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami survivor Dr María Belón in The Impossible

As a horse-riding youngster, she was swooped by a whole territorial tiding. “It was quite terrifying!” she recalls.

Consequently, Watts spent her first day on set wondering whether the birds might try to peck out her eyes. And despite her passing resemblance to Tippi Hedren (The Birds), no Hitchcockian incidents went down.

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“We certainly had a couple of wonky moments with the bird pooping on my head, running straight down my face,” she laughs. “But pretty quickly – I would say it was a rapid turn – I just felt comfortable with them.

Gerry, Clipper, Eugene, Maggie May, Mavis, Pew, Pip, Wendell, Swoop and Hollywood all stood in for Penguin at various ages. Watts bonded with each one. “They definitely had personalities,” she says.

co-star Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) as “the great kid wrangler…so full of joy and energy”.

Lincoln plays Sam’s husband Cameron, with undiluted love and devotion. A photographer who captured the Blooms during their intense phase of emotional transformation, Cam’s portraits are collected in the books Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a Family and Sam Bloom: Heartache & Birdsong.

“One was a teenager so he was always a bit moody and would burn out quickly. There was an older one that was more gentle. Gerry was my favourite.”

Under Ivin’s direction, the film honours the warm domesticity of Cam’s candid snaps. Scenes are often shot from Sam’s height in her wheelchair, the notable exception being when we see the world from Penguin’s point of view. From top to bottom, Ivin suffuses Penguin Bloom with an intimacy further charged by the real family’s presence on set.

Watts says the bird trainer, Paul Manter, did an astounding job, even teaching the feathered thespians two quirks for which the real-life Penguin was renowned: trotting about with her toy monkey, and nicking teabags.

Naturally, the ever-curious birds In fact, the film was shot in were also keen to just do their own the Blooms’ actual Northern Naomi Watts with Sam Bloom. Photos by Hugh Stewart thing – a variable that could have Beaches house, with Watts been avoided with a CGI magpie. wearing clothes from Sam’s But a virtual bird wouldn’t have embodied the real wardrobe and Cam working as on-set photographer. “It Penguin’s silliness, spontaneity and free spirit. did feel raw,” Watts admits, though she was mostly struck by the Blooms’ generosity.

“There were moments where we turned the cameras on and hoped we captured “It felt like a little community.

“I knew she’d reached something,” says Watts. “It required a My kids were there, Andrew’s some pretty dark places huge amount of discipline to create that kids were there. There was in that first year of healing,” space. Everybody had to be quiet and still lots of spirit and magic in the so that the bird felt comfortable, because you room, and it all contributed to the want to get that magical moment. beauty of this story.”

“It wasn’t always exactly how it was written on the page, but you’d walk away going, ‘I can’t believe we just got that.’” At times, Penguin looks at Sam, and they both seem to truly see the pain, vulnerability and strength inside each other.

There are as many roads to recovery as there are leaves on trees, but the trek is rarely linear. Often it unfurls like a rising spiral, looping back on itself as we re-chart the psychic territory we inadequately call “the past” – from a different vantage point each time.

“Animals, creatures: they can draw out the emotions, can’t they?” says Watts. She relates to stories in which non-human characters elicit empathy in viewers, who are moved by animals’ emotional purity. “In different ways, they surprise you.”

That’s why “you’ve just got to be kind, right?” says Watts. “We’ve got to be kind to each other. When you go through something tough, nothing makes that more clear.

Of course, that element of surprise is also the wellspring for the film industry proverb “Never work with animals or children”. “We took on both!” laughs Watts, then adding, “We had some good wranglers.” She credits her

“Empathy is a big thing, particularly now,” she says.

“It’s always helpful, but after spending all this time in isolation, we miss that connectivity. It’s nice to see it on the screen.”

Courtesy of The Big Issue Australia / INSP.ngo

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World Issues

Open Source Reporting .....

News reporting of the Future?

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any are probably unfamiliar with the investigative journalism website, Bellingcat, a site with its genesis at the kitchen table of British journalist, former blogger and high school dropout Eliot Higgins; but, what started as a humble, home-grown investigative unit is redefining how we think about the news, politics and the digital future. Samantha McMurdock reports: An example of Bellingcat’s investigations: The Downing of MH17

Eliot Higgins, an introvert and stay-at-home dad (who CNN mockingly referred to as ‘Mr. Mom’) has became one of the world’s most influential internet sleuths (originally blogging under the pseudonym Brown Moses), who uses publicly available data like Google Earth, social media and citizen journalist analysis for advancing narratives of conflict, crime and human rights abuses.

Higgins’ journalistic abilities are quite astounding.

Take the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 for instance. Eliot and his team spent four years unearthing key information, including tracking the missile launcher that shot down the passenger airline, from its base in Russia to Ukraine, locating the field where the missile was launched from and identifying a number of suspects involved with the incident.

Bellingcat even identified that the Russian military was involved years before it was confirmed by European officials.

Eliot, and the team he has now assembled produce investigations on these issues and have expanded their training so that a growing troop of citizen journalists around the globe are prepared to probe stories alongside them. From uncovering the story behind the Skripal Higgins used open poisonings, exposing source information that Russia downed to seek the truth flight MH17, identifying violent On 28 Sept 2016 the Bellingcat investigated the downing of MH17 protestors carrying Joint Investigation out racist attacks Team (JIT), who are (at Unite the Right a law enforcement rally in Charlottesville) and judicial group, set up jointly by EU national to exposing Mexican drug lords and tracking the use investigative agencies to hand cross-border crime, gave a of chemical weapons, Higgins has redefined how we press conference saying a missile launcher had travelled think about the news - and in a world flooded with fake from Russia to Ukraine, shot down MH17 and returned, articles, spin and but in the two year period (between July 2014 and the an ever-decreasing media budget, Bellingcat’s work is not press conference) rumours and conjecture abounded, only encouraging - it’s necessary. which according to Higgins were merely, “attempts to distract from the truth.” Bellingcat approached the

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investigation in a different manner - they started looking at evidence being shared online - some hidden, some easy to locate.

version of events and route but the Russian government vehemently disagreed with them both - in fact on 21 July 2014 they presented a press conference where they gave their own evidence, presenting satellite images supposedly taken on 14 July, showing a Ukrainian military base and a second image from 17 July, and the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed a few days after MH17 was downed that this illustrated that a Buk missile launcher had moved from that base on 17 July. They didn’t state that it had shot down MH17 but strongly implied it.

Bellingcat started by looking at Facebook posts from the area and quickly spotted a photograph posted 17 July 2014 which showed a Buk missile launcher on a truck travelling through the town, so the next step was to find the exact location, which he did, using Geolocation (software capable of deducing the geographic position).

