The Irish Post - March 18, 2023

THE IRISH COMMUNITY CELEBRATES

A night of modest success at Oscars

Despite

BY MAL ROGERS

IT was a night of mixed fortunes for the Irish film industry at the Oscars. An Irish Goodbye a black comedy, shot on location in rural Derry, Templepatrick in Co. Antrim and Saintfield in Co. Down, won the best live action short film. The plot focuses on estranged brothers Turlough (Seamus O’Hara) and Lorcan (James Martin) who are forced to reunite following the untimely death of their mother (Michelle Fairley). But when the pair discover an unfulfilled bucket list belonging to their late mum, their reunion takes an something of an unexpected course.

James Martin, who has Down syndrome, was also celebrating his birthday on the awards day. As he took to the stage with the film’s directors, Ross White and Tom Berkeley, and his co-star Seamus O’Hara, to accept the award, Berkeley stepped forward to say: “This award is actually the second most important thing about today, because it’s this man’s birthday.” He beckoned to Martin to come to the microphone. “He’s out here in Hollywood, wearing a leopard print suit jacket, we’d love to use the rest of our time up here to sing for James.”

So, in an unforgettable moment the entire complement of guests, Hollywood glitterati, production crew, technicians and journalists sang happy birthday to him.

There was one other Irish success. Richard Baneham from Tallaght won his second Oscar for best achievement in visual effects as part of the team behind Avatar: The Way of Water. Baneham is no stranger to awards, working as an animator on a wide range of productions including The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia films and the Avatar franchise. Elsewhere, however, there was disappointment for the large Irish contingent who had received nominations. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of

Inisherin did not win in any of its categories. The film received nine nominations, but in the end none were converted into awards. Colin Farrell lost out in the best actor category, while his co-stars Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan were unsuccessful in the best supporting actor category. And on social media the fact that Jenny the Donkey got no mention at all was singled out for tongue-inthe-cheek criticism

Paul Mescal also missed out on Best Actor for his role in Aftersun – Brendan Fraser took the top award for portraying a reclusive English teacher in The Whale

An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), the history-making Irish language nominee, missed out in the international film category to All Quiet on the

Western Front which won four Oscars in total.

President Higgins congratulated the award winners and the nominees in a statement from Áras an Uachtaráin: “May I congratulate An Irish Goodbye and Richard Baneham for their fantastic achievements in winning the Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Visual Effects Awards respectively at last night’s Oscars ceremony.

“May I further extend my congratulations to Colin Farrell, Paul Mescal, Kerry Condon, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, Jonathan Redmond and all involved with An Cailín Ciúin and The Banshees of Inisherin for the exceptional recognition of their work which being nominated for an Academy Award constitutes.

“This has been a remarkable year for the Irish film industry and is a testament to the hard work of so many people over recent decades.

“It is particularly welcome to see the recognition which the Irish film industry is receiving on what is the 30th anniversary of the reestablishment of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board, now Screen Ireland, in 1993. The success which we are seeing is built on the acquisition of skills and pursuit of excellence by all in the Irish film community.”

HOLLYWOOD WINNERS: Ross White, James Martin, Tom Berkeley and Seamus O’Hara accept the Best Live Action Short Film award

Picture: Getty Images

Tipperary connections to Royal Navy flag

BY GERARD DONAGHY

A MUSEUM has launched a bid to buy the sledge flag of a Tipperary-born Arctic explorer to ensure it remains in Britain rather than fall into the hands of a private collector.

Henry Kellett was born in Clonacody in 1806 and after joining the Royal Navy in 1822, eventually rose to the rank of vice-admiral.

He used the sledge flag during expeditions to chart the Northwest Passage and to find the lost ships of Captain John Franklin – HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

A case hearing by the Reviewing Committee of the Arts Council of England to decide if the flag was of national importance heard that Kellett was ‘a proud Irishman at a time when there was prejudice’.

The British Government introduced a temporary export bar on the flag in September 2022 to allow time for a British gallery or institution to acquire the flag.

With the bar expiring this month, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) has launched an appeal to raise £120,000 to buy the flag, supported by actor Michael Palin.

Following a £40,000 grant from the Art Fund, private donations and its own Purchase of Exhibits fund, the museum aims to raise a further £30,000 to acquire the flag.

“Sledge flags were a peculiarly British phenomenon, grounded in a mediaeval chivalry, where these officers were new

knights in a new field of combat,” said Professor Dominic Tweddle, Director General of the NMRN.

“Sledge flags contain a lot of iconography, telling the viewer what was felt to be important in the imagery used about that person’s life.”

The Kellett flag, which was originally green, depicts an Irish harp, elements of the Kellett coat of arms and a Union flag.

In 1845, Kellett took charge of the ship HMS Herald to survey the coasts of Central America, the Gulf of California and Vancouver Island.

Three years later, he was reassigned to the search for Franklin’s expedition and it was during this mission, in 1849, that he discovered Herald Island in the Chukchi

Sea, naming it after his ship.

In 1852, he commanded HMS Resolute in another search for the Franklin expedition and while this was unsuccessful, a sledging party from his ship found a message from HMS Investigator.

The vessel had become trapped in pack ice, leading Kellett to send a team to the Investigator, ordering its crew to abandon ship and head for the Resolute.

Unfortunately, the Resolute itself became trapped in ice and its crew were ordered to abandon ship in May 1854.

This was despite protestations from Kellett, who argued that the Resolute would be gradually carried southwards through Baffin Bay to the open sea.

As Kellett had predicted it would, the Resolute eventually passed out of the pack ice and was found by an American whaler in an ice floe off Baffin Island, 1,200 miles from where she had been abandoned.

It was sold to the US Government, who restored the ship and returned it England as a gesture of goodwill.

Queen Victoria later ordered its timbers to be crafted into desks, one of which – the Resolute Desk – was presented to US President Rutherford B. Hayes.

It has been used by most US Presidents since then, including as the official Oval Office desk by Joe Biden and his four immediate predecessors, as well as John F. Kennedy.

After positions in Jamaica, Malta and China, Kellett retired in 1871, spending his final years in Tipperary before passing away on March 1, 1875 at Clonacody.

Saturday Night Live’s ‘Irish’ sketch slammed

BY GERARD DONAGHY

AMERICAN comedy institution

Saturday Night Live (SNL) has been criticised on social media following a sketch depicting Irish actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

The clip aired just prior to the Oscars ceremony and was later shared on Twitter, bringing it to a wider audience.

One user described it as ‘horribly offensive’, while another said it relied on ‘worn out Irish stereotypes’. Meanwhile, acclaimed Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee shared the skit with a facepalm emoji.

THIS WEEK they said...

“The complex layers of identity of those born here to immigrant parents and raised amongst the Irish community are also celebrated in the annual St Patrick’s Festival in London. The scenes of people celebrating together on the streets of London is an embodiment of the community’s enduring presence in this city and I would like to thank Mayor Sadiq Khan and his team at City Hall for continually supporting the expression of the London-Irish community through this multi-day event.”

Ambassador Martin Fraser

“But amongst all the paddywhackery [of St Patrick’s Day], has the man himself, the first Patrick, been forgotten or eclipsed? It sometimes seems like that.”

Mary Kenny

“Absolutely, my family connections are very much rooted in Ireland and indeed my grandmother – who still tours with us – was born in Warrenpoint near Newry. So, I feel a great connection with all things Irish – and I am loving life in Co. Fermanagh at the moment. I couldn’t be happier.”

Nathan Carter

“Clearly again today she is telling the court, you can go stuff yourself. She is not prepared to facilitate in any way these people she has terrorised.”

The clip showed SNL cast members Mikey Day and Molly Kearney portraying Farrell and Gleeson as they are asked about their chances of winning Oscars for The Banshees of Inisherin

The pair reply with thick, incomprehensible accents, to which one of the interviewers, played by Marcello Hernandez, replies: “Wow! And they haven’t even started drinking yet!”

Farrell, who has previously spent time in rehab, has been teetotal since 2006.

Social media users condemned the clip ahead of the Oscars, where Farrell and Gleeson were both up for awards.

One London Twitter post said: “I’m sincere when I say that this is horribly offensive. Would you consider it ok to reduce and mock any other nationality or accent like this? You should be embarrassed”

Another said: “It’s absolutely

disgusting. Can you imagine if they cracked our a Chinese impression along these lines or even a Dick van Dyke style cockney cracking a load of sexist jokes?”

Farrell and Gleeson both appeared as guests on SNL in October 2022.

Judge Andrew Cody sentencing Dr Annette Brennan (74) to a year in jail over damage to a neighbour’s property. At a previous hearing Dr Brennan was heard to tell the judge, “You can go and stuff yourself.”

“That is staggering, to be less than 30 yards from each other.” Comedian John Bishop on finding out that an ancestor of his worked in the same street as an ancestor of actor Hugh Bonneville. The discovery was made by the ITVX programme DNA Journey

HISTORICAL ARTEFACT: Captain Kellett’s sledge flag

Picture: Courtesy of the National Museum of the Royal Navy

Heidi Gardner as Marina Menounos or Kit Hoover, Marcello Hernández as Mario Lopez, Mikey Day as Colin Farrell, and Molly Kearney as Brendan Gleeson Picture: Getty Images

Sketch is called out on Twitter as being “horribly offensive” and “pandering to worn out stereotypes

Nathan Carter

London Festival fever is back

PICTURES BY BRENDAN VAUGHAN

A Night For Michael Collins

A night to remember Michael Collins, and to fundraise for a statue to be unveiled in Cork City, will take place on Friday, March 24th, 7pm, at the Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith.

Organised by the Collins 22 Society, the evening will feature a number of guest speakers.

For an invitation to the  event, please email:  Aengusomalley@gmail.com

www.michaelcollinsstatue.com

CELEBRATING: Above – St Patrick arrives in style and, inset, Irish Post proprietor Elgin Loane, left, with Minister Heather Humphreys TD (Fine Gael), and Irish ambassador Martin Fraser

Turning Manchester green

PICTURES COURTESY OF TONY HENNIGAN

THE 2023 Manchester Irish Festival again teamed up with Tourism Ireland to celebrate this year’s 10- day festival.

Over 100 events have been taking place and will continue to do so until Sunday, March 19.

Bands, floats, dancers and musicians all kept the large crowds entertained.

As one of the UK’s fastest growing and most successful construction contractors since 2016, at Glencar we deliver the best facilities for some of the UK’s leading developers, occupiers, retailers and logistics businesses.

www.glencar.com

The Keegan Academy

Dignitaries, bands, community leaders and the Irish people of Manchester get ready for the parade

PICTURES BY CHRIS EGAN

THE Birmingham Irish Association’s St Patrick’s Day Parade had to move from their tradition route in the Irish Quarter to the Cannon Hill Park because of logistic reasons.

But the crowds turned up and the Patron Saint was celebrated in great style.

Birmingham Pipe and Drums

The Scanlon dancers

Thumbs up from Sean McDermotts GAA

Lyra Westcott from the McCarty Felton School of Irish Dance

Kidd School of Irish Dance

St Patricks makes his way through Cannon Hill Park

Hurlers on the march

Flag bearers lead the parade in Birmingham

Young paraders

minutes with...

MARGARET CONNOR

MARGARET

Connor is the author of the memoir My Ireland

The book is a factual and descriptive account of Ireland in the 1950s, evoking a a nostalgic picture of Ireland’s rural life with its sense of community.

The book begins with Margaret’s childhood to adolescence in Dublin leading eventually to emigration.

Which living writer do you most admire?

Fintan O’Toole.

Opera or pantomime?

Opera – Tosca, La Traviata

Which (real) historical figure do you most admire?

President Abe Lincoln.

What would be your motto? Compassion, intelligence, bravery.

Have you a favourite quote from any poem you’ve read?

“I will arise now and go to Innisfree and a small cabin build there …”

Have you a favourite quote from any book you’ve read?

Fundraiser for Creeslough

THE launch for the raffle of a Massey Ferguson 135 Tractor has taken place at Tifftys Tavern, Sudbury Hill.

The tractor raffle is in aid of the following voluntary emergency responders who were active in the aftermath of the tragic event that occurred in Creeslough, Co. Donegal in October 2022. The responders include Mevagh Fire Service, K9 Search and Rescue NI, Critical Emergency Medical Services and SARDA Ireland North.

Tickets for the raffle are priced at £10 and the tractor will travel to various locations both in Donegal and London with the final draw taking place on November 26, 2023. Ticket enquiries can be made via email to: creeslough tractordraw2023@gmail.com

Humanitarian aid for orphans

Irish Post journalist in bid to help Ukraine’s kids

What are you up to at the moment?

Working on second book, titled My America

Which writer has most influenced you? Hemingway, Twain, Steinbeck, McCourt, Tóibín, Edna O’Brien..

What is you modus operandi for writing?

My writing is from my own experiences with minimum research.

What are your Irish roots? I was born and raised in Dublin.

Which piece of music always sends a shiver down your spine? Fields of Athenry, Four Green Fields, The West’s Asleep, The Last Rose of Summer

Heaney or Yeats?

Both are wonderful. I know Yeats’ poems better since Sligo is close to home.

Which recent book has moved you? Say Nothing by Patrick R. Keefe.