A shop was spotted in the Higgins See Bellingcat’s website background so and his www.bellingcat.com for an he Googled the team in-depth look at the investigations shop name and took a the team are involved in. there was only good one in eastern look Ukraine. at the This led to satellite him finding images a Wikipedia the page someone Russians had set up with had every street provided name and shop news in Ukraine outlets. (which gave Eliot him the street noticed name and the top shop details). left of In this case the first there’d been image a fight in that store recently and this led him to a court had an area of vegetation with a path cut through it, document which gave him a verified address. Typing but because of the amount of free information available this address into Google led Eliot to a series of videos online, Eliot found the image on Google Earth from from a man whose hobby is driving around east Ukraine, the exact same date and the vegetation is gone! Higgins uploading his dashcam videos to the internet (it takes smelled a rat. The Russian’s first all sorts). Whilst watching these videos, image from 14 July showed Eliot spotted the very shop (which vegetation, so Eliot …in a world flooded with fake articles, was across the street from the Buk checked images from spin and an ever-decreasing media budget, missile launcher), thus confirming 2nd July to 30th July Bellingcat’s work is not only encouraging his geolocation footage. His next that shows it was never it’s necessary. step was to work out the time of there in the first place, day the photo was taken and using proving there was the location of the sun’s rays on the no way the Russian’s ground illustrated sometime around noon that day (17 photographs were from that date. When July 2014.) The team then combed social media and the second photo was checked, the worn away grass found endless posts from people asking what the vehicle proved the photos were not from July but matched May’s was travelling through their town, there was also a lot of footage! “This is what the revolution is all about,” Higgins said videos and photos from interested locals and by piecing recently at a Ted Talk, all this together, Eliot and his team were able to recreate “We just take information that’s floating around online, freely the missile launcher’s route on the morning of 17th July available to anyone and we used it to challenge the claims of a as it was heading towards the location where it would major government.” shoot down MH17.

That was not the end of the MH17 investigation. Weeks The Joint Investigation Team agreed with Bellingcat’s after the Russians presented their ‘information’, Eliot 13

noticed footage online of Buk missile launcher convoys type of investigation can be applied everywhere….” and, in Russia. In a video that had been posted on social “Bellingcat are only a tiny part of this…. We are only one media late June 2014 (a few weeks before MH17), one hundred people in the world doing this…. Think about it… what of the missiles visible in this convoy was the same missile if there was a thousand people doing it …. What if there was more launcher that was seen in Ukraine. Eliot then decided to …. Imagine what could be accomplished. There’s people out there find out where it came from, so he geolocated the image who could be part of this revolution.” and tracked it back to the base it came from, The 53rd Air Defence Brigade, which had a social media page, The downside - becoming a target. which all the soldiers from the camp follow, so Eliot and his team decided to look into each of the soldiers’ profiles Eliot and the team have been targeted by the Fancy Bear and found an attendance sheet with the name of each hackers man in the unit. Eliot then popped that into Google and (who were responsible for the 2016 Democratic found each of the soldier’s social media pages. Because National Committee email leak,) backed by the Russian the men used Facebook Tag in each of the photographs, government, they’ve been targeted by the Russian media, Eliot could then see all their photos, which included they’ve been criticised by the Russian government and images of them with the convoy he’d been tracking! Eliot are constantly vigilant for potential attacks, but Higgins also unearthed mountains of photographic evidence remains unfazed, including pictures of them posing at the town’s sign when “Nothing will stop us, there’s so many of us who can now do they moved across the border into Ukraine. Higgins this [carry out open source investigations] that we will keep on followed the trail and found the internet forum used by going. We can keep going because we have this new power - we the wives, mothers, sisters and are part of this new revolution. We have a peaceful girlfriends discussing the power - the power of truth and in a postmovements of their truth society, it’s never been a better time There’s people out there loved ones. Piecing for us all to do this together. Each and who could be part of this revolution. all these bits of every one of you could join us and be a information together, part of this.”

Eliot could reconstruct the entire brigade, discovering Bellingcat’s feats are beyond the scope of a commanders of each missile launcher in that unit that three page article, MH17 alone is astonishing but they’ve was in the convoy transporting the missile launcher that also successfully demonstrated that Syria’s regime used shot down MH17. chemical weapons against its citizens, they unmasked the Russian ‘kill teams’ who poisoned defector Sergei Skripal Armed with all this research, Bellingcat presented a and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in more recent 120 page summarised report alongside the additional times they’ve analysed footage from the storming of the information to the JIT and because all the research US Capitol, unearthing valuable clues. was open source, this meant they could verify this themselves. When the JIT had their press conference on Not at all bad for a man who started it all with a laptop on his 28 September 2016 they used the open source material kitchen table and a curious mind!

Eliot had pointed them towards and had the details of potential suspects handed to them. * We Are Bellingcat by Eliot Higgins (Bloomsbury So, how did Eliot get involved in this kind of research?

Publishing) is available from all good bookshops He had a natural curiosity about the largely untouched and online. realm of open source material out there and “decided to teach myself ” how to piece these bits of information together to see the full picture. From his kitchen table he crowd-sourced others with the same mindset, trained them up and he now has a team of full-time staff, contributors and volunteers all over the world. These professional journalists, contributors and volunteers investigate everything from chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Mexican drug gangs and just about every subject.

Be a part of the revolution.

Eliot believes, “You can all be part of this revolution” as, “This 14

Proud Supporters of Ireland’s Big Issue and Homeless Street Leagues

15

Issues: Hollywood

The Making of The Blue Max

F

ifty-five years ago, 7 years before Computer-Generated Imagery was part of a filmmaker’s arsenal, war movie The Blue Max, was filmed at Ardmore Studios, Bray.

The making of this WW1 epic was no small feat as two air forces had to be built from scratch and stunt pilots were brought in - risking their lives in the process. Shaun Anthony reports:

As the cast and crew arrived at Ardmore Studios, Bray to begin work on 20th Century Fox’s WW1 aerial-battle film, stunt pilot Derek Piggot would soon discover this was no simple aviation movie, flying around the skies, dispensing smoke bombs - no, he would have to fly a biplane under a bridge, as producer Christian Ferry didn’t want to use remote-control models as he and director John Guillermin wanted all stunts to be genuine in a bid to make the most authentic air combat film ever made - if that involved stuntman Derek Piggott risking his life in constant retakes, so be it. Piggot would later describe how Ferry who “had photos of every bridge in Ireland”, showed all the stuntmen photographs of the bridges, gauging their reaction, “to try to decide who he would ask to do the job when the time came…..perhaps I was the only pilot who didn’t say that all the bridges looked hopeless.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Piggot would soon discover 16

that the plane he was to fly would be hand-built from scratch (the team were given just five months to complete the task).

The movie required 2 miniature air forces to be assembled from scratch, at the cost of $250,000 (around $2.5m in today’s money). Still, for a film almost 40 years in the making, it was worth it.

The Blue Max - 40 Years in the Making The Blue Max was based on a book of the same name by Jack D. Hunter and when Jack was just 6 years old (in 1927) he watched the Clara Bow and Gary Cooper WW1 epic aviation film Wings with his mother at a cinema in New York one freezing cold night. Jack’s mother had been unable to find a babysitter and so, reluctantly took her son with her - he was mesmerised.