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times …” from A Tale of Two Cities

What’s a favourite line from your own writing?

“What do they need flush toilets for? A lot of flush toilets we had in our day. How will flush toilets help with their learning?”

Mozart or Marin Hayes?

Mozart — I even visited his home in Salzburg.

What books are on your bedside table at the minute?

Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne.

In terms of inanimate objects, what is your most precious possession?

Irish linen, a gift from my mother.

What do you believe in?

Self-reliance.

Who/what is the greatest love of your life? My parents.

A CHARITY supported by Irish Post journalist James Ruddy for 30 years is searching for thousands of children scattered to the winds by Ukraine’s bitter war.

Hope and Homes for Children staff are trying to trace and protect the desperate youngsters who were trapped in orphanages when Russia invaded last year.

Most of the 105,000 children living in all 700 Ukraine orphanages were evacuated in the first few weeks when staff fled the fighting.

But with the country’s social services still in tatters, and amid fears of widespread child trafficking, neglect and abuse, the race is now on to track down the orphans also forced to flee.

The specialist charity, based in Salisbury, is at the heart of the rescue mission.

It has saved many thousands of children in similar crises over the past three decades, when James Ruddy first got involved.

He has supported its lifesaving work in war zones as far afield as Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Sudan, where desperate children have been rescued and placed in the care of loving families.

“In the face of horrific fighting, the charity’s expert Ukraine team have been tracking down these missing children and ensuring they are as safe as possible,” he said.

“I’ve seen its amazing work with countless traumatised

children on the war-battered streets of Sarajevo and Freetown – tragically, Ukraine’s conflict has produced thousands more of such terrified kids, fleeing for their lives from evil they cannot understand.”

Hope and Homes for Children is on the ground, working with partners, attempting to trace and protect as many as possible of the 105,000 – including in places where there is fighting raging.

Because eight out of 10 children living in Ukraine’s huge Soviet-style orphanage network still have living parents, an estimated 96,000 were sent back to their families when fighting broke out.

A further 2,600 were evacuated across borders, while more than 3,000 children remain in orphanages. Others have completely disappeared.

The charity’s army of social workers are ensuring children are in safe families, have shelter, heating, food, water, medicine and trauma counselling.

The charity’s founder, ex-Gurkha officer Col Mark Cook said: “One year on in the

disastrous war in Ukraine, it is impossible for any of us to know what it must be like to be there in the terrifying conditions in which many are living.

“We have been working in Ukraine for the past 25 years, trying to get successive governments to agree to change their old communist system of orphanages and replace it with ones of family-based care.

“They did not listen and there were 105,000 children in 700 orphanages across the country when the war started. Many of those closed as the staff fled with their own families and other have been destroyed in the fighting.

“Now our team, which has been increased in size, has the incredibly difficult task of locating all those thousands of children, and finding out their family history and reuniting them wherever possible.”

The war has created a new generation of orphans.

 To find out more, or to contribute go to www.hope andhomes.org. Or you can text UKRAINEAPPEAL to 70460 to donate £10.

The English National Opera performing Tosca

Picture: Getty Images

Margaret Connor

SPONSORS: Left to right – John and Kathleen McDaid, Joe Shovlin, Kevin ‘Tiffty’s’ McGinley, Timothy Kelly, Michael O’Donnell, William Coyle, Martin McCarron, Brendan ‘Tiny’ Vaughan, Paul O’Donnell and wee Charlie Mc Laughlin

Ukrainian refugees

Sacked teacher loses bid to overturn injunction

The row over the use of transgenderism language seems set to continue

BY FIONA AUDLEY

JUDGES at the Court of Appeal in Ireland have dismissed sacked teacher Enoch Burke’s attempt to overturn a restraining order preventing him from attending his former school.

Mr Burke was suspended from his teaching role at Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath last year after refusing to follow a direction from the principle to refer to a transgender pupil by the pronoun, “they”.

In January 2023 he was formally dismissed from his teaching position at the school, where he ta ught history and german, but he has continued to turn up at the establishment on numerous occasions since.

Mr Burke, who claims transgenderism does not accord with his Christian beliefs, appealed his

injunction from the school at the Court of Appeal in Dublin this week, claiming the order made against him was “unconstitutional and unlawful”.

However, following a hearing on March 7, three judges unanimously dismissed his appeal.

In his judgement on the matter, the President of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice George Birmingham stated: “The position of the child at the centre of the controversy requires consideration in the context of identifying where the balance of convenience lies.”

He explained: “With parental support, the child indicated a desire to transition. In those circumstances, while it is not inconceivable that an accommodation satisfactory to all could have been reached, given goodwill and flexibility on all sides, it would seem at this stage, given the attitude taken by the

appellant, that it is not possible to meet simultaneously the desires of the child and the parents, on the one hand, and the appellant’s concerns, on the other.

“If that is the choice – and I am afraid that, by reason of the appellant’s actions, it may well have in

Westmeath drugs haul originated in Europe

fact come to that – I would be of the view that the wishes of the child and parents must prevail.”

He went on to confirm that “in all circumstances, I would dismiss this appeal” and also added that he did not believe this case to be one about “transgender rights”. He said: “I am of the view this case is not about what the appellant has chosen to describe as “transgenderism”, and I would prefer to express my views in terms of the fact that the case is not about transgender rights,” he said.

“I cannot but believe that the term, as used by the appellant, is a somewhat pejorative one, as is his use of the term transgender “ideology”.

“These are phrases I prefer to avoid; I do not believe they are phrases that in today’s Ireland would find favour with transgender individuals and I would wish to respect their preferences in that regard.”

PARCELS of drugs worth €223,000 seized in Ireland, last week, were destined for addresses in Dublin, Louth and Carlow.

As a result of routine operations, Revenue officers in Ireland examining parcels at a premises in Athlone seized over 10kgs of herbal cannabis, 10kgs of khat and 114grms of cocaine yesterday afternoon. The illegal drugs, with an estimated value of over €223,000, were discovered in parcels that had originated in Italy, France, the Netherlands and Britain, Revenue officers confirmed A Revenue spokesperson said: “This seizure is part of Revenue’s ongoing operations targeting the importation of illegal drugs. Investigations are ongoing.

FAILED APPEAL: Enoch Burke

Neither funny ha ha nor funny peculiar

children make anodyne and silly observations. Catholics eat fish on Friday. Protestants like soup. Protestants keep the toaster in a cupboard and say a bit extra at the end of the Our Father. Catholics love statues.

These answers are silly but they are safe. None is so blatant and angry that passions would be roused by it.

actually to defend. It is a safe parody. Keep your toaster in your cupboard if you like. Who cares? An equivalent might be a racist character in a play whose racism is so ridiculous that even real bitter racists could laugh at it and feel assured that they are not as bad as they might be.

Isn’t that really what the problem was with Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part, not that he was amplifying racism but that by making racism ridiculous he was undermining efforts to discuss it seriously.

Another example of this absolving humour is a tape made by loyalists in Belfast, a song called The Pope’s A Darkie. Of course, no one actually believes that the pope is black. The joke represents Protestant sectarianism and racism as ridiculous yet the song was written to be performed to loyalist Protestant audiences. It wasn’t composed to offend Catholics for they were unlikely to hear it.

In one sense it says, you accuse me of bigotry, well, get a load of this. The accused, instead of apologising or giving any credibility to the accusation goes the other way and amplifies the bigotry into the appalling, beyond what anyone actually believes. The joke challenges the liberal who pontificates about how awful sectarianism is. At the same time, it so misrepresents actual sectarianism that no Protestant in the audience is embarrassed by it, their authentic bigotry untouched. Contrast that humour with another joke that came out of loyalist culture: what’s the difference between a Taig and an onion? Answer: You don’t cry when you slice a Taig. That’s humour that is totally unapologetic about sectarianism. You’ll only laugh at that in safe company among like-minded friends.

There are parodies of sectarianism in drama and satire but they often seem to encourage the audience into a smug comfort that they are not quite as bad as the targets of the joke. Sectarianism is good rich material for satire but satire can never represent it as the worst that it can be or it wouldn’t be satire any more.

For instance, I once saw a woman berate children for playing with a Catholic. “Why are you playing with a Taig? You know he’s a Taig.” This was during the worst of the Troubles so people were angry and afraid. I can’t believe this would happen today.

WE still have sectarianism in Northern Ireland, hate-filled contempt in some hearts for people perceived as the communal enemy. But we make jokes about it, perhaps to reassure ourselves that the little sectarian notion that has crossed our minds is not really intended to offend.

That humour was shared with English audiences in the TV series

The Derry Girls. In one episode, the girls on their way to a church-led reconciliation project at which they will meet Protestants express their

nerves and their curiosity. Protestants are people they have heard talked about darkly or in hushed tones. My father, a Derry man, would speak of ‘your own’ and ‘the other sort’. The girls wonder if there will be enough Protestants to go round them all. They whisper about sectarianism the way they do about sex. They giggle about what they fear and don’t quite understand but which they know they will have to deal with.

In another episode of The Derry Girls, the Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren are brought together

Sectarianism can only be funny when it is parodied and diminished. And doing that colludes in the pretence that it is really not very serious, merely the preoccupation of stupid people

to help them get to know each other. They are asked to name characteristics that they perceive in each other’s communities and their answers are written on a blackboard. The

They might have said, Catholics think they can commit any sin, even murder, and that a priest can put them right with God again. Which they do. Or Catholics think you’re a hero if you have been in jail. Or, Protestants think they are going to go to heaven and all the Catholics are going to hell. Remarks like these would have been too close to representing actual familiar prejudices to work in a comedy sketch.

Northern Ireland loved that blackboard joke and a replica was exhibited in the Ulster Museum. That must mean something. I think the joke was popular because it absolves us. It presents prejudice as ludicrous rather than hostile or toxic, and we like that because it confronts nothing in us that we would feel we had

And a little boy pleads, “No missus, I didn’t know he was a Taig.” How do you make a joke out of that?

As a reporter I covered the long running picket on a Catholic church in Harryville in Ballymena. I asked a group of protesters why they were protesting against a church and a boy shrieked at me: “It’s not a church. It’s a Fenian hole.”

Sectarianism can only be funny when it is parodied and diminished. And doing that colludes in the pretence that it is really not very serious, merely the preoccupation of stupid people.

n This column is an extract from Malachi O’Doherty’s new book, How To Fix Northern Ireland (Atlantic Books).

Humour based on sectarianism always struggles to be funny

MALACHIO’DOHERTY

MESSAGE ON A MURAL: A reminder of dark, humourless times Picture: Getty Images

Patrick put in perspective

MARY KENNY reviews Alannah Hopkin’s biography: Patrick – from Patron Saint to Modern Influencer

MY local supermarket in Kent has been heralding St Patrick’s Day since mid-February – with large cardboard harps marking out the shelf for Guinness. Similarly, the stationery shop has been displaying greetings cards for March 17, featuring leprechauns dancing a jig.

Harmless harbingers of the Irish national holiday – which is now internationally observed. But amongst all the paddywhackery, has the man himself, the first Patrick, been forgotten or eclipsed? It sometimes seems like that.

Yet, as Alannah Hopkin stresses in a new edition of her beautiful and accessible biography of Patrick -– the saint really does play a significant role in the formation of Irish culture.

It was after Patrick’s evangelisation of Ireland (432AD is a broadly accepted date) that what we now call “early Christian Ireland” emerged. The awesome era of Irish monasticism, which Lord Clark claimed saved Christianity in Europe, really flowed from this event. “Irish history begins with Patrick,” Alannah Hopkin states.

via Gaulish missionaries, since the 4th century. Bishop Palladius, a deacon of the Roman church who preceded Patrick, had had earlier success. But it was Patrick who, somehow, sealed the deal and became the symbol of Irish faith and national identity over the centuries, to the point where every Irishman was sometimes known as “Paddy”. The author illuminates her book with stunning pictures of stained-glass windows depicting Patrick, from such fine artists as Harry Clarke, Evie Hone and Patrick Pollen. St Brendan’s church windows in Loughrea are especially impressive.

Legends arose – such as the story that he banished snakes from Ireland, but we may take that more as metaphor than fact

Patrick also penned the first Irish autobiography, his famous Confession, and his writings are still studied as meaningful historical sources. His “sincerity, humility and steadfastness” are evident.

The basic outlines of his story were once known to every schoolchild. He grew up somewhere along the west coast of Roman Britain, the son of a well-to-do family. Then, at 16, he was captured by Irish slave raiders – the Irish of the time were notorious slavetraders – and brought to a remote part of Ireland to work as a shepherd, and a swineherd.

He writes of his loneliness and isolation: but in this time of trial he found his spiritual awakening. Freed after six years, he subsequently returned to Ireland to bring Christianity to the pagan Irish, competing with the druids for miracles and messages.

event. “Irish history begins with writings are still studied as story were once known to 16, he was captured by Irish slave raiders – the Irish of the He writes of his loneliness and quently returned to Ireland to Irish, competing with the druids for welcome at his second coming.