Jack, later described himself as, “motionless and starry-eyed” as he sat, enthralled beside his mother, “I came away from the cinema totalled by my first love affair, afire with my passion for flying machines.”

When Hunter came of age, instead of becoming an Army Air Corps pilot he did intelligence work, going into occupied Europe at war’s end.

He didn’t get around to penning his book until he was a 41-year-old journalist - and E.P. Dutton published the book, a copy fell into the hands of Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox, they optioned the movie and the rest if history as they say.

difficult to work with. Ursula Andress, was hired next as Stachel’s love interest - the Countess Kaeti von Klugermann; Fox hoped her sex-appeal, thanks to flicks like Dr. No and What’s New Pussycat? would draw in a male audience. Andress’ voice was dubbed (like it was in most of her movies) to disguise her very strong Swiss-German accent. Other notable cast members such as James Mason, Jeremy Kamp and Germans Karl-Michael Vogler and Anton Diffring were hired next.

The General Plot (without spoilers)

Lt. Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), a brash, German WW1 fighter pilot, is driven to shoot down 20 enemy planes, thus garnering him The Blue Max, a coveted medal. His superior, Count von Klugermann (James Mason), is aware that Bruno will stop at nothing to George Peppard, knowing the director, John Guillermin receive the honour, and admires his determination. The expected complete accuracy, learned to fly for the role, count’s nephew, Willi “Before production (Jeremy Kemp), is I took an intensive Bruno’s main comfour-month flying petition for the prize, course, which gave but Bruno is determe 210 hours on mined to eliminate my pilot’s log, 130 his opponent and of them solo….. secure the honour for I then checked in himself. Throw in a at our location in love story - Stachel Ireland and spent (Peppard) is having an additional an affair with the wife month flying the (played by Andress, re-creations of early whose voice was aircraft built for the dubbed to disguise film.” her thick Swiss-German accent) of his The air action commanding officer, would be directvon Klugermann ed by Anthony (Mason), revenge and Squire, a WWII James Mason, George Peppard & Ursula Andress some of the best aeflying boat pilot rial action of its time who trained in and you’ve 149 mins film work with of bonafide entertainthe RAF Film ment.

Unit, with German WW1 pilot Kurt Delang serving as Technical Advisor.

Authenticity at all Costs

Appealing to a mass audience

Guillermin, who was best-know for the Tarzan films was determined to prove his worth at any cost and cared little for anything other than creating, “the most authentic air combat film ever made.”

Producers at Fox felt that aviation enthusiasts would not make adequate numbers for an audience so felt they needed big names to draw the crowds in.

Location

George Peppard was hired first. Hunter was not impressed,

Picking a European setting was proving difficult as Flanders Fields was now one of the most air-trafficked parts of Europe and eventually, after visiting numerous potential locations, Ireland seemed like the best option.

“With the assignment of George Peppard, the winsome and totally apple-pie superstar to the lead role, I saw that Bruno Stachel of the novel would never make it into the movie.”

The aircraft ground scenes were shot at Weston Aerodrome, between Kildare and Dublin. In the movie’s last scene, Casement Aerodrome (to the south-west of Dublin) stood in for Berlin Tegel.

You see Peppard was 37 - almost twice the age of Hunter’s character Stachel, he also had a reputation for being 17

Extras The film production was organised military style thanks to being under the command of Technical Advisor Cdr. Allen Wheeler. Then 1,100 officers and men from the Irish Army (under liaison officer Lt. Col. William O’Kelly) were extras, changing uniforms as required and equipped with 2000 rifles, 24 field guns, 20 mortars, 20 armoured cars, 500 grenades and an abundance of machine guns.

“We shipped in our own explosives because we had absolute knowledge of its properties. That meant getting special permission of the Irish Government which, fortunately, proved most cooperative.”

Using five radio sets and 25 miles of wiring, their team of 60 set off over 5,000 separate blasts (about 7 tons of explosives per day - and thousands by filming’s end).

The machine guns were oxyacetylene torches lit by spark plugs, smoke was delivered via fireworks canisters - set off by electrically fired detonators - absolute care had to be taken (using asbestos shielding and flame resistant paint) to avoid setting the aircrafts alight.

Accidents

Peppard shone in the role.

Von Kluggerman in his D. VII

Recreating the Somme Recreating the Somme required 230 acres in Kilpedder, just outside Ardmore, Co. Wicklow, where an entire French village was built, then semi-destroyed.

Battle Scenes Explosive experts Karle Baumgartner from Germany and Ron Ballanger from the UK were on set during all battle scenes to ensure credibility as far as possible. Ballanger would state later,

the camera motor out of his hand.

The pilots were risking their lives, with countless takes, but the crew (thanks to the director’s lack of concern for his staff’s safety) demanded riskier and riskier takes and one afternoon as a Fokker hopped a tree row, it levelled off and rushed the camera. Film loader John Earnshaw noticed that he was actually looking down on its wheels. He hit the ground just before one of them ripped

Chic Waterson, the camera operator was struck on the head but expected back at work the next morning. Director of photography Douglas Slocomb was hospitalised for 3 weeks with a wrenched back. Elmo Williams, head of 20th Century Fox’s European Production (and Blue Max executive) later admitted that Guillermin was, “…indifferent to people getting hurt as long as he got his realistic action.”

Williams went on to say that although Guillermin was “a hard-working man” he was “overly critical” and “disliked 18

by all the crew” due to his lack of concern for safety.

The Big Moment - The Bridge Fly-Through Stunt pilot Piggott recalled how Guillermin was determined that there would be a bridge fly-through followed by a crash, “Why this had to happened was not determined,” he recalled later.

The bridge’s location still hadn’t been found, despite Guillermin having photos of every bridge in Ireland. The uncaring director finally picked a railway viaduct made with wrought-iron girders at Carrickabrick, near Fermoy, Co. Cork. The girders spanned the Blackwater River on stone pillars and Guillermin told Piggot that the bridge had been flown under by the pilots of the RAF in the 1930s - Piggot found this hard to believe, so flew down by himself for a closer inspection, “From the filming point of view it was ideal since it was high enough to allow plenty of room for vertical error but this meant there could be no question of pulling up and over the bridge once the run had been started.”

On the day of the shot, the cast and crew were terrified of accidentally performing the scripted crash “most were scarcely able to look,” Piggott stated later.

On the day of filming, Piggott realised he had “the easier job” as his stunt colleague had to fly a helicopter by his side, then pull up and over the bridge (quite literally with just a second to spare). They had to take the scene 14 times, “I slept like I’ve never slept that night,” Piggott later joked.

Reception The film was panned for its bedroom scenes - Andress had exposed a nipple (in the pre-ratings era the film still received MPAA approval and was released uncut). The aerial action was highly praised, as was Jerry Goldsmith’s score and the film won a British Film Academy Award for Best Colour Art Direction The Blue Max was one of the last films released in CinemaScope and took in over $16m. The film is still considered one of the top 6 war movies ever made - not bad for a film free of Computer-Generated Imagery.