Ireland gave him a warm welcome at his second coming. Conversion was “unparalleled for its lack of bloodshed” – it took an entirely peaceful course. The Irish were ready and receptive – another biographer, Roy Flechner of Trinity College Dublin, has suggested that Irish noblewomen were Patrick’s first followers, bestowing their jewels on him to sustain his developing mission.

biographer, Roy Flechner of Trinity Alannah Hopkin lives

Patrick wasn’t the sole source of Ireland’s Christianity: the faith had been “infiltrating” Irish clan society,

Alannah Hopkin lives in West Cork – she is the daughter of an Irish mother and an English father; she is also the widow, and biographer, of the literary novelist Aidan Higgins. Travelling around Ireland, she provides a geographical guide to those locations associated

with Patrick: the inspiring Croagh

pilgrimage, the austere but compelling St Patrick’s Purgatory at patrick – which may not really be his burial place, but

with Patrick: the inspiring Croagh Patrick in Mayo, still a place of modern pilgrimage, the austere but compelling St Patrick’s Purgatory at Lough Derg, the tomb of the saint at Downpatrick – which may not really be his burial place, but is still a hub of Patrician interest.

Patrician

with growing Irish expressions of nationalism from the sufferings of the Penal Times, and emigrants to America truly put the shamrock on the map. (Though we don’t know if Patrick ever actually used the shamrock as the symbol of the Holy Trinity, as reputed.)

settlements to the shamrock on the tail of an Aer Lingus aircraft – and he surely deserves to be centre stage for his feast-day.

It’s reckoned that over half a million Brits have taken up Irish passports since Brexit – through a parent or grandparent – and I’ve encountered some who admit to knowing little about Ireland. A readable, beautifully-illustrated book about St Patrick is their chance to start exploring their cultural roots!

And the Church of Ireland, too, has been dedicated to Patrick over

And the Church of Ireland, too, has been dedicated to Patrick over the centuries – sometimes claiming he was really more like an Irish Protestant than an Irish Catholic in his practices. He was, indeed, very knowledgeable about the Bible and lived by the Scriptures. Patrick became more identified

Legends arose – such as the story that he banished snakes from Ireland, but we may take that more as metaphor than fact. The Romans were aware that Ireland had no snakes. Yet myths and legends aren’t always wrong, and often derive from folkloric history.

Ireland is a more secular – and multi-cultural – society today so perhaps it’s understandable that a Christian saint seems less relevant to younger people. But Patrick bestowed on Ireland a unique “brand” – from the famous monastic

 Patrick – from Patron Saint to Modern Influencer by Alannah Hopkin is published by New Island books, £21.99 in the UK.

Mary Kenny is an internationally renowned author, journalist and broadcaster. She has a special interest in the relationship between England and Ireland.

SAINTLY PROSE: Alannah Hopkin Picture: Nelius Buckley

Doctor jailed for damaging neighbour’s property

THE Offaly Express reports that Dr Annette Brennnan, 74, with an address in Ballybrittas has been given a one-year jail sentence for damaging her neighbour’s property.

The court heard that she cut down 26 fence posts with a chainsaw at Lake Road, Ballybrittas on February 18, 2021.

Dr Brennan was convicted of a second count of causing criminal damage to the foundations of a property with a pick-axe at Lake Road in Ballybrittas on March 7, 2021.

At a sitting of Portlaoise

District Court, Judge Andrew Cody asked if the defendant had brought any compensation and whether she would allow

OFFALY

the ESB onto her property to connect a couple who had purchased land from her.

Solicitor Josephine Fitzpatrick said her client hadn’t brought compensation. Judge Cody said when the case was first heard, the defendant mumbled,“You can go stuff yourself’’.

“Clearly again today she is telling the court, you can go stuff yourself,” said Judge Cody.

The judge said the defendant was refusing to accept the findings of the court. He said the couple had paid her tens of thousands of euro for the land, and “she is not prepared to facilitate in any way these people she has terrorised”.

Judge Cody sentenced the woman to six months on each charge to run consecutively.

Ms Fitzpatrick later lodged papers for an appeal.

Gardaí investigate incident of rock-throwing from bridge

GARDAÍ are investigating an incident when a missile was thrown at a vehicle from a bridge over the Cork to Dublin motorway.

Cork Beo reports that a rock is believed to have been flung from a bridge in Tipperary, which struck and damaged a passing car. The object was thrown from an

M8 flyover near Cahir and landed on a car below.

The motorist, who was uninjured, had spotted a group of people and was able to slow down and pull onto the hard shoulder.

Gardaí are investigating

the incident, which happened on February 26, and are understood to be attempting to identify the group using CCTV. Gardaí warned similar attacks could have serious and “potentially fatal consequences,” and that they have received reports of similar incidents in recent months.

Transfer of convicted killer to UK slammed

WIDESPREAD community anger has been expressed at another act of vandalism at the Tobar Mhuire Passionist retreat and conference centre in Crossgar.

The Down Recorder reports that a statue of St Patrick was smashed and a number of small trees and plants were destroyed after a number of youths climbed over fences and entrance gates on the main avenue into the walled garden area which had

Vandals demolish statue of St Patrick at retreat DOWN

only recently been renovated.

An appeal has been launched to raise funds to repair the damage.

A social media post by the retreat and conference centre said: “We have continually over the past years been trying to improve our grounds so that they are a safe place for people to come and visit, stay on retreat and also walk our grounds and trail.”

The post said the work of the retreat and conference centre was “being hindered” and that it was a “costly business” to keep having to repair and replace the damage to the property.

Fr Aidan O’Kane, the retreat’s Vicar Bursar, said those who work and live there have been “deeply moved” by the response to the incident.

THE decision of the Minister for Justice to approve the request of convicted murderer Logan Jackson to be transferred from Limerick Prison to a prison in the UK has been strongly criticised.

The Limerick Leader reports that Logan Jackson, aged in his mid-30s, of Coventry, England was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2021 after being convicted, by a jury, of murdering champion Limerick boxer Kevin Sheehy.

The 20-year-old, who was tipped as a future Olympian, died after he was repeatedly run over by Jackson who was driving a 4x4 vehicle in Limerick in 2019.

Last year, his mother Tracey Tully initiated High Court proceedings in an effort to halt Jackson’s proposed transfer to a prison in England.

While those proceedings were ‘resolved’ last November, it was confirmed last week that the current Minister for Justice, Simon Harris has approved Mr Jackson’s application for a transfer.

“The Minister is obliged to act in a manner consistent with obligations under international law, specifically the Council of Europe Convention on the transfer of prisoners and the European Convention on Human Rights,” a statement by the Department of Justice reads.

MISS AN ISSUE

LIMERICK

MALROGERS Hard news the easy way

An Irishman’s house in Italy

this, he announced, in recognition of the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry, and the 14 unarmed civil rights marchers killed by British soldiers. He insisted that he would use the pseudonym for his artwork until the British army left Northern Ireland. He was as good as his word, and in 2008, as the watchtowers and fortifications along the border were gradually dismantled, Patrick Ireland was finally buried. In a ceremony at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, an effigy of Brian O’Doherty as Patrick Ireland was ceremonially carried to a grave in the museum’s garden.

that drew on disparate sources like chess, geometry and the early medieval Irish alphabet known Ogham as well as Italian folk motifs.

The house, now a museum, The Painted House, was transformed by O’Doherty into a unique artistic creation. He adorned the exterior of the house with bold, colourful patterns and designs, in striking contrast to the surrounding medieval architecture of Todi.

Inside the house, Brian O’Doherty continued his artistic vision, transforming each room with intricate murals, strikingly vivid decorations and whimsical trompe-l’œil windows.

Geometric squares chase each other across the walls, and on the lintel that separates the kitchen from the dining room stands an inscription: One Here Now.

Mademoiselle P, his first novel, was followed by The Deposition of Father McGreevy in 1999. The latter was one of six books shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, and although attracting quite a lot of attention as the outsider, lost out to Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin O’Doherty’s book was also a finalist for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, presented by the British magazine Literary Review, but lost that one too.

And so the book finally made it onto the Joe Duffy Show. Brian O’Doherty’s answer to Joe was that, yes it was indeed central to the plot of the novel. Not only that, but a nasty old priest is similarly a pivotal figure.

“IS the sheep-shagging integral to the book, Brian?” is probably one of the more memorable questions which Joe Duffy, presenter of Liveline, has ever asked a guest. It was addressed to writer Brian O’Doherty whose book, The Deposition of Father McGreevy, was a Booker Prize nomination back in 2000.

The words crystallised in my mind as I wandered across the Piazza del Popolo

in the hilltop town of Todi in Umbria.

I was headed for the former home of O’Doherty, who died at the end of last year aged 95.

Brian O’Doherty was born in Ballaghdereen in Co. Roscommon, but lived most of his adult life in New York and Italy. He was a writer, art critic and artist.

In 1975, along with his wife Barbara Novak, a university professor and art critic, he bought a 18th century house in the heart

Hurling in the Highlands

THE ancient Scottish sport of shinty has introduced anti-doping tests. But the novel aspect of this stricture is that the authorities aren’t looking for performance-enhancing drugs; rather they’re looking for recreational drugs such as marijuana – which traditionally slows you down, makes you relaxed, promotes friendliness (indeed amorousness) but perhaps can make you a tad introspective.

So this probably gives an insight into how the game is played in its heartland – which is largely in Argyll and the Highlands of Scotland.

Steven MacKenzie, the president of the ruling body the Camanachd Association, told the BBC: “It’s more of a societal issue around recreational drugs. We’ve learnt from UK Anti-Doping that some recreational drugs can give a performance-enhancing element, although I don’t believe that would be why players are taking it.”

of Todi. The house is located not far from the Piazza del Popolo on the Via di Santa Prassede.

During his holidays the Roscommon man began painting the house, transforming it into an extraordinary work of art, now known as the ‘Casa dipinta’ – The Painted House.

During much of his career, including the time of painting the house in Todi, he worked under the name Patrick Ireland. He chose

Shinty is a first cousin of hurling and there are regular international hurlingshinty matches. International matches between Irish hurling teams and Scottish shinty teams use a hybrid set of rules called shinty-hurling.

The sport may have arrived in Scotland from Ireland in pre-Christian times, although there is an abiding legend that when Colmcille arrived to spread Christianity he also spreading hurling wic eventually morphed onto shinty – Colmcille, who also founded the monastic settlement of Iona, eventually became one of Ireland’s three patron saints – along with Brigid and Patrick.

International matches between Irish hurling teams and Scottish shinty teams use a hybrid set of rules called shinty-hurling. The first international fixture between a Scottish shinty team and Irish hurling team occurred in 1896, when the London Camanchd

As Patrick Ireland he had created a total of 116 installations that have been set up in the most important modern art museums in the world and only a few of them are still visible: in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Dublin and, now, in Todi.

But it’s the house itself which is possibly his most extraordinary work. It is an original mix of archaic, ancient and modern cultures. O’Doherty was a leading figure in the Conceptual Art movement, creating cerebral works

and London GAA local clubs met in a friendly.

The following year the first official series began with a match between London Scottish and London GAA in 1896 and Glasgow Cowal and Dublin Celtic in 1897 and 1898, with the first game played at Celtic Park.

Following intermittent international games between Scotland and an all-Ireland team before the Second World War, controversy arose as the British government put pressure upon the Camanachd Association to cease from cooperating with the GAA. Relations between Ireland and Britain at this time were somewhat frosty.

But dedicated players – most notably in university teams – in both countries kept the link going after the war and this led to a resumption of international fixtures between the two codes in the 1970s. They have continued more or less regularly ever since.

And who knows what they’ve enjoyed at the after match celebrations. I expect they had a Highland fling at the very least.

The result is a stunning and immersive artistic experience that blurs the boundaries between art and architecture. Particularly if you’ve had plenty of chianti beforehand in the nearby Vineria San Fortunata. Which I had, unfortunata.

In 1992, O’Doherty, a noted scholar, made a sudden career change – he became a novelist. The Strange Case of

The book is set in Kerry, and one local councillor – who subsequently became a TD – told the author, on air, that it was total filth. It gave Americans the wrong idea of what Ireland was like. In short, it was the worst book he had ever read.

Perhaps today, with the passage of time, the councillor has revised his opinion.

Who knows, he may even have gone to Todi to see O’Doherty’s very strange, and fascinating house.

A room in The Painted House

The voice of the Irish in Britain since 1970

From feast day to festivals

THE Feast of St Patrick is, of course, March 17. But like Christmas, the festivities seem to begin earlier every year. From the beginning of March, events associated with the Apostle of Ireland have been taking place in cities and towns the length and breadth of Britain.

But this expansion of the feast day into myriad festivals should not be disapproved of. The Irish community in Britain has had many vicissitudes to withstand over the centuries, and it is only now, in the 21st century that we can be confident in our standing in the greater community. We can be proud of our many achievements in a land that has cast a shadow – both good and bad – on our homeland.

Pockets of anti-Irish sentiments still exist, of course, as reported regularly in the pages of The Irish Post.

But in most parts of Britain Irish people are totally accepted today; usually admired and lauded, being recognised as coming from a culture that has given much to society across a wide variety of fields – literature, drama, poetry, music, broadcasting, comedy, sport and film.

This is a far cry from the dark days of the last century in Britain, the days of “no dogs, no Blacks, no Irish”.

That we are now celebrating our patron saint, and our cultural identity, earlier and for longer is entirely acceptable, and very welcome.