Risky scene at Carrickabrick, near Fermoy, Co. Cork

Piggot set up two poles for a guide for himself, but when practising on his own noticed that he needed several attempts to align with the poles, “I was worried…once filming started, if I didn’t make it through on the first run it was immaterial how well I might have done in others.”

Andress always attracted an audience.

Peppard gets a haircut from hairdresser Jay Sebring (who was later murdered by members of the Manson Family.

19

20

Island of Saint George by the coast of Perast in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro 21

Issues: Historical

M

Michael Collins Rendezvous with Death

ichael Collins left Dublin on 20 August 1922, setting in motion what would become his final hours of life and a place in Irish history books. Sineád Dunlop takes a look at the events that occurred on that fateful day and ambush at Béal na mBláth.

When Michael Collins left Dublin on Sunday 20th August 1922, he wasn’t feeling well - the doctor advised him to shelve his journey but Collins determinedly carried on regardless and his fleet left Portobello Barracks in Dublin, at 5:15am, making its first stop at Maryborough Jail, where Collins talked about moving some of the prisoners there to Gormanstown camp to alleviate the overcrowding issue. He also spoke with some of the inmates, including Tom Malone, about finishing the Civil War. He asked if Tom would go to a meeting to, “....try to put an end to this damned thing.”

As he left, he punched one fist into his hand and exclaimed, “that fixes it - the three Toms [that is, Malone, Tom Barry, and Tom Hales] will fix it.”

Crosbie, the editor. After this visit, Collins went to several banks to try and unearth republican/IRA/anti-Treaty funds deposited during their occupation of the city. The previous month the IRA had gathered £120,000 in customs revenue and hid the cash in the bank accounts of supporters. When Michael Collins appeared at each bank he told the manager to shut the doors and things would swiftly be back to normal if they fully complied.

Michael then got the bank managers to single out the suspicious accounts, then he deduced that, “three first-class men will be necessary to conduct a forensic investigation of the banks and the Customs and Excise in Cork.”

He told William Cosgrave to consider three people but, “don’t announce anything until I return.”

Collins and Emmet then drove The fleet then drove to around 30 miles to Macroom Roscrea Barracks for an where Michael met IRA leader assessment. At Limerick Florence O’Donoghue, who Barracks, the Commanding was neutral in the Civil War. Officer of the Southern The first chapter of the Civil Command, General Eoin War was ended, O’Donoghue O’Duffy, met Michael and later recorded. Emmet and stated that the Civil War many others conceded at would be finished soon and this point that the IRA/ understood that Collins “Keep up the good work!

Republicans couldn’t win the wanted to avoid any hostility. war and that Michael came ’Twill soon be over.”

The fleet then drove through south searching for peace.

Mallow and spent that night Collins was urgently attempting in Cork City, where they to bring the War to a close, as well as trying to give some stayed at the military HQ of the Imperial Hotel. Collins face-saving deal to the leaders on the other side. Some spent quality time that night with his sister Mary Collinspeople have suggested he asked Florence how to put an Powell, and her son, Seán and the rest of the evening end to the War and to arbitrate for him. That afternoon was spent in dialogue with the O/C of the area, General Emmet and Michael headed out to review the military in Emmet Dalton. Dalton felt that, Cobh, returning to Cork in the early part of the evening. “…..normality and law and order would not be too That Fateful Day far off. We were in possession of the principal towns in County Cork. Michael Collins and I discussed this on the At 6:15am on 22 August, Collins and his convoy left journey through West Cork.” their hotel. The military detail was far too small for the protection of the Free State Commander-in-Chief, On Monday 21st August Michael went with General because they’d be driving through some of the most Emmet Dalton to the Cork Examiner to deliberate about active anti-Treaty areas of south Cork. the general Free State stance on publicity with Tom 22

The fleet went through Macroom towards Béal na mBláth about 8am where it stopped to ask for directions, then through Crookstown and in to Bandon. In Bandon, Michael fleetingly met with Major General Seán Hales, O/C of the Free State forces in West Cork. Many believe Hales was briefed about a meeting Collins had planned with Civil War neutrals in Cork that evening and that he had met with O’Donoghue and others the day before and discussed how an end to the War could be reached.

The fleet stopped for lunch at Callinan’s Pub in Clonakilty, then drove to Roscarberry and Michael had a drink in his cousin Jeremiah’s pub, Four Alls Pub at Sam’s Cross where he proclaimed:

On the journey Michael met his pal John Sullivan. The convoy took a detour around Clonakilty on the way back because of a roadblock and stopped in Bandon for tea.

No one is sure why the fleet returned this same way they came out in the morning, however when the anti-Treaty forces left Cork city they blew up most of the bridges and cut most of the roads, so there were few passable ways to travel in Co. Cork. He ran into Hales, who was the brother of Tom Hales, by coincidence a member of the ambush party. As they parted he shouted, “Keep up the good work! ’Twill soon be over.”

On the road out of Bandon, Collins said to Dalton; “If we run into an ambush along the way, we’ll stand and fight them.”

Dalton didn’t reply.

Very early in the morning of Tuesday 22nd August, the ambush group met in Long’s Pub (which was owned by Denis Long, the lookout who recognised Collins’ convoy as it passed through Béal na mBláth).

“I’m going to settle this thing. I’m going to put an end to this bloody war.”

There was still no sign he was open to finding a middle ground. Evidently, any hope he had of settling the Civil War wouldn’t be done at the expense of the Treaty. Michael told his brother Johnny, that he would, “....go further with the British government once there was peace here.”

His main objective was to end the Civil War. He said, “The British have given up their claim on us. When we begin to work together we can help those in the northeast.”

On the way back, Michael and his men passed by what remained of his childhood home and he pointed to the stone walls and looked at Dalton, “There is where I was born. That was my home.”

Dalton would later state that this was the happiest he’d seen Michael, “He was able to let himself go, and also I think he felt things were now moving his way. He didn’t say much as we traveled along the flat road towards Bandon, he appeared lost in the myriad thoughts of a crowded and successful day.”

The men left Skibbereen at 5pm and drove back to Cork.

The men who mustered at Béal na mBláth weren’t a column, but officers trained in guerrilla warfare who congregated to hold a pre-arranged staff meeting.

When Florence O’Donoghue met with the surviving members of the IRA/Republicans in 1964, they said they didn’t know that Collins was in the locality until that morning. The scheme to attack the convoy was decided as part of the general policy of attacking all Free State convoys, not as a particular plan to ambush this fleet.

The IRA/Republicans stopped a Clonakilty man, Jeremiah O’Brien and seized his cart to block the road.

In combination with the mine they were situating on the road, the ambushers were aware the convoy would have to halt abruptly. The ambushers waited all day but nothing. Late afternoon, a message was received that Collins’ party was in Bandon, but as it was thought unlikely that the convoy would come through Béal na mBláth a second time, they began to dismantle the mine and clear out.

The Ambush Originally, there were 30 ambushers, some men stayed all day, others came and went. When Collins finally arrived at Béal na mBláth at 7.30 pm many of the original ambushers had already left. When the first shots were 23

Who was responsible?

fired, Dalton shouted: “Drive like hell.”