Oscar compensation through a Dubliner

THE Oscars this year were a little disappointing for Ireland. Despite a record number of nominations only An Irish Goodbye and animator Richard Baneham received the nod for an Academy Award.

But at least Ireland can glory in having designed the award in the first place. No one knows why the statuette given to the Academy Awards winners is called an Oscar – various theories have been put forward. But we do know who designed it: step forward Irishman Cedric Gibbons. Born in Dublin he subsequently worked for MGM in Hollywood. At an Academy banquet he sketched out an image of the statuette on a banquet tablecloth: the figure of a man with a crusader’s sword standing on a reel of film.

The Dublin man, an art director with MGM, was to become the recipient of his own statuette on no less than eleven occasions.

Whether this is of any solace to the Irish contingent who missed out on an award this year is difficult to say.

The forum of the Irish in Britain

Going off on a tangent

Re. ‘Fast track needed for president’, Irish Post letters, March 4

BERNIE McDermott’s response to my letter on votes for the Irish Abroad is welcome. The main point I was making though, is that currently only people living in the twenty-six counties of the Republic of Ireland can vote for the presidency. As Bernie wrote and quoted from the Good Friday Agreement “[The GFA]… recognises the birth right of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both…”

Therefore following a successful outcome at referendum of extending the franchise to Irish citizens outside the jurisdiction would not only include Irish abroad but also people in Northern Ireland to apply to be included in the Register of Electors, to be eligible to vote to elect the president of Ireland.

I read on the government website that a standalone referendum will be called in November on gender equality. This, like many of the recent referendums is a noble call.

If a referendum on votes for Irish abroad is not included I can only conclude it was not on the priority list of the government. Therefore, any Irish citizen (other than diplomats etc) outside the jurisdiction of the twenty-six counties will not be able to vote for the next president of Ireland in 2025.

If the Irish government had in the past ten years called a referendum, and if it had been passed, the logistics of setting up the mechanism of global postal voting would now be underway and would mean we (the diaspora) could have a vote. All the main parties in their various general election manifestos for the past ten years spoke glowingly on delivering this.

The body politic had a ten-year mandate from the 79 per cent Constitutional Convention members in favour back in 2013. They had the opportunity to parallel up alongside most other countries worldwide on good practice; and European Union preference on extending the franchise to citizens outside the State.

The delay and hesitancy and then the Covid Pandemic has now resulted in it all being ‘too late this time’!

So therefore, we will discuss it again at the Global Civic Forum in April and as the next president could serve two terms , that’s me out of any opportunity of availing of this long promise to the global Irish .

Gerry Molumby Derbyshire

I WOULD like to say how much I agree with Gerry Molumby’s letter about the diaspora (March 4) basically being cheated of our chance to vote in the presidential election. We, the people who left Ireland in the 1960s (and of course before and after that date) helped keep Ireland afloat by sending money home. Every week, week in week out. Ireland’s economy at that time couldn’t support its population, so we left physically – but our hearts never left, and our money went home.

Now we are saving the Irish government a fortune by not living at home and being able to draw a pension in our homeland, the place of our birth.

Yet successive Irish government officials, ministers, TDs, councillors and the rest have said how much they value the diaspora etc, but won’t tolerate the idea of allowing us a tiny say in the leadership of the country, our country.

I enjoyed Bernie McDermott’s letter about the people of the North’s citizenship, and he certainly pointed up a very interesting case with the DeSouza case. But I honestly felt he was going off on a tangent, or riding his own particular hobby horse. That constitutional issue is evidently a very complex subject, which is presumably why it has gone through so many courts.

Bernie brought up an important constitutional issue that pertains to Northern Ireland and is very relevant to the upcoming anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. But I fail to see what relevance it had to giving the ordinary Irish citizen a vote in the presidential election.

Maureen McBrearty Hammersmith, London

President Biden should shun the coronation

ACCORDING to this week’s Irish Post (March 11) I read that it seems likely that President Biden won’t attend the coronation of King Charles III. Your article says that this is not a snub, purely a logistical snarl-up in his diary. Apparently he’ll be in Ireland a few weeks earlier to mark the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, something that he won’t miss on any account as he is a proud Irish American. But whatever the reason, I’m glad he is not coming. For his own sake, and for the sake of the status of America.

I thought it was reprehensible that he was forced to sit behind members of the Commonwealth. Some of these countries have very mixed records in human rights – Bangladesh, Nigeria,

Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – are human rights priority countries for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). There are cited concerns for freedom of assembly and speech in each, among other human rights issues. The majority of the Commonwealth states Most Commonwealth states – 32 of the 56 – criminalise same-sex acts between consenting adults. (This is according to the British parliamentary library of research). Twenty six Commonwealth countries had blasphemy laws – utter the wrong swear word or oath there and you could face ten years in jail.

Now I know that the US isn’t everybody’s idea of a perfect democracy, but it is way ahead of many of the Commonwealth countries in terms of basic human rights. To see the leaders of those countries lording it over the elected representatives of democratic nations such as the US really sticks in my craw.

I will be glad if Joe Biden doesn’t come to Westminster Abbey. I would like it even more if a few more leaders of proud, functioning, free democracies wouldn’t come either.

B. McIlwain London

PRESIDENTIAL PROCESSION: Mary Robinson at the voting centre at the RDS in Dublin in 1990 when it became clear she was to become President – but with no votes from the diaspora Picture: RollingNews.ie

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COMMENT&OPINION

were having a ‘devastating’ impact upon second generation young people in Ireland from minority backgrounds.

The somewhat diminishing term ‘micro aggression’ was used to describe the most common form of abuse these young people experienced. It describes primarily verbal slurs referring to people’s colour or ethnic background.

I appreciate that’s a technical or academic use of language but I’m not sure I’d feel there was anything micro about being verbally assaulted on a regular basis.

So you are a young man or woman from Dublin or Cork or Limerick or any town or village in this country and if you have a black or brown face the chances are that you have experienced something utterly negative from your fellow Irish people purely on the basis of your skin colour.

Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper. The Irish Post is published every Wednesday by Color Company (TM) Ltd.

The newspaper seeks to provide the Irish in Britain with comprehensive news coverage of Irish issues from Ireland and Britain, sports news and reviews, a weekly entertainment guide, reader feedback and features of interest to the Irish in Britain. ©2009 ISSN No. 0959-3748. The Irish Post Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publishers. Newsagent distribution and printing by Trinity Mirror Printing Limited whose registered office is at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AP.

TEARS:

The different faces of immigration and discrimination

JOEHORGAN

I’M not claiming any kind of victimhood but I do see the importance of being accurate. I grew up and came of age in a pre-PC and a pre-woke age.

Do you remember PC, political correctness? It’s woke from 10 years ago. The antiwoke warriors used to regularly complain of political correctness gone mad. The terminology has changed but the proponents of bigotry are the same.

I grew up in an Irish family in an Irish community in an immigrant neighbourhood in a hard English city. I had a very happy, loving, childhood.

A lucky childhood. I don’t really have any tale of suffering or misery to relate. I do, though, have an accurate recall of what those days were like. They were days when prejudice and hate were given free rein.

Social discourse, everyday communication, was littered with casual references that were racist or sexist or just plain hateful. I sat in a class at the age of 14 and listened to a teacher say black people shouldn’t get the vote as they couldn’t read.

The National Front had a party political broadcast on the television. At football

Social discourse, everyday communication, was littered with casual references that were racist or sexist or just plain hateful. I sat in a class at the age of fourteen and listened to a teacher say black people shouldn’t get the vote as they couldn’t read

matches black footballers had bananas thrown at them. And that wasn’t that long ago. I’m still only in my fifties.

Then there was the Irish context. I grew up in a city

notorious for the bombing of two pubs by the IRA and the wrongful conviction of six Irish men in response. We grew up with a lock on our letterbox for fear of reprisal and a heightened sense of Irishness. My mother and my father faced overt, casual, hidden, and direct prejudice for being Irish in a city that was their home for over forty years. We didn’t hide under a rock; as I’ve said I’m not claiming a suffering I didn’t endure, but we didn’t parade either. We just lived our lives in a certain context.

That context would have been infinitely harder if I’d been not just the son of immigrants but the son of immigrants with black or brown faces. This would then be a completely different story. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission recently released a report that said racism and discrimination

What is that doing to an entire generation’s sense of self worth, sense of identity, and simple happiness? And that is the reality of racism, bigotry and it’s flag waving proponents. Of course this doesn’t even include the bravery bigots exhibit online where social media allows them to reach out to likeminded people writhing with hate. In the online world anyone with a mobile phone and a selfie stick can declare themselves a journalist and anyone who rants long enough in to a camera can declare themselves an activist. Lonely, socially inept, poorly educated Irish people are finding meaning in hate, whilst strangely, dreaming they could emulate the ultraBrit Tommy Robinson.

My mother, who is in her eighties, was told by a contemporary recently: “Our Ireland has gone. Unless they send all the immigrants back.”

My mother replied. “Yes, Ireland has changed. It would have wanted to, seeing as how old we are. But weren’t you and I immigrants too? Over there in England? What’s the difference between us and these ones now?”

Being Irish, she went on to tell me, it was all we had at times. But any fool can be born in a place. It’s not much of an achievement.

Immigration is the fundamental social fact of modern Irish history. It is utterly dispiriting that we might allow the ignorant and the blatant deniers of what being Irish means to denigrate those young Irish who come from immigration themselves. Because the only thing less of an achievement than birthplace is being wrapped in the flag of that birthplace as if that somehow makes you more.

n Joe Horgan tweets at @JoeHorganwriter.

IRELAND’S

A cartoon from the Weekly Freeman, showing the figure of Erin weeping over the list of people lost to Ireland through famine or emigration Picture: Public domain

The literary vicar of Tipperary

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary wrote one of the most influential novels in English literature

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

The writer’s roots:

Sterne was a Tipp man, born in Clonmel 310 years ago to an Irish mother and an English father who was a low-ranking military man. The young Laurence grew up in many parts of Ireland – the Sternes lived variously in Clonmel and Dublin; also Wicklow town; Annamoe, Co. Wicklow; Drogheda, Co. Louth; Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath; Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim; and Derry City.

Career path:

Sterne studied at Jesus College, Cambridge University, becoming an Anglican clergyman in Yorkshire on completion of his studies. His writing didn’t really begin until he was 46. It was while living in the Yorkshire countryside, having failed in his attempts to supplement his vicar’s income as a farmer and struggling with tuberculosis, that Sterne began work on Tristram Shandy

Plot of Tristram Shandy:

There’s not much of a plot, to be honest. The book focuses on Tristram looking back on his life. But the reminiscences forever branch off

GRAY

into digressions, numerous anecdotes and philosophical musings. The novel is full of non-linear narrative such as the constant references to the act of writing and the book itself. Remember – people at the time weren’t quite sure what a novel was, so to some extent Sterne had a blank page – or several blank pages – to work on. The first novels in English had only emerged in the 18th century, around the 1740s.

The experimental work of fiction was published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, and is now regarded as a landmark in the development of English literature.

SUB-PLOT: It’s a fictional autobigraphy of Sterne’s life, set within a family drama. The foibles, contradictions and affectations of the various members are paraded before the reader.

Example of a family member’s contradictory nature:

Tristram’s father Walter, a quick-tempered, controlling, antagonistic figure spends much of Tristram’s youth absorbed in writing about education, and devising methods of improving it. At the same

A date with history

What happened on this day...

Saturday, March 18:

time he completely neglects his son’s actual education

Example of Sterne’s writing: Sterne ‘borrowed’ passages from across literature. But he railed against plagiarism. His vehement denunciation of stealing from other writers’ works is eloquently denounced in a section which is lifted verbatim from Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was, in effect, the plagiarist as genius. Fellow Irishman Oliver Goldsmith said: “Sterne’s Writings, in which it is

clearly shewn, that he, whose manner and style were so long thought original, was, in fact, the most unhesitating plagiarist who ever cribbed from his predecessors in order to garnish his own pages. It must be owned, at the same time, that Sterne selects the materials of his mosaic work with so much art, places them so well, and polishes them so highly, that in most cases we are disposed to pardon the want of originality, in consideration of the exquisite talent with which the borrowed materials are wrought up into the new form.”

Time span of the plot:

The book, narrated by Tristram, basically covers all of his life, even right back to his conception in his parent’s bed. The opening lines of the book are:

“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me...”

And at the end of that chapter occurs one of English literature’s very first double entendres (probably). On the face of it, the author speaks how his parents almost fail to conceive him because of a faulty domestic appliance – or is there more to be read into it than that?

Judge for yourself.

In the conjugal bed, the following interchange takes place: “Pray my Dear,” quoth my mother, “have you not forgot to wind up the clock? – Good God! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time.”

Tristram, however, is successfully conceived, wound up clock or not, and is delivered, oddly enough, much later in the book. His man-midwife at his birth is a Mr Slop.

Rose Fitzpatrick, he was brought up in Ireland and in Sheffield, England.

Monday, March 20:

1964 – Death of Brendan Behan.

Tuesday, March 21:

Place in literature:

Tristram Shandy was highly influential in the development of the modern novel. Sterne’s innovative approach to storytelling wasn’t all however: he promoted his book in a way that would elevate him to a position of importance, to one of celebrity even. He thus set the template for the high profile writers of today.