There are many conspiracy theories regarding Collins’s death. Some Republicans believe that Collins was killed by a British ‘plant’. Some Pro-Treaty accounts claim that de Valera ordered his assassination. There are some who believe that Collins was actually murdered by one of his own men – Jock McPeak who defected to the Republican side three months later. Some witnesses have since claimed there was a bullet entry wound to the front of his head, while others say it was a ricochet bullet that killed him. There was no post mortem, and little investigation at the time, with many questions unanswered some suggest there may indeed have been a cover up.

Collins countermanded the order just as he had forecasted and roared: “Stop, we’ll fight them.”

Collins and Dalton first fired from behind the armoured car, and then Collins screamed, “there - they are running up the road.”

The Lewis machine gun in the armoured car jammed several times, and when it did the IRA/Republicans took advantage of the hiatus in firing to move their positions.

Then, Collins ran about fifteen metres up the road, dropped into a prostrate firing position, and continued shooting at the IRA/antiTreaty men.

Dalton would later say how he heard the faint cry, “Emmet, I’m hit.”

What is certain on that day the 22nd of August 1922 Michael Collins met his appointment with …kneeling in the mud of a country death and Ireland lost a truly dynamic road not twelve miles from Clonakilty, and capable leader.

with the still bleeding head of the Idol of Ireland resting on my arm…”

Dalton and Commandant Seán O’Connell ran over to where Collins was lying and found a, “fearful gaping wound at the base of his skull behind the right ear. We immediately saw that General Collins was almost beyond human aid. O’Connell now knelt beside the dying, but still conscious Chief, whose eyes were wide open and normal, and whispered into the ear of the fast-sinking man the words of the Act of Contrition. For this he was rewarded with a light pressure of the hand. …. Very gently I raised his head on my knee and tried to bandage his wound but owing to the awful size of it this proved very difficult. I had not completed this task when the big eyes quickly closed, and the cold pallor of death overspread the General’s face. How can I describe the feelings that were mine in that bleak hour, kneeling in the mud of a country road not twelve miles from Clonakilty, with the still bleeding head of the Idol of Ireland resting on my arm.”

Last photo of Collins alive at rear left of motor

Post Ambush The ambush was over in half-an-hour, and before it ended, darkness had fallen so it was impossible to get off an aimed shot. No one in the anti-Treaty party fully knew that Collins had been shot or that the convoy suffered any casualty. It was only when Shawno Galvin came back to Béal na mBláth that they got the first news of any casualties.

24

@

Is í ár dteanga féin í.

It’s our language.

BAILE ÁTHA CLIATH · BÉAL FEIRSTE · RÁTH CHAIRN · DÚN SEACHLAINN · GAOTH DOBHAIR

forasnagaeilge.ie

Screen Scene Nomadland ***

Moxie ***

Starring: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn Streaming on: Hulu Run Time: 108 mins.

Release Date: 19 March 2021

‘Frances McDormand delivers the performance of her career,’ says The Guardian, while Esquire calls writerdirector Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland ‘a poetic Malickian ode to the pioneering nature of the restless American spirit.’ An independent contemporary Western – also edited and co-produced by Zhao – Nomadland explores the phenomenon of older American workers forced by the Great Recession to hit the road and travel the country, in this case the Mid-West, looking for employment.

Beautiful cinematography and a really poetic character study on the forgotten and downtrodden. Probably one of the most important films you’ll watch this year.

Starring: Hadley Robinson, Josie Totah, Marcia Gay Harden.

Streaming on: Netflix Run Time: 90 mins.

Release date: 3 March 2021

Directed by actress, producer and writer, Amy Poehler (whose descendants were from Co. Cork) and based on Jennifer Mathieu’s novel of the same name, Moxie tells the story of a shy teenage girl (played brilliantly

by Hadley Robinson, who you’ll remember from Little Women and Utopia) who’s fed up with the sexist and toxic status quo at her high school, but finds inspiration from her mother’s rebellious past and anonymously publishes a zine that sparks a school-wide, coming-ofrage revolution. A film that will appeal to teen girls of the moment without a doubt.

Hadley Robinson finds inspiration from her mum’s past

Frances McDormand oozes star quality in Nomadland

26

Dead Still***

Cherry **** Starring:Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, Jack Reynor.

Streaming: Apple TV+ Run Time: 150 mins Release Date: 12 March 2021

Starring: Michael Smiley, Aidan O’Hare, Eileen O’Higgins.

Streaming: RTÉ Catch-up Run Time: 6 x 45 mins.

Release Date: Currently streaming

Cherry follows the wild journey of a disenfranchised young man from Ohio who meets the love of his life, only to risk losing her through a series of bad decisions and challenging life circumstances. Inspired by the best-selling novel of the same name, Cherry features Tom Holland in the title role as an unhinged character who drifts from dropping out of college to serving in Iraq as an Army medic and is only anchored by his one true love, Emily (Ciara Bravo).

When Cherry returns home a war hero, he battles the demons of undiagnosed PTSD and spirals into drug addiction, surrounding himself with a menagerie of depraved misfits. Draining his finances, Cherry turns to bank robbing to fund his addiction, shattering his relationship with Emily along the way. Brought to the screen in bold, gritty fashion by visionary directors Anthony and Joe Russo, Cherry is a darkly humorous, unflinching coming-of-age story of a man on a universal quest for purpose and human connection.

This six part Irish-Canadian 6-part series tells the story of Brock Blennerhasset who makes a living out of photographing the dead in Victorian Ireland. When a series of murders threatens to sully Blennerhasset’s reputation, a tenacious detective drags him into an investigation of Dublin’s criminal underbelly. Set within the fascinating historical period of postmortem portraiture, this darkly comic series blends murder mystery with delightfully macabre humour.

ing watch

right

ge e bin r ’ u o y what now ueIreland s u l l s Te BigIs @ r e itt on Tw

27

‘The Plague Cycle - The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease’

I

n occasional issues we pitch a series of quick-fire questions to a well-known face or interesting individual. This issue, researcher and writer Charles Kenny, author of the critically acclaimed book ‘The Plague Cycle - The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease’ faces the quick-fire treatment.

Can you tell us a little about your background?

I grew up in Oxford, England, went to Cambridge, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and then Johns Hopkins in the US. A few years ago I finished a PhD in Cambridge again.

So I’ve got degrees in history, development studies and international economics. I’ve been interested in global health at least since I was a teenage volunteer cleaning the toilets at Oxfam’s original shop in Oxford.

Can you tell us about your work with the think-tank, the Center for Global Development?

I spend my time trying to get international institutions and rich countries to do better when it comes to global problems including health and development. I’ve worked on a range of issues from trying to stop the CIA using vaccination drives to gather intelligence (they say they have) through trying to get more women soldiers in UN Peacekeeping (the numbers are rising, but too slowly). Just recently I’ve started working on an effort to get governments and drug companies to publish the contracts they’ve signed around Covid-19 vaccines, so we can learn who is paying what for how many vaccines when –and what conditions they’ve put on the process.