Place in Anglo-Hibernian literature:

The late Robert Welch, Professor of English at the University of Ulster and a world-renowned academic, said: “Sterne’s mocking tone together with his subversive relation to the literary convention of AngloIrish literature is widely seen as a forerunner of the stream-of-consciousness literary device which had its pinnacle with James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Related to this was the further development of the interior monologue – in other words a self-conscious narrator thinks out in writing as they go along. He influenced not just writers – Marx and Nietzsche were both affected by his work; in fact Marx tried to write a Tristram-type novel.

Sterne’s social conscience:

Sterne was also known for his social conscience. He was a vocal opponent of slavery and advocated for the rights of the poor and marginalised. In 1766, when the moral arguments against slavery were galvanising, the composer and former slave Ignatius Sancho wrote to Sterne encouraging him to speak on behalf the abolition of the slave trade. Sterne’s widely publicised response to Sancho’s letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature.

1983 – Chaim Herzog is elected president of Israel. Born in Belfast, he was educated in Dublin.

Thursday, March 23:

1768 – Death of Laurence Sterne, Clonmelborn author of Tristram Shandy

1932 – Death in Monte Carlo of Chauncey Olcott, born in New York, who wrote When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Mother Machree and My Wild Irish Rose

1964 – Introduction of the driving test in the Republic.

Sunday, March 19

1920 – Tomas MacCurtain, commander of the Volunteers, is murdered in Cork.

1928 – Birth of actor Joseph Patrick McGoohan (pictured left). He was a true son of the diaspora. Born in New York, to Irish emigrants Thomas McGoohan and

1656 – Death of Bishop James Ussher. The Dublin born cleric deduced from bible studies the exact date of the Creation, and the date of the end of the world. The Bishop had a cult following until November 4, 1996 when the world failed to close down for business as predicted by him.

1970 – Dana wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.

Wednesday, March 22:

Today is the earliest possible day for Easter.

1912 – Birth of Wilfrid Brambell, aka “Old Man Steptoe”, in Dublin. Wilfrid was an Irish Times journalist before becoming a professional actor at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

1839 – The first recorded use of the expression OK, in the Boston Morning Post One of many theories is that the letters stand for Obadiah Kelly, an Irish clerk at the Boston docks.

1847 – A band of Choctaw Indians gather in Skullyville Oklahoma to hear about Ireland’s Famine. They raise $170 from their meagre resources to help feed the starving Irish. 1948 – Rinty Monaghan wins the world flyweight title by knocking out Glasgow’s Jackie Paterson.

Friday, March 24:

1909 – Death in Dublin of writer John Millington Synge.

1968 – An Aer Lingus plane, the St Phelim, crashes into the sea near Tuskar Rock, Co. Wexford with the loss of all 61 passengers and crew.

–

. The book is regarded as a comic masterpiece, and Sterne acknowledged as a literary innovator. CATRIONA

surveys the book and the man who wrote it

Portrait of Laurence Sterne by fellow Irishman Robert Lucius West Picture: Public domain

Patrick McGoohan Picture: Public domain

Tony Clayton-Lea reviews U2’s new album

Pages 16-17

feel a great connection with all things Irish’

Country

Patrick’s Day special, ahead of gigs in Birmingham and London this weekend

ON TOUR: Nathan Carter

MUSICAL idol Nathan Carter has been touring Britain since September.

This weekend the Liverpool-born singer/songwriter, who now lives in Co. Fermanagh, will play two highly anticipated gigs, one in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and the other at the London Palladium.

They fall on St Patrick’s weekend, which the second generation Irishman claims makes them even more special than his usual sell-out shows.

He took time out this week to tell us what life is like on tour and why he still loves it…

You’ve been on the road since September, how’s the tour going? It’s been really great getting back on the road throughout the UK.

We’ve just finished some shows in Scotland and are really looking forward to the March shows in England this weekend.

There’s something special about playing Birmingham, as there is such an Irish diaspora there. It’s pretty much like home from home when you play there.

And also playing the London Palladium on a St Patrick’s weekend is pretty special too.

On this weekend we like to give the show a really Irish flavour, which I’m hoping that everyone is going to really enjoy.

After more than a decade making music, do you still enjoy touring?

I absolutely love performing on any stage. But touring in the UK, especially when you’re living on a tour bus, does bring its challenges. But it’s kind of fun also.

It always helps when you’ve got a really good bunch of lads travelling with you, I do love it, I wouldn’t swap this career for any other.

Which city is your favourite to play?

Actually, Birmingham and indeed London are probably among my favourite cities.

And of course, I’d have to include Liverpool also on that list too.

You have a huge following in Britain – how does it feel when you are on stage here?

It’s just a fantastic feeling to walk onto a stage to perform to an audience who have spent their hard-earned money buying tickets to come and see the show.

And it’s really great that we have been lucky enough to build up a big audience in Britain.

Being a second generation Irishman, born in Britain, do you still feel the connection with the diaspora community here?

Absolutely, my family connections are very much rooted in Ireland and indeed my grandmother – who still tours with us – was born in Warrenpoint near Newry.

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So, I feel a great connection with all things Irish – and I am loving life in County Fermanagh at the moment. I couldn’t be happier.

What can fans expect from your gigs this month?

It’s an action-packed show from start to finish.

We open with support act Claudia Buckley, who is a fantastic entertainer, and then myself and the band take to the stage thereafter.

It’s hopefully a great night for everyone, with a blend of Country, Trad and Folk music as well as big ballads and much more too.

What inspires your music?

I just love to entertain an audience, and when that audience responds in the way that they do, then that’s really inspiring. It’s a two-way situation, I guess.

I believe our live performances have evolved over the years too.

When we first went on the road we were, for the most part, playing to dancing audiences throughout Ireland.

Then that evolved into the live concert scene in Ireland, and we then took that concert show to Britain, and thankfully it has worked really well for us and continues to do so.

Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?

I`m really loving what I do at the moment, but I am always up for a new challenge. So, watch this space.

The Irish Post has two pairs of tickets to Nathan Carter’s London Palladium gig on Sunday, March 19 to give away to two lucky winners.

To enter the competition email editor@irishpost.co.uk with ‘Nathan Carter London Palladium Competition’ in the subject line. Please include your name, address and contact number in your email. Emails must be received before Friday, March 17 to be included in the competition.

March is St Patrick’s month – is it important to you to celebrate Ireland’s national day?

Saint Patrick’s Day is always a special day for the Irish diaspora throughout the world, and I am no different.

There’s something special about the St Patrick’s Day parades that bring lasting memories.

I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in a few parades in the past, and it’s truly a special day for everyone.

Do you have any special St Patrick’s traditions in your family?

I have good memories of sharing a pint with my dad and grandad in the Liverpool Irish Centre on several Saint Patrick’s Days in the past, and also playing a few tunes on the accordion there.

Do you have a message for our readers?

I’d like to wish everyone a great Saint Patrick’s Day.

It’s always a great day for the Irish diaspora and I hope this year will be also.

And I hope to see a lot of old and new friends in the Symphony Hall in Birmingham on March 17 and at the London Palladium on March 19.

 Nathan Carter’s 2023 UK tour continues at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on March 17, followed by a grand finale at the London Palladium on March 19. For tickets visit www.ticketline.co.uk

‘I

music star Nathan Carter tells FIONA AUDLEY why he loves touring, where he likes to play and what makes St

Irish

radio in your area...

BEDFORDSHIRE

 Jim Carway presents Luton Irish Live on Diverse 102.8FM and online every Tuesday evening 6-8pm. Contact Jim on 07977 063233.

BRADFORD

 Joe Sheeran presents Echoes of Ireland on Bradford Community Broadcasting 106.6FM every Sunday at noon. The programme is repeated on Mondays at 9am and Wednesdays at noon and is online at www.bcbradio.co.uk.

BRIGHTON

 Brighton and Hove weekly Irish radio airs live on Mondays from 8pm on Radio Reverb, 97.2 FM, DAB and online.

COVENTRY

 Hands Across the Waters on Hillz FM. Broadcasting live every Monday and Thursday 1pm-2pm and the best of Irish & Country every Sunday 1pm-2pm. You can tune in locally on 98.6fm or catch us online at www.hillzfm.co.uk

 Join The Four Country Road Show with Colm Nugent and Michael Gallagher every Tuesday 9-10pm and Sunday 2-4pm. Broadcasting live in Coventry from the studios of Radio Plus 101.5fm and online around the world on www.radioplus.org.uk playing the very best in Irish and Country music, news, guests and more.

GLASGOW

 Celtic Music Radio on 1530AM and www.celticmusicradio.net

featuring Paddy Callaghan’s Trad with Pad every Tuesday from 6-7pm.

HERTFORDSHIRE

 Radio Verulam 92.6FM and online at www.radioverulam.com

featuring The Emerald Hour with Kathy Weston, Lydia El-Khouri and Shane every Thursday from 7-8pm, and John Devine’s Traditional Irish Music Show, featuring Joe Giltrap, every Monday from 7-9pm (available on the website for seven days after broadcast)

 John Devine, Monday evenings from 7-9pm on Radio Verulam in West Hertfordshire 92.6FM or through the internet at www. radioverulam.com. Facebook www.facebook.com/rvirishmusic.

LONDON/SOUTH-EAST

 Johnny Jameson hosts Ireland’s Eye on Resonance 104.4FM every third Wednesday of every month, 8-9pm and repeated the following morning at 10pm.

 Emily Horgan, Pippa T and Róisín O Rourke broadcasting What’s the Craic? every Tuesday from 7-8pm on West London’s ONFM 101.4.

 Johno’s Irish Hour, ONFM 101.4, every Saturday morning from 10-11am with presenter John O’Sullivan. Anything and everything Irish including traditional Irish music, news and sport.

MANCHESTER

 Out and About in Manchester with Martin Logan, Wednesdays 7-9pm on 96.9FM.

 The Irish Connection Show with John Lowry on Wythenshawe 97.2FM, Saturday from 10am to noon. www.wfmradio.org.

MIDLANDS

 Bob Brolly’s Irish Show, Sundays 4-7pm on BBC Radio WM 95.6FM and DAB Radio.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

 Jim Bennett, Fiona Clelland and Tommy McClements present NE1 Irish from 5-7pm every Wednesday on 102.5FM or www.ne1fm.net. Text NE1 + message to 60300. Contact 0191 261 0384.

OXFORD/BERKSHIRE

 BBC Radio Oxford/BBC Radio Berkshire hosts Henry Wymbs’ Irish Eye, Sundays from 2pm on 95.4FM | 104.1FM.

ONLINE

 Gerry Byrne’s Irish Radio: www.irishradio.org 24/7 non-stop Irish Music. Live weekdays 1-3pm; Saturdays & Sundays 11am-1pm. Podcasts uploaded to website immediately after shows are transmitted. Requests welcome to: gerry@irishradio.org. For music, arts, charity sector, commerce and current affairs interviews search YouTube Irish Radio with Gerry Byrne.

 Mid West Radio, the home of Irish music, chat, news, culture and gossip 24 hours a day! www.midwestradio.ie

 RTÉ Radio operates four primary national stations — RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ 2fm, RTÉ lyric fm and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta — and seven exclusively digital stations — RTÉ Radio 1 Xtra, RTÉ Choice, RTÉ Pulse, RTÉ Chill, RTÉ Gold, RTÉ 2XM and RTÉ Junior, available online.

 Alan O’Leary of Copperplate presents two hours of Irish traditional and folk music every Sunday at 8-9.30pm (repeated Wednesday 8-90pm) on www.liveireland.com — 24/7 live Irish trad and folk. It can also be heard 24/7 on Mixcloud, Soundcloud and Podomatic.

 All Folked Up – a folk show with an Irish influence – is broadcast on the third Thursday of the month on sarumradio.com at 7pm.

 Irish Country Music Radio (Limerick) – Broadcasting live and recorded programmes 24 hours a day covering a broad spectrum of Irish music: www.irishcountrymusicradio.com.

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OUT

TONY CLAYTON-LEA reviews U2’s latest album Songs of Surrender

IT was, U2’s bass player Adam Clayton has implied, a relatively straightforward idea that turned into an intricate one.

their newly purchased CDs close to their bodies, go home and play them until dawn. By the time they headed out to work, they’d know all of the songs.

T:

He is talking about U2’s new album, Songs of Surrender, which is now in your physical and online record stores. There was, once upon a time, something of a stir in the multiverse when a new album by Ireland’s best-known rock band was released. Queues would form outside your Virgin Megastores and your HMVs, and as the shops opened at midnight, the hunger of the culturally vampiric fanbase would be satiated. They would hold

Time passes, and things change, but the fanbase still knows all the songs by now, don’t they? Think again. As any clued-in U2 admirer is aware, Songs of Surrender may be the ‘new’ U2 album, but its 40 songs have been culled from their back catalogue to be revisited, refurbished, and recalibrated. Is it, you may ask, a back-tobasics exercise, a marketing wheeze to annoy the converted – that have many different versions of many of the re-imagined songs,

anyway – or some kind of devilishly clever way of allowing U2 to re-think and regroup? The answer lies somewhere in between.

Songs of Surrender began not as an album but as a

method of referencing the chapters in Bono’s 2022 memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Whatever songs were chosen had to have, by necessity of the book’s narrative flow, some level of self-evaluation. As matters progressed, however, so did the number of songs, and while the pandemic pulled the rug out from under too many people, for U2 it was time to breathe. We say U2, but it has emerged that the plan to reshape the songs was primarily the idea of Bono (aka Paul Hewson) and the band’s guitarist, Edge (aka Dave Evans). The outcome of such a notion is that the restructured songs arrive with only the most subtle of appearances of bass or drums on them and yet because they are so well-known within the context of rock music, they are as much U2 as they have ever

Across the album, they dig deep into their personal history; they tweak lyrics here and there; they confront what they view as past mistakes and try to correct them

BASED ON MEMOIR: U2 lead singer Bono Picture: Getty Images

been. The songs are one but they’re not the same? Cheesy and clichéd, we admit (somewhat embarrassingly), but it’s true.

The album is sectioned into four ‘sides’, one for each of the band, but that could well be a superfluous strategy to have us think the songs have particular meaning to particular people. While that may or may not be true, for the U2 fan the album in its entirety should work. All the band’s best-known songs are here. We won’t list all of them, but they include Beautiful Day, Where the Streets Have No Name, Out of Control, One, Bad, Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, Vertigo, City of Blinding Lights, I Still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Desire, Without or Without You, I Will Follow, and Sunday Bloody Sunday. We’d hazard a safe-as-houses guess that you’re familiar with the titles, but (quelle surprise) some of the renewed versions are almost unrecognisable.

A few examples: Stories for Boys and City of Blinding Lights are piano ballads; Every Breaking Wave is U2 as played by Erik Satie; Where the Streets Have no Name lays on a cushion of keyboards, Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of is an acoustic strum;

the problems they have been facing for the last ten years on the twin albums Songs of Innocence (2014) and Songs of Experience (2017): how to view their past through a present-day lens without coming across as creative navel-gazers.

Innocence band

Can’t Make it on Your Own floats on fragile melody lines; Desire is funk as delivered in a high-pitched falsetto; I Will Follow is a twinkly retake; and so on. You can cross reference and compare, for sure, but throughout there’s little or no comparison between the bombastic weight of some of the originals and the nuances Bono and Edge have successfully managed to inject here.

Some artists rejig their back pages for various reasons. Bob Dylan doesn’t revisit his songs in the studio or on record, but he changes them every time he plays a gig, and has done so for decades; on her 2011 album,

Director’s

Cut, Kate Bush amended what she deemed to be problematical production issues and arrangements of past songs; more recently, Taylor Swift has re-recorded some of her early albums in order to escape restrictive contractual bonds. U2’s reimagining, however, is surely the most investigative and advanced. Across the album, they dig deep into their personal history; they tweak lyrics here and there; they confront what they view as past mistakes and try to correct them. It sounds as if they have snipped tie-wraps that have been around their wrists for at least 25 years, and it seems to connect with

small ways. 60s, done and conducted Larry –

The album is also the sound of a band that knows they have occasionally underachieved and that wants to make amends in small but distinctive ways. With the four members now in their early 60s, what they have done here – we are presuming, of course, that while the majority of the work was conceived and conducted by Bono and Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr are in the mix, at least in spirit –  is not so much a reinvention as a reflective rejuvenation. Get it while it’s hot, too, because it won’t last long –Songs of Surrender is surely the final flick through U2’s back pages. According to the band, the next studio album will be full of intemperate, raucous and very loud rock songs. “We’re turning the amps on,” Adam Clayton recently informed Mojo magazine. “I certainly think the rock that we all grew up with as 16- and 17-year-olds, that rawness of those Patti Smith and Iggy Pop records… that kind of power is something we would love to connect back into.” And so it begins. Again.

TAKING THE PLAUDITS: U2 on tour and, left, new album Songs of Surrender

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Picture: Getty Images

Anyone who had a harp

MAL ROGERS considers Belfast harper Úna Monaghan’s latest album –

amalgam of performances by solo musicians and solo computers

Irish music in a new, innovative direction

Úna Monaghan, an Irish harper, composer and sound engineer from Belfast, has just released Aonaracht. It’s description is, so far, unique in Irish music: “A collection for solo traditional musicians and computer,” it says.

This groundbreaking combination of Irish traditional and experimental electronic music is hugely fascinating, but probably not one for the purists. And probably not one for those looking for a stand-out track such as O Superman, by performance artist and violinist Laurie Anderson. This surprising hit back in the 1980s was fashioned by Anderson using a drone effect, looping her violin with an Eventide Harmonizer, and a vocoder.

But Aonaracht is far removed from the New York art scene from whence came Laurie Anderson and her electronic fiddle. Monaghan’s album in some respects harks back to an earlier Irish tradition, while simultaneously embracing modern technology.

Irish traditional music was – during most of its existence – largely a solo tradition. We don’t really know how long Irish traditional music has been around, but it has demonstrated a tenacious longevity. And it has largely embraced outside influences with alacrity – from French court dances to Italian renaissance compositions, and from American vaudeville to the music of London’s pubs.

Until the coming of the céilí band at the beginning of the 20th century or thereabouts, ensemble playing was almost unknown in Irish traditional music.

Solo playing is one of the strong elements in Úna Monaghan’s album Aonaracht which translates as ‘loneliness’ or perhaps ‘solitude’ is a more accurate word.

The difference here between, say, a piper playing on his own in the 19th century – as he almost certainly would have done – and the playing on this album is that there is computer accompaniment. So this is not music that you’d hear at an Irish traditional seisún, which anyway was largely a product of Irish immigrant workers in London in the 1950s onwards. And it does include improvisation, which again was historically very limited in traditional music.

Monaghan says of the album: “Aonaracht is a collection of six pieces for solo traditional musician and computer. Each piece is a unique combination of the traditional musician, their instrument, and electronics.

The six tracks feature traditional musicians playing solo, although accompanied by computer music, artificially intelligent robotic music generators, and various disparate soundscapes.

The players, who perform original and traditional pieces, include Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn on uilleann pipes, Jack Talty on concertina, Pauline Scanlon on vocals, Saileog Ní Cheannabháin on piano, Paddy Glackin on fiddle and Monaghan herself on harp.

It is that solo aspect that takes the music back to more ancient times.

ÚNA MONAGHAN — CV

“Traditional music is often thought of and enjoyed in group contexts. I wanted to think of the traditional instrument as it is to the player –first and foremost a private relationship between one person and their instrument.

“What might it be like if something of that relationship was heard alongside the acoustic instrument? Can technology be used to sound the world of traditional music beyond the tunes?

“Each piece has a different theme, exploring Irish traditional music and improvisation, poetry, artificial intelligence, feminism,

Úna Monaghan is a harper, composer, sound engineer and electronic experimenter from Belfast.

She has a degree in astrophysics from Cambridge University and a doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast. She explores new technologies, combining Irish traditional music, live electronics, experimental music and improvised music together.

Her recent work includes combining traditional music with bronze sculpture, sound art and movement sensors. Her compositions have been presented on BBC and RTÉ television and radio, and in theatre productions, festivals and conferences internationally.

Aonaracht is an innovative album, with some truly arresting moments.

It’s not ‘craic was ninety’ music... But it is a remarkable piece of work

an

which has pointed

INNOVATOR:

Úna Monaghan

instrumentation and community . Each features a custom made relationship with the computer, involving fixed media, electroacoustic sound, field recordings, improvisation and live electronics. I worked on this collection with specific players in mind, and shaped the coding and sound for each.”

The collection begins with Between the Piper and the Pipes (Music It Might Have Been, But Piping It Certainly Wasn’t)

You hear, first of all, the piper preparing himself and his instrument – and with the uilleann pipes there is a lot of preparation: getting the chair just right, getting the popping strap on, blowing up the bellows. This is the ritual of the pipers. Then the music starts, full use of drones, regulators and chanter.

Then discernible traditional music, but soon seguing into looping motifs, and chords probably never heard in pub seisúns.

In the track named The Chinwag, there is indeed chinwagging. Monaghan herself takes centre stage, playing beautifully on the harp. But she manages to meld what was a conversation between three elderly women in a house in rural Donegal into something echoing, and robotic. It is quite extraordinary, and a little eerie.

Úna Monaghan also uses Folk RNN – in case you haven’t heard of this, or

not had reason to use it, it’s an AI (artificial intelligence) website that generates folk tunes. It’s based on transcriptions of folk music, and will create a new tune based on your input. In Safe Houses, concertina player Jack Talty shows what can be done with this new departure in the making of music. Time changes, modulation, contrapuntal harmonies, and electronic bass notes. But the album reaches back to

formative moments in Irish music.

In the track called Traditional Architecture, Saileog Ní Cheannabháin plays piano arrangements of traditional melodies, half by the eighteenthcentury Irish Protestant vicar Sir John Andrew Stevenson and half composed by herself along with the algorithmic composing

on the computer.

It’s a beguiling piece, and it’s interesting to see homage being paid to the Irish Protestant vicars of yesteryear. They were an extraordinarily talented bunch — in the field of literature Jonathan Swift is said to have gained inspiration for Gulliver while living in the environs of Belfast; Patrick Brontë was a major influence on his illustrious daughters; and Clonmel-born Laurence Sterne helped launch the genre of popular novels with Tristram Shandy

In the field of music Anglican parsons did much to preserve and develop the Irish tradition –particularly the uilleann piping tradition. The pipes have had a dominating influence on Irish music – very few tunes descend on to the fourth string of the violin, D being the lowest note of the chanter. Aonaracht is an innovative album, with some truly arresting moments. It’s not ‘craic was ninety’ music, and it’s not going to be used as the soundtrack for a television series like a remake of Ballykissangel anytime soon. But it is a remarkable piece of work, and perhaps points to a new direction for Irish music while delving into its past glories, and the elements that have made it what it is today.

 Aonaracht by Úna Monaghan is available on CD and vinyl unamonaghan.bandcamp.com/ album/aonaracht.

“Happy St Patricks Day 2023 from all at Entrust Planning & Environmental”

Kieran Tarpey, Managing Director

Entrust are infrastructure planning consultants with offices in Liverpool and Galway, operating across the UK & Ireland. Our primary sectors include Renewable Energy, EV, Battery Storage and Wireless Telecoms. We recently delivered planning permission for some of the largest solar and electricity grid projects in the UK & Ireland. We are also hiring for SENIOR PLANNERS, GRADUATE PLANNERS, a LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT and ECOLOGIST at our offices. If you are interested in joining the team, please send a CV to brenda@entrust-services.com.

Jack Talty

Pauline Scanlon

Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn

The music of the exile

SEVERAL significant dates happen this year, not least the 100th anniversary of the end of the civil war in Ireland.

A backdrop of hostilities had been a way of life since the War of Independence, but now life was beginning to return to normal. New Irish banknotes were launched, and Irish stamps became available. The letters bearing them would soon be posted in the old British post-boxes, now painted green from April 1923. Many still survive one hundred years later.

But 2023 marks a handful of other interlinked, musical anniversaries, which in their own way – while not having the political significance of the civil war –nonetheless have durability, ubiquity and influence on their side.

Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby) was written 110 years ago in New York by composer James Royce Shannon (1881–1946) for the Tin Pan Alley musical Shameen Dhu. The songwriter had no known Irish ancestry – ‘Shannon’ was added to give his name a green tinge.

The original recording of the song, by Chauncey Olcott, peaked at No. 1 on the music charts.

Olcott himself co-wrote When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, along with George George Graff and composer Ernest R. Ball – only Olcott had any Irish roots. The song was first performed in the show The Isle O’ Dreams 110 years ago, opening at the Grand

Opera House, New York on January 27, 1913. The show closed less than a month later on February 22, a disappointing flop.

But both songs have gone on to become standard fare in Irish America — and indeed beyond. They are important, because they continued to raise the profile Irish music was gaining beyond the Irish community. This entry into the recording industry was key in spreading all Irish music, not just McNamara’s Band type vaudeville songs.

The Irish market was spotted as a lucrative seam to mine in the early years of recording in America. New York labels such as Emerald, Gaelic and New Republic were enthusiastically pursing the diaspora community with Irish music, or at least a version of it.

Soon, bigger companies such as Columbia moved in, too after being impressed by the success of specialist labels. So in America, Irish music was on its very winding way from being a strange niche music to becoming a viable commercial enterprise. The focus moved from paddywhackeray to what one might call ‘authentic’ Irish music — the jigs, and the reels and the slow airs that are the backbone of the tradition.

Millions had left Ireland for the New World, and in America the music flourished – in time it would awaken interest in the tradition back home.

Francis O’Neill, a Chicago police

chief collected the single largest collection of Irish traditional music ever published, 120 years ago in 1903. Also at that time musicians such as fiddler Michael Colman and piper Patsy Tuohy recorded material which eventually made its way to Ireland. Traditional music – by now close to being extinct in Ireland – suddenly became popular again; the “if-it’s-good-enough-for-

the-Yanks-then-begod-it’s-goodenough-for-us” syndrome kicked in. Irish music in Ireland staged a revival.

True innovation happened in America too.