Your book ‘The Plague Cycle’ makes excellent reading. For those who haven’t read the book, why, in a nutshell, are civilisations bad for our health?

Thank you! So, infections like density: lots of people living close together, preferably alongside lots of animals they share diseases with, all coughing and sneezing near each other, maybe sharing infections through touching each other or bad sanitation…

City-dwelling diseases have a far easier time infecting new people compared to diseases that have to rely on small bands of hunter-gatherers roaming over large areas.

That’s especially good for the most lethal infections that would quickly run out of hosts if there weren’t thousands of new victims around, and it is why most of humanity’s greatest killers –like measles and smallpox—only emerged since the birth of civilization.

You mention how, in the past, as people moved closer to villages and towns, diseases would kill them -are we finding the same with Covid-19 (are people in towns/villages more likely to catch it and/or die from it)?

Certainly a lot of the earliest places to see high Covid-19 infection rates were globally connected cities –Milan, London, New York. But people in the countryside today are far more connected than in the past. Plague outbreaks could leave whole villages untouched a few hundred years ago but, sadly, we haven’t rally seen the same thing most places with Covid-19: infections may have come later to rural areas, but they came in the end.

If you look at the US, for example, comparatively rural states like South Dakota are surpassing more urbanized ones like Connecticut in death rates.

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You’ve said how the sanitation revolution has led to declining infections and increase of wealth (sewage systems, housing reform etc playing their part). Do you think post-Covid when we emerge we will see any real benefits to health and standards of living?

the explorer Vasco da Gama navigated around Africa to South Asia with his own syphilitic set of sailors. That’s the kind of level of global connectivity you need to spread disease: a few sailing ships. The costs to global prosperity and health of going back to that level of interaction would dwarf Covid-19. So, we have to use the benefits of global interaction to make us safer. Take I think that’s up to us. Covid-19 has demonstrated once the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer: developed again how much we live in a global disease pool. If we

by Turkish scientists living in Germany, produced by a respond by making sure every country has the capacity US company with a Greek CEO. Or look at the first to reduce the risk of new diseases emerging –through tests: developed in East Asia, with the technology shared sanitary reforms and disease worldwide. And we need more cooperation Covid-19 has surveillance systems, for to get safer: not least, a stronger demonstrated once again how much we example—as well as World Health Organization live in a global disease pool. stronger health systems that binds the world’s countries and global capacity to tighter together in terms of sharing develop and produce new tests, knowledge and helping each other respond. treatments and vaccines, we’ll be in a better place. We’ll No one will be truly safe from the effects of Covid-19 be less likely to see new pandemics and have better until we all are, and that means getting closer. capacity to respond to existing infections that still kill millions each year –what’s not to like?

You’ve written a lot of academic books, such as The Upside of Down, Close the Pentagon, and Will we continue to have pandemics in the future Results not Receipts. How long does it take you and is there any way researchers can stay one (generally) to research the subject matter before step ahead, or even forecast potential risks? writing a book?

The number of outbreaks of new or evolved infections seems to be on an upward trend over the last few decades –not a surprise given we live in a world with more people and domesticated animals than ever before, better connected than ever. The good news is that, prior to Covid-19, the average death rate from each new infection was going down –we were largely controlling outbreaks before they turned into pandemics. The immense wealth and technological capacity that a globally connected world possessed helped respond far better than we did in the past. For all of the tragic and deadly mistakes we made responding to Covid-19, that’s still broadly true: we got tests within weeks of the infection’s emergence, the world understood most of the public health responses needed to control Covid-19 in weeks as well (even if many countries didn’t take the necessary steps); and we got the first vaccines within twelve months. So I think researchers can help us keep up with new infectious risks, but it takes more than researchers –it takes politicians and the public listening to them.

I’ve been researching this book for four or five years, in part because a lot of the historical and medical material covered areas I didn’t know much about.

Some of my earlier books were only written after years of writing academic papers on the subjects covered, which made actually writing the book itself a lot more straightforward! So, for them, a year or two.

Are you currently working on another book, and if so, what subject will it explore?

I’ve got two ideas I want to explore more. The first one is around the future of migration (I think we are going to see rich countries increasingly desperate for more migrants, with not enough to be found). The second idea is about peak change: pretty much ‘the world is going to get more boring’ –though that idea might be a tough sell!

You’ve stated that the only way we can stay safe in the future is to get closer. Can you explain what you mean by that, as most people will believe the opposite?

The Plague Cycle available from all good bookshops & online from 18 Feb - price £16.99 Simon & Schuster

In the book I discuss the global spread of syphilis: probably brought back by Columbus’ crew from the New World to Europe in the 1490s, from where it spread across Asia, arriving particularly rapidly in India because

Follow Charles on Twitter @charlesjkenny 29

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s e k Jo A man walked in to a bar after a long day at work. As he began to drink his beer, he heard a voice say seductively “You’ve got great hair!” The man looked around but couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, so he went back to his beer.

A minute later, he heard the same soft voice say “You’re a handsome man!” The man looked around, but still couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.

When he went back to his beer, the voice said again “What a stud you are!” The man was so baffled by this that he asked the bartender what was going on.

The bartender said, “Oh, it’s the nuts - they’re complimentary.”

The shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read BEST DEALS. He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading LOWEST PRICES. The shopkeeper was panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop - it read... Main Entrance.

On a rural road a state trooper pulled this farmer over and said: “Sir, do you realise your wife fell out of the car several miles back?” To which the farmer replied: “Thank God, I thought I had gone deaf !”

Because laughter is the best medicine!

A burglar has just made it into the house he’s intending ransacking, and he’s looking around for stuff to steal.

All of a sudden, a little voice pipes up, “I can see you, and so can Jesus!”

Startled, the burglar looks around the room. No one there at all, so he goes back to his business.

“I can see you, and so can Jesus!”

The burglar jumps again, and takes a longer look around the room. Over in the corner by the window, almost obscured by curtains, is a cage in which sits a parrot, who pipes up again, “I can see you, and so can Jesus!”

“So what,” says the burglar, “you’re only a parrot!”

There was a woman who was pregnant with twins, and shortly before they were due, she had an accident and went into a coma. Her husband was away on business, and unable to be reached. While in the coma, she gave birth to her twins, and the only person around to name her children was her brother.

When the mother came out of her coma to find she had given birth and that her brother had named the twins, she became very worried, because he wasn’t a very bright guy.

She was sure he had named them something absurd or stupid.

When she saw her brother she asked him about the twins.

He said, “The first one was a girl.”

To which the parrot replies, “Maybe, but Jesus is a Rottweiler.

The mother: “What did you name her?!?”

A man and his wife were driving their Recreational Vehicle across the country and were nearing a town spelled Kissimee. They noted the strange spelling and tried to figure how to pronounce it - KISS-a-me; kis-A-me; kis-a-ME. They grew more perplexed as they drove into the town.

Brother: “Denise!”

Since they were hungry, they pulled into a place to get something to eat.

At the counter, the man said to the waitress:

Brother: “Denephew.”