The Flanagan brothers Joe, Louis, and Mike, Waterford- born emigrants to the US developed their unique style of ensemble playing on accordion, guitar and banjo. Although largely forgotten today, they were undoubtedly the first Irish musicians to incorporate the guitar into Irish music – the accordion had been present in Irish music since the mid 19th century, and the banjo may have been used in the later years of the 19th century. But all three instruments together was, quite simply, ground breaking., and the use of the guitar revolutionary.

Exactly 100 years ago in in 1923 the recording company signed them. Their album Tunes We Like To Play On Paddy’s Day was a skilful mix of Irish traditional forms with American vaudeville comic songs.

But Irish America’s most predominant musical image was a body of songs that were a celebration of being Irish, although coupled with the mainstream music of America. Judy Garland, with her very distant Co. Meath ancestry, recorded The Wearing of the Green for the film Little Nellie Kelly, adapted from the stage version of the show George M. Cohan. The song was ultimately dropped, but the show’s other big number It’s a Great Day for the Irish became an enduring hit.

The Broadway musical The Heart Of Paddy Whack (1914) came up with another Olcott song, A Little Bit of Heaven Fell Out of the Sky and They Called it Ireland co-written by Chauncey, Jacob Keirn Brennan and Ernest Ball.

Other nationalities had by now jumped on the Irish bandwagon. I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen was written by a German-American,

Thomas P Westendorf, for his wife Jennie. Publishers, spotting the marketability of the Irish American market, changed Frau Westendorf’s name to Kathleen.

The diaspora in Britain has indulged in this type of nostalgia too, of course, but has also quietly gone about the business of more or less inventing the traditional Irish pub music session and contributing the likes of A Fairytale of New York to the Irish canon.

The seisún, as it is now antiquated to, is largely the product of the Irish emigrant population of Britain. A Fairytale of New York, although an American story, is the direct descendant of the traditional Irish session in London, and a world away from When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

The song expresses the ex-pat’s dreams of a better world, sung with the lyricism of the Irish tradition; but this time combined with the energy of punk. The people who listened to the Pogues perform their céilí-billy live in the pubs of north London recognised this specific celebration of the emigrant experience.

Thus Irish music made its way through the 20th century, crisscrossing from Ireland to Britain to America, and back again. Riverdance in the mid 1990s did as much as any single event to enhance the publicising of Irish music round the world in the 20th century. In essence, Riverdance started after an Irish American dancer won a competition for European singers.

In a way it is an apt metaphor for Irish music itself. Ireland today is recognised as having one of the richest musical heritages in the world. But to arrive in the twenty first century with a vibrant tradition requires a lot of effort, and several diverse ingredients – not least the emigrant experience, whether it’s When Irish Eyes are Smiling or A Fairytale of New York

SEMINAL BAND: The Flanagan Brothers

SHEET MUSIC: When Irish Eyes are Smiling Picture: Library of Congress, public domain

MAL ROGERS look at the Irish diaspora’s contribution to the Irish tradition in this year of musical anniversaries

Thus Irish music made its way through the 20th century, crisscrossing from Ireland to Britain to America, and back again

Mrs Brown returns to the small screen

MRS Brown is set to return for a fourth mini-series. Created by Brendan O’Carroll, the series is a BBC Studios Comedy Production in partnership with BOC-PIX and RTÉ

A regular feature of Christmas schedules for over a decade, this marks the first mini-series run since 2013 with four new episodes. Filming is about to begin, with transmission slated for later this year.

Brendan O’Carroll said: “This mini-series was actually planned for 2021. Having been thwarted twice, firstly by Covid-19 and then by a post Covid shortage of studios, it’s fantastic to, at last, have the chance to make it happen. Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats.”

Josh Cole, Head of Comedy, BBC Studios said: “There’s no one quite like Mrs. Brown. An absolute force of outrageous wit and slapstick that has audiences hooked and belly laughing. It’s great to be back.”

All 43 previous episodes of Mrs Brown’s Boys are available on BBC iPlayer.

EVA CASSIDY AND THE LSO

EVA Marie Cassidy was an American singer and guitarist known for the ethereal purity of her voice and her interpretations of jazz, blues and folk music. She was from Washington DC, and most of her singing career was round the clubs and pubs of the US capital.

Of Irish extraction, she was brought to the attention of British and Irish audiences when her versions of Fields of Gold and Over the Rainbow were played by Mike Harding and Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2

Following the overwhelming response, a camcorder recording of Over the Rainbow, taken at Blues Alley in Washington by her friend Bryan McCulley, was shown on BBC Two’s Top of the Pops 2. It had been shot six months before Eva died of cancer at the age of 33. Shortly afterwards, the compilation album Songbird climbed to the top of the British albums chart

The latest development in the posthumous career of Eva Cassidy, whose estate is managed by her parents, Hugh and Barbara, is perhaps the most surprising of all. Cassidy’s handful of recordings are intimate and lo-fi; either just her voice against an acoustic guitar or with a band at live dates, where the sound of glasses clinking and people chatting threatens to subsume the onstage performance. Now, using

AI Cassidy’s voice has been isolated from original recordings and set against the London Symphony Orchestra in new arrangements by the composer Christopher Willis. The album, entitled I Can Only Be Me, has Songbird as the lead single.

Some live tracks, originally recorded in clubs around Washington, have been restored and enhanced by AI.

Dana’s musical tribute to Patrick

Former Eurovision winner Dana launches a new song in honour of St Patrick

DANA Rosemary Scallon this week launched a new song in honour of St Patrick at The Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, Co. Down.

Light The Fire written and recorded by Dana, recalls the legend of how St Patrick lit the Paschal flame on the hill at Slane in 433AD. Patrick is reputed to have lit the flame in 433 in defiance of High King Laoire. The story says that the fire could not be doused by anyone but Patrick,

Dana has said the inspiration for the song goes back more than a decade when the idea was first suggested to her by her brother-in-law, the late Father Kevin Scallon. Fr Scallon believed that a special hymn was required to mark St Patrick’s Day.

Dana paid tribute to The Saint Patrick Centre, particularly its director, Dr Tim Campbell, for helping to bring the project to fruition.

Dr Campbell said it was a privilege that Dana had chosen the centre, the world’s only permanent exhibition of St Patrick, to launch the new song

“It was here in Downpatrick that St Patrick began his mission,” said Dr Campbell. “The Centre is renowned for telling the authentic story of Patrick, the slave who found true freedom and whose message of love and faith continues to echo down the centuries. The song has a great message of hope and we look forward to sharing it both at home and abroad.”

The song coincides with the relaunch on the same day of a redesigned exhibition at The Saint Patrick Centre. The exhibition has been relaunched with support from Tourism NI.

St Patrick is reputedly buried nearby in Down Cathedral, which overlooks the centre.

Light The Fire has been recorded with help from the male voice choir from the Schola Cantorum in St Peter’s Cathedral Belfast. James McConnell, Director of Music said the choir was delighted to be part of the project. “It’s a really wonderful song. It’s very moving spiritually. Patrick is the one who brought faith to the island and we owe him a lot.”

Also helping out in the vocal department are two singers from the Church of Ireland in Downpatrick, the Rev. Adrian Dorrian, Vicar of Down Cathedral, and John McGrath a singer, musician and band leader locally in Co. Down. Mr McGrath, originally from Kenya, said the song was “very Celtic” and “very apt”, as well as being a beautiful melody.

Other musicians involved in the project

include Martin McAllister on guitar, Joanna Doran on violin, Gerry Brown on keyboards & vocals, Martin Og McAllister on double bass, along with Maria Fox on vocals.

Dana was born Rosemary Brown in Islington, London one of seven children to Derry parents. Aged 5 the family relocated to Derry where the young Rosemary was brought up in the Bogside and Creggan estates.

She won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1970 aged 18. All Kinds of Everything then became a major hit.

Subsequently, as Dana Rosemary Scallon she followed a political and television career, both in Ireland and the US. She was elected as an MEP for Connacht-Ulster in 1999, but two runs at the Irish presidency proved unsuccessful.

Grainne Conroy

KNEES UP MRS BROWN: The new series about the Dublin mammy is about to begin recording

Dana at the recording session

Actor and comedian share roots The ‘Oscars’ of traditional music

ACTORS Hugh Bonneville and John Bishop discovered a ‘staggering’ link in their ancestral history while exploring their Irish roots for ITV show DNA Journey.

The Downton Abbey star and the stand-up comedian both knew they were of Irish heritage and headed to Dublin to find out more about their families’ past.

And the pair, whose paths first crossed when they met during the Covid pandemic, discovered a bizarre coincidence involving their ancestors that mirrored their recently-formed friendship.

Lockdown hampered Bishop’s opportunities to get to know people after relocating to the South Downs in southern England, but he struck up a friendship with Bonneville after a chance meeting at a vaccine centre where the actor was volunteering.

Incredibly, on the latest episode of DNA Journey, the unlikely friends then discovered that their ancestors worked simultaneously in shops just four doors apart on the same street in Dublin.

“That is staggering, to be less than 30 yards from each other,” said Bishop.

The comedian’s great-greatgreat-grandfather on his maternal line, Andrew Keegan,

SUDOKU

SHARED PAST: Hugh Bonneville and John Bishop Pictures: Getty Images

worked at renowned instrument makers J. McNeill’s on Capel Street.

Meanwhile, Bonneville’s great-great-grandfather on his maternal line, John Freeman Sr, worked a stone’s throw away at Boland’s bakery.

Bishop then asked ancestry expert Brad Argent if it was likely the pair knew each other.

“They’re four doors down from each other, it’s a bakery – where did he buy his lunch?!” quipped Argent.

A stunned Bishop said to Bonneville: “I thought it was a coincidence you were at the vaccine centre!”

Nor was that the only coincidence.

Argent revealed that Keegan,

CROSSWORD

No.

Clues Across

1. Lump me cert up here in Kilkenny. (10)

6. On this, you keep details of a cheque you have written. (4)

10. Melody. (5)

11. Jail wherein one will find the marriageable lady in good health. (9)

12. Held protectively in one’s arms. (7)

15. Bury a soccer team from Milan. (5)

17. Famous English Public School.

(4)

18. Woodwind instrument. (4)

19. A bird may be a dam. (5)

21. Plume. (7)

23. Pertaining to the nose. (5)

24. Eye infection caused by the pen to the East. (4)

25. Cereal used to  make porridge. (4)

26. Permit. (5)

28. Wherein dramatic surgery is performed? (7)

33. The eagle-eyed witnessed the destruction of Bart’s oven. (9)

34. City in Nebraska. (5)

35. Rent to Roscommon. (4)

36. The intruder might make the Press stare. (10)

a supporter of Irish nationalism, and bakers’ union official Freeman likely both took part in the same march on July 4, 1843.

The procession – which was led by Daniel O’Connell as it made its way down Capel Street – was supported by bakers and instrument makers, among other professions, and called for a repeal of the Acts of Union.

“We become friends and then we found that generations before, our grandfathers of various stages were working within 30 yards of each other,” said Bishop.

“And then were on a march on the same day that started the path of the discussion for Irish independence.

“It’s amazing.”

Also in the episode, Bishop hears of a remarkable coincidence involving his childhood home in Cheshire and another Irish great-great-greatgrandfather, Mayo man Patrick Reardon.

Meanwhile, Bonneville is regaled with stories about his grandfather’s sister, Fanny Freeman, ‘the it girl of Dublin’ at the turn of the century. n You can watch series 5, episode 1 of DNA Journey on ITVX.

Gerard Donaghy

Clues Down

1. It can be measured in minutes. (4)

2. Mom’s hours preparing these fungi! (9)

3. Stiffened a drink. (5)

4. Hawser. (5)

5. It sounds like you practise needlecraft to make a single item! (4)

7. Nice surprise provided by the Mad ‘Atter. (5)

8. Campanologist. (4-6)

9. The conference remains to be dispersed. (7)

13. Alleyway. (4)

14. What you get from this person might be filling! (7)

16. Approximate piece of traffic infrastructure? (10)

20. Might the wary waste rivers and canals? (9)

21. Blooms. (7)

22. One of America’s Great Lakes. (4)

27. Powerful light beam. (5)

29. Detests, abhors. (5)

30. Scent a romantic beginning. (5)

31. Passable kind of market. (4)

TG4’s Gradam Ceoil awards, now in its 26th year, will air live on TG4 on April 23 from University Concert Hall in Limerick. The annual Gradam Ceoil Awards, also known as ‘the Oscars of traditional music’, pay tribute to musicians who have advanced, strengthened, and preserved traditional music in Ireland.

The full list of TG4 Gradam Ceoil 2023 recipients is as follows:

n Ceoltóir /Musician – Mick O’Brien

n Amhránaí /Singer – Síle Denvir

n Ceoltóir Óg/Young Musician – Méabh

Smyth

n Gradam Saoil/Lifetime Achievement –Fintan Vallelly

n Cumadóir / Composer – Maurice Lennon

n Grúpa Ceoil/Music Group – Mick, Louise, Michelle Mulcahy

Musician 2023 will be awarded to Mick O’Brien. The piper and tin whistle player was born in Dublin in 1961 and began learning to play the pipes at age nine from Leo Rowsome, Seán Seery and Mick Touhey at the Thomas Street Pipers’ Club. He later attended classes at Na Píobairí Uilleann and became inspired by the playing of Patsy Touhey. His father, the influential accordion player Dinny O’Brien, was also a significant source of inspiration.