“My wife and I can’t seem to figure out how to pronounce this place. Will you tell me where we are and say it very slowly so that I can understand.”

The waitress looked at him and said: “Buuurrrgerrr Kiiiinnnng.”

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The Mom: “Oh, wow, that’s not bad!

What about the second one?”

Brother: “The second one was a boy.”

The Mom: “Oh, and what did you name him?”

Three lads from Roscommon were getting paid to take part in a survey about tea drinking. One of the questions was ‘How do you stir sugar into your tea?’ ‘I stir it in with my left hand’, replied the first lad. ‘I stir it in with my right’, replied the second.

‘I stir it in with a spoon’, replied the third.

Issues: New Book Releases

Patricia Scanlan’s Book Club Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. She is a #1 bestselling author and has sold millions of books worldwide. Her books are translated in many languages.

Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the award winning Open Door Literacy series.

This issue, Patricia brings her favourite books of the moment.

Beating Brain Fog

Brennan (Orion)

The Hitmen by Stephen Breen &

by Dr. Sabina

Owen Conlon (Penguin)

The Hitmen (Penguin, April) by Stephen Breen and Owen Conlon tells the shocking true story of the rise and bloody fall of the family of contract killers at the heart of Ireland’s gangland crime. Brothers Eric, Keith and John Wilson, their cousin Alan, and nephew Luke shared a trade - assassination. Working for Ireland’s criminal gangs they brought bloodshed and chaos to the streets. The Wilsons were not choosy about their targets. Hutches, Real IRA chiefs or random opponents from pub rows - they were all the same to them. Nor were they picky about motives - as long as the price was right, they asked no questions.

Dr Sabina Brennan is a research psychologist and award winning science communicator. She currently works as a Research Assistant Professor in the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. Her latest book explains and recognises brain fog and offers practical tips to deal with something that’s very real for a lot of people.

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Other Women by Cathy Kelly (Orion)

Nora by Nuala O’Connor (New Island)

The honest, funny story about real life, real relationships and real women that has readers gripped. A refreshingly honest story about female friendship and marriage - and all the great loves of our life.

Nora tells the love story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce, an earthy and authentic love letter to Irish literature’s greatest muse.

Midfield Dynamo by Adrian Duncan

(Lilliput Press)

From award-winning author, Adrian Duncan comes his first collection of astonishing short stories. These modern stories have been written over the past decade. Patterning and happenstance make up the rich quotidian lives of the characters portrayed in these strange, energetic tales.

The loose figures of young artists, footballers and artisan engineers act out against diverse backgrounds from Dublin’s northside to Hamburg, Abu Dhabi and Accra.

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Lockdown Doesn’t Have to Halt Your Learning

L

ifelong learning advocate Samantha McMurdock has spend the last few months looking at countless online learning platforms to see if it’s really possible to learn a brand new skill online and implement that skill successfully.

were free with no commitment. I immediately signed I’m a great believer in lifetime learning. It’s over 20 up and was overwhelmed with what was available, from years since I got my degree but each year since, I’ve endeavoured to find the time to do a course of some sort Watercolour Painting to Social Media Marketing to Three Minute Maths and Mindfulness. During lockdown - some short (6 week Tin Whistle course!) some longer there’s never been a better opportunity to and more intense (C&G Teaching learn a new skill. There’s only so Cert). As a teenager I worked much ‘Netflix and chill’ you can ….these small achievements are in a small, country ‘college’ do before you feel your mind has important in these times. with just 4 classrooms and turned to marshmallow - let’s would be astounded at the face it! success stories that walked out of that tiny building in the bowels of our peninsula.

I’ve taken Daniel Scott’s Adobe Indesign CC class and We had teens on vocational training programmes who loved the fact I could watch and rewatch if I wanted and completed one class day per week, elderly folks who there’s even a section for taking notes, directly messaging took recreational classes like woodwork, upholstery and your tutor (Dan has been fabulous) and you can submit calligraphy and we had the men and women who took your homework via a link. All the course materials were night classes in Business Information Technology or available via download as part of the price, which was were using the opportunity to gain GCSEs to improve employment opportunities. I enjoyed seeing people come brilliant value for money. To be honest, I was initially dubious - years ago I paid just shy of £500 for a distance through the door - leaving with a whole new skillset. learning marketing course, and not only could I never I think this developed in me a real love of learning contact a tutor, but the course materials were very something new each year. poorly presented and there was certainly no community.

SkillShare offers a great sense of being a part of a Lockdown Shouldn’t Stop You Learning community - and that contact is something we all need right now. I also love, at a time when we have little Of course, in recent times lockdown put paid to taking any evening classes in local colleges. One evening several control externally, that I can pop on and complete short, manageable parts of a course - these small achievements months back I was watching a YouTube channel and an are important in these times. SkillShare adopts the ad came on for SkillShare - I was immediately intrigued ‘Microproductivity’ approach, microproductivity is the - was it really possible to take unlimited courses from the comfort of my sofa for just £13 a month - or £7 a month process of dividing an intricate and complex task, into small and mini-tasks so that they seem more doable if you pay yearly (£84). On top of that, the first 14 days 34

and less intimidating. In layman’s terms “when eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” According to productivity expert, Melissa Gratias PhD, “Breaking tasks down helps us to see large tasks as more approachable and doable, and reduces our propensity to procrastinate or defer tasks, because we simply don’t know where to begin…”

Without exaggeration, Skillshare is the best learning platform I’ve ever used. This evening I completed a 30 minute course on ‘How to Make An Upcycled Dress’ (we all need to be mindful of the problems associated with fast fashion - but that’s another issue). After that I’m planning on The Sewing Machine Crash Course and will take Daniel Scott’s Advanced Indesign course.

negative - inspires us to keep moving forward.

Dopamine: We all know the kick we get when we can tick something off our list as done (Monica Geller in Friends anyone?) When we tick that box or scribble out that task our brains release Dopamine - a neurotransmitter that’s connected to feelings of pleasure and motivation. We all like the way that feels, so we’ll make our best attempt to repeat that success. It’s something that neuroscientists call Self Directed Learning and it’s a big reason why splitting up large projects is so helpful. By completing these short segments of our course and seeing that tick mark we are opening the door to experience more frequent rewards (dopamine rushes), which inspire us to keep taking steps forward.

“You’re wasting opportunities for an adrenaline rush by making a task too big,” says Dr. Gratias, “We are working with our own desires for reward and feedback by breaking a large task down into its component parts.”

So basically SkillShare really succeeds as it allows us to learn at our The Science and ....the average working memory (the own pace, from the comfort Psychology part that’s used for mental tasks) of our comfy sofa in short, has a working capacity of three to manageable, achievable Memory Capacity: five tasks... chunks and at £7 a month it’s SkillShare works so a lifesaver in these times when well because the average we’ve so little interaction with the working memory (the part that’s outside world, motivation is low and the need for a sense used for mental tasks) has a working capacity of three of achievement is so high. to five tasks - any more than that and the chances of becoming distracted increase. According to Dr. Gratias, Finally, this was a labour of love - I simply wanted to when there’s a record of previous completed tasks (as see for myself if it was possible to learn a new skill and in the case of SkillShare) we are more likely to continue implement that skill successfully via an online learning because it’s a “roadmap for your project.” platform and having looked into various platforms I found SkillShare superior in all aspect. By the way - it’s Bitesize Goals: Setting a goal inspires motivation, i.e. also a great resource if you’re home-schooling and need choosing a course and according to Gratias “breaking to brush up on your maths, English and other subjects. down a project into bitesize tasks helps you set far more specific milestones and as a result keeps you moving in the right direction.” * A special thanks to SKILLSHARE for extending my Regular Feedback: When I completed a distance learning membership by a couple of months and the lovely people course in the past there was no means of measuring how at ADOBE in Dublin (especially Gabriella Cobham) who provided me with the CREATIVE CLOUD software to well I was doing - I could literally have spent 6 months complete my INDESIGN course and thus carry out my totally off track. I love that SkillShare’s smaller segments research for this article. Many thanks to Stephen Butler allows me to submit my work and request feedback at BYOL.IE for answering my InDesign questions - no immediately rather than spending months and never matter how tedious! being aware I was doing something wrong. Science proves that feedback of any type - whether it’s positive or 35

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Dear Liz D

ear Liz,

D

I love my friends but they’re really starting to pull me down. I’ve got a friend who constantly asks me for help because this boy sometimes wants to get with her and sometimes doesn’t, and she’s always got a problem, like one minute she’s too fat, her breasts are too small or she’s got Anorexia, then next thing she’s happy and away with the fairies. I’ve got this other friend who’s always asking me for help, saying she wants to kill herself just because she broke up with her boyfriend. I don’t want to see her die so I help her and give her advice then she goes and throws it all back in my face. I’ve even got a mate who thinks he’s the death angel, saying he’s coming for me.

One night I was even crying because of him and he’s a so-called mate. How do you do it, answer all these stories without a nervous break-down? I love my friends but they’re really making me feel ill lately. Please help me.

My husband died 14 months ago and 6 months later I fell in love with one of his closest friends. Nothing has ever happened between us because he said that he can’t because of my late husband, although we did enjoy each other’s company a lot and had a laugh. He said he wished that he could, but he can’t break down the wall.

We have just made friends again after I found out he is seeing a girl and I couldn’t be his friend because I was so hurt. I can’t get him out of my head. He has lots of women due to his charm. I felt and feel that we do have a bond between us. I’ve seen him today. He did speak but couldn’t get away from me fast enough. What can I do?

He is very careful what he says to me now as he feels if he gives me an inch then I take a mile.

Deirdre, Dublin.

Ian, Wexford.

D

ear Liz,

D

ear Ian,

ear Deirdre,

My condolences on the loss of your husband. It’s not easy to get over the death of someone you’ve been so close to for so long. It leaves you with some complicated feelings. Forgive me for wondering, but do you think part of your attraction to your late husband’s close friend is that connection? Could it be that this man’s company helps you feel there’s still some sort of link, both to your husband and to the social life you had before? Yes, he’s a nice guy. Yes, you have lots in common but let’s look back at what else you’ve written. You say he’s charming and has lots of women for that very reason. That’s enough to ring alarm bells for me. Often people who are charming don’t do intimacy. It gets them lots of attention without having to risk real intimacy. He has another girlfriend. He’s wary of you and walks on eggshells.He doesn’t want a romance with you. That’s what he feels, and he says it’s because he feels it would be a betrayal of his friend. For all those reasons, you and he don’t want the same things.

It’s sad but true that the main ingredients for a relationship are that both people not only want to be in it, they’re emotionally and practically available to each other. This isn’t what you’ve got, is it?

The first thing is to accept that you have no control over what this guy feels, thinks or does. You’re still a lovely, loving and desirable woman, but it can be hard to hold onto that when you don’t have a lover to affirm it to you. I’m sure that after the death of your husband you’ve been rather lonely and have missed the kind of closeness you get with good love.

Widen your horizons, make new friends and you never know who you will meet. Good Luck.

I’m sorry you’ve been feeling so overwhelmed by your mates’ requests for help, and by this guy who makes out like he’s something supernatural.

Yes, I’m sure he goes on a lot about being a death angel. But he isn’t one because they don’t exist, but it’s more likely that he’s just a windup merchant. In fact he probably doesn’t feel he can admit it or he’d lose his feeling of having a special identity. You could respond with a tired, “Yeah, yeah, you’re the great ghostie. Wooooo. I’m so scared.”

The more bored you sound, the better. No doubt he’ll escalate but if you continue not to fall for his silly lies, he’ll stop in time. It’s just a childish game.

That kind of mental armour will help you: remember people end at their skin. So do you. It’s great that you want to help but you are not responsible for other people. You’re responsible for yourself, and they’re responsible for themselves. You don’t have magic powers to make them do stuff. They don’t have magic powers either. They can do what they want and you can do what you want. You can acknowledge their feelings but you don’t have to share them.

I’m not saying you have to be callous, just inviting you to recognise the borders of your responsibility. Each person has three channels of communicating with the world: thinking, feeling and behaving. If you let others suck you into feeling what they feel, you’ll continue to feel overwhelmed. It’s fine to acknowledge that they feel what they feel, but then go into one of the other channels, either thinking or doing something. That way you won’t “catch” their feelings. Good Luck.

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Have a problem? Email Dear Liz at info@irelandsbigissue.com and type Dear Liz in the subject line.

Word Power

A

Over the next few issues we’ll be attempting to increase your word power. Have a look at the words below and afterwards see if you know their meaning.

Word

Pronunciation

1. Anathema 2. Assonance 3. Bellicose 4. Circumspect 5. Colloquial 6. Benchmarking 7. Eschew 8. Evanescent 9. Existential 10.Fatuous 11. Homonym 12. Lionise

Ann-ath-a-ma Ass-on-anz Bell-e-koz Sur-cum-spect Coll-o-quee-al Bench-mark-ing Ez-choo Eve-ann-ez-int Ex-iz-sten-shill Fat-u-us Hom-on-im Ly-un-ize

Answers 1. Something that is strongly disliked or disaproved of.

2. The similarity in sounds between two syllables that are close together.

3. Wishing to fight or start a war.

4.Careful not to take risks.

5. (Of words and expressions) informal and more suitable for use in speech than in writing.

6.The act of measuring the quality of something by comparing it with something else.

7. To avoid something intentionally or to give something up.

8.Lasting for only a short time, then disappearing quickly and being forgotten.

9.Relating to a philosophy according to which the world has no meaning & each person is alone & responsible for their own actions.

10. Stupid, not correct, or not carefully thought about.

11. A word that sounds the same or is spelled the same as another word but has a different meaning.

12. To make someone famous or treat them as if they were famous.

How did YOU score?

10 or more – Perfection!6-9 Brilliant.

3-5 Well done.

0-2 Must do better.

How did you do? Let us know on Twitter @BigIssueIreland 38

r e n r o C t D is c o u n

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