Throughout his career, he has conducted masterclasses on the pipes across Ireland, Britain, Europe and the US, and performed regularly as a solo artist and with other musicians including the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and also with Norwegian groups Vamp, Hanne Krogh, and Secret Garden. TG4 is available in Britain through various streaming platforms.

No.

International Women’s Day

PICTURES BY MALCOLM MCNALLY PHOTOGRAPHY

THE icap (Immigrant Counselling and Psychotherapy) annual lunch to celebrate International Women’s Day took place on at the Mansion House in the City of London.

Among those present were the Lady Mayoress of the City of London Felicity Lyons and Deirdre Fraser, wife of Irish Ambassador Martin Fraser.

Keynote speaker at the lunch was Irish TV and radio presenter, model and actress Laura Whitmore.

icap was founded in 1996 and provides accessible, culturally sensitive counselling and psychotherapy, mainly to the Irish community in Britain, with clinical centres in Finsbury Park, London and Digbeth, Birmingham. Tara

Vickie Butterworth and Janice Flynn

Christina Noble and Kelly Bater

Maria Pratt from FM Conway, icap CEO Catherine Hennessy, Deirdre Fraser, Jacqueline O’Donovan, Laura Whitmore, Lady Mayoress of the City of London Felicity Lyons, Corrine Lee, Tara Cronin, icap

Margaret Cronin, Patricia and Stacey Hall, Liz Coffey and Charlotte O’Brien

Dympna McKenna, Miriam Hilliard and Kate Fuller

Cronin from icap, Laura Whitmore and Maria Pratt from lunch sponsor FM Conway

HOME&GARDEN CHARLIE WILKINS’ GARDENING COLUMN

In the garden this week...

 RAZING THE PAMPAS: The late spring has delayed many jobs around the garden, not least the reduction of overly large pampas grass. There are those who burn these – but only in spring.

The grass becomes better for the removal of withered growth low down amid the plant’s crown. A benevolent bonfire helps them into the new season but it does a lot

QUESTIONS &ANSWERS

Can you suggest a low-growing evergreen for a rockery? I have plenty of spring and summer perennials but I›m somewhat short on low shrubs. Anything under two feet would suit my requirements. There’s a lovely introduction of Pittosporum now available and it’s called ‘Silver Ball’. I have it myself and find it is evergreen, slow growing, and tidy in stature. Also try some of the Hebe family. Look for Green Globe, Armstrongii, or Silver Dollar, available now in garden outlets.  Like many of us, you live in a county which gets a fair share of rain so add plenty of grit to the ground as you plant.

more too, were you to enquire.

To begin, those curled and withered ‘shavings’ which choke the central core of the plant are home to slugs and snails and thousands upon thousands of ‘fat pigs’ (woodlice), especially when the ground beneath these grasses is on the damp side.

As well, large plants could easily have one or more families of mice all comfortably squatting in the kind of accommodation that breeds utter contentment. You’ll be wanting to evict all of these so get cracking.

King of the spring border

WHEN I last gave mention to the Crown Imperial, Fritillaria imperialis, it was early autumn and the intention then was to encourage readers to purchase their requirements.

This past fortnight, a large pot containing half a dozen have surfaced and are now over nine inches tall. As mentioned then, the crown imperial is an early riser and although no signs of growth will be visible until early spring, the roots I assure you, become active from September.

be lost. I like to use ‘Sun Disc’, a superb short-stemmed hybrid with perfectly rounded straw-yellow flowers and tiny golden cups. This late variety will in time increase to make a complimentary spectacle barely seven inches high, becoming in the process your highlight spring planting year after year.

Hebe ‘Silver Dollar’

Picture: Getty Images

My teak garden seats go very discoloured and every year I have to clean them anew which is timeconsuming and expensive.

Next time you have your outdoor furniture nice and clean, apply a solution of white spirit and boiled linseed oil! You’ll be delighted with the results but repeat the application yearly.

GARDENING PROBLEM?

Then send your question to Charlie at ctfwilkins@gmail.com

These distinctive bulbs are indisputably king of the spring border for they stand sentinel-like among April’s emerging foliage, rising to an impressive three feet, its blooms of pendant bells, surrounded by a tufted crown of pineapple-like leaves. I have tried to avoid mixing an open garden planting of the orange form with other flowers for they might detract from its regal status! It must be admitted that the dark orange red ‘Aurora’ (and darker rusty-red ‘Rubra Major’) can look really striking when grown alongside a pale yellow planting of narcissi. This can be difficult however, for you must choose a daffodil variety which will bloom at roughly the same time, otherwise the effect will

Having spent good money on three bulbs you are unlikely to forgo an extra few cents towards their well-being, so an annual mulching with similar components will be appreciated

A group of the very popular deep lemon yellow Crown Imperial (Lutea maxima) will always look striking against a dark background such as an evergreen hedge. Try it, it really does work! Three bulbs should be the minimum number used whilst seven and nine would make a spectacle unmatched by anyone else in your locality. They won’t come cheap and large fresh bulbs are going to cost up to €5 each Believe you me,

Picture: Getty Images

it will be the best €15 or €20 you’ll ever spend. and if you follow my advice on the best method of cultivation, you’ll have them for a lifetime.

Fritillaria, like a royal feast when it comes to looking after their constitution, so try to provide a deep, fertile soil which has been enriched with rotted manure and a liberal dressing of garden compost.

Having spent good money on three bulbs you are

TOPICAL TIP

NURSERIES and garden centres currently have good selections of container-grown perennials which should be planted out before the end of this month, certainly before the middle or April.  Choice eryngiums, monardas, and fantastic blue poppies (meconopsis sheldonii) are three which come easily to mind.

As regards the blue poppy, it should be pointed out that whilst popular feeling runs against flowers whose days are brief, this particular poppy is an exception.

unlikely to forgo an extra few cents towards their wellbeing, so an annual mulching with similar components will be appreciated.

Less regally, the bulbs (and their newly emerging foliage) do not smell particularly pleasant when handled; they give off a distinct foxy odour but don’t let this deter you from trying them or you’ll miss one of the wonders of the spring garden.

FOLLOW YOUR NOSE

Having said all that, be aware that these large bulbs, like most garden plants, require soil which drains well. They are not happy if they become waterlogged in winter. As always, grit provides the perfect solution. Some pot grown specimens are now available for sale or you can wait until early autumn.

Whichever, do get yourself a few.

I HAVE in mind today the all-pervading perfume which rises from a small collection of azaleas growing in a corner of the late spring border. Sold as Ghent hybrids these choice shrubs have fragrant long-tubed, honeysuckle-like flowers. Others, sold as Knaphill and Exbury hybrids also have a heavenly scent and a huge range of pastel colours.

Seek one or two with a good cent this week or next. Simply go along to any large garden outlet and search around using your sense of smell, rather than sight.

You might be surprised as to what your nose will lead you to.

RELIABLE ROYALS: A group of three Crown Imperials, whether grown in pots or the open garden will give satisfactory results for years on end

Blue Poppy (Meconopsis)

Pampas

Boeing, Boeing, gone!

Irish firm in Scotland will deconstruct American planes

Ken Fitzgibbon, CEO of EirTrade Aviation says that with the first B787s approaching the 12-year check, the disassembly of these two B787 aircraft could not come at a better time for operators & maintenance facilities of the aircraft looking to source used serviceable material (USM) for the aircraft to reduce the cost of maintenance.

EIRTRADE Aviation, the global aviation asset management and trading company headquartered in Dublin, has commenced the disassembly of the world’s first two B787-8s.

First flown commercially

in 2011, the 787-8 or Dreamliner, remains Boeing’s flagship wide-body aircraft and, to date, has never been retired from commercial service.

But as the Dreamliner fleet reaches the ripe old age of

ten, the aircraft will soon be too expensive to keep flying and so are more valuable for spare parts.

The two 10-year-old aircraft will be disassembled simultaneously off-site, with parts expected to be available soon.

“As no B787s have been retired from commercial service to date, this is a world’s first. We are entering into a specialist area and hope to become a market leader in the provision of USM for the platform which will reduce the cost of maintenance events for B787 aircraft owners.”

The disassembly process will be coordinated in Prestwick, Scotland rather than at their own facility in Knock, for logistical reasons.

Fitzgibbon confirms that EirTrade will be managing the inventory of assets with a view to selling, leasing, or exchanging material removed from both aircraft, which will be stored in one of the Company’s facilities in Ireland. “We have, of course, already inducted Boeing and Airbus wide-bodies for disassembly and are no stranger to disassembling new technology aircraft having previously been involved in the first A380 aircraft to be retired and one of the first companies to disassemble the CFM56-7BE engine.”

THE DREAMLINER

The Boeing Dreamliner, officially known as the Boeing 787, is a popular commercial aircraft developed by the Boeing Company. It’s a twin-engine jet aircraft designed to be more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly than previous models of aircraft.

One of the key features of the Dreamliner is its lightweight construction, achieved through the use of advanced materials such as carbon fibre composites.

The Dreamliner is also designed to be more comfortable for passengers – you may have noticed this if you’ve travelled on one of these aircraft – British Airways uses the aircraft on several of its routes. It features larger windows that can be dimmed electronically, as well as a cabin air system that maintains a higher humidity level to reduce passenger dehydration and fatigue. The aircraft also has a quieter engine, which reduces noise levels in the cabin.

Boeing has produced several variants of the Dreamliner, including the 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10. These variants differ in their seating capacity and range, with the 787-8 being the smallest and the 787-10 being the largest.

SUPPORTING

REACHiNG RETIREMENT AGE: The Boeing Dreamliner

Edited by Mal Rogers

Flagging up the Banner County

CATRIONA GRAY considers the considerable attractions of Clare

A DEDICATED new tourism website for Co. Clare has been launched.

VisitClare.ie is an initiative of Clare County Council and it is billed as a comprehensive website dedicated to showcasing everything Ireland’s Banner County has to offer visitors.

The site features key information on tourism attractions and activities in every town and village in Clare, information on local accommodation providers, and events and festivals taking place throughout the county. There is also a key focus on the heritage and culture of the county and how visitors can learn more about Clare’s rich past and traditions.

“VisitClare.ie ultimately acts as a one-stop shop for anyone interested in finding out more about County Clare,” Councillor Tony O’Brien, Cathaoirleach of Clare County Council said.

The Wild Atlantic Way wends along Clare’s coastline, through pastel-painted villages, past misty islands, and skirts great sea loughs.

This is where the Old World comes to an abrupt end with towering sea cliffs looking down on the foaming Atlantic below. The county has many attractions.

The ultimate cliff hangers

Here, on Ireland’s pugnacious westerly shoreline, the Great Wall of Thomond plunges some 700 feet into the Atlantic Ocean in dramatic style.

Star of Instagram, selfies, postcards, adverts, tourism videos and countless films, the Cliffs of Moher are one of the most operatic views in all of Europe. Go on a Tuesday afternoon in November, long after the coaches have gone, and stand and wonder. The view here is unsurpassable. Huge towering cliffs, plumes of spray from the angry ocean, and thousands of seabirds will keep you mesmerised for hours.

The visitor centre attracted a lot of

controversy when first announced, but it seems to me relatively unobtrusive and more or less empathetic with the surroundings. And the first-floor restaurant with its panoramic views and informative displays plus relatively cheap, hearty fare (sandwiches, soups etc) is certainly a welcome addition.

Clare’s finest rock group

The Burren is, quite simply, unique. A harsh, strange, hauntingly beautiful region, it occupies most of the top north western corner of Clare.

Spectral limestone pavements loom out of the turf, crisscrossed by deep trenches called grykes. In spring and summer these are filled with wild flowers, spaghnum moss and piles of heather; in winter the wind keens across this landscape like some wailing banshee. (Oops. Sorry about that – but it’s the king of landscape where you could believe all sorts of demonic carry-on could happen.)

The Burren is internationally important for its botany – with 75 per cent of the native species occurring here. Its geology, flora, caves, archaeology, history and farming traditions set it apart as a place of great mystery and beauty.

You’ll find great stone tombs nearly 4000 years old, cooking stones going back two thousand years, churches a thousand years old, and mass stones dating back to the penal times.

Holy appropriate

His Holiness Pope Francis has many titles. He’s Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor to the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church and he is also Bishop of Kilfenora. It’s a long story that has its roots in mediaeval times – but was confirmed by Papal Dictate in

1883, and was basically brought in to settle a diocesan anomaly that was split between Munster and Connacht. Peace now reins.

With that in mind it’s wholly appropriate that one of the holiest islands in Ireland should be nearby.

Inis Cealtra, or Holy Island in East Clare, is dotted with crosses, cairns and Anchorites’ cells. Believed to have been founded by St Caimin in the 7th century, the religious settlement has a classic example of a round tower.

East Clare preserves the best of everything in a fresh environment. Dotted with almost 40 lakes, Lough Derg and the Lough Derg Blueway provide water activities of all kinds, including kayaking, paddle boarding, windsurfing, cruising, boat trips, and game and coarse angling. Walking and cycling, horse riding and golf are some of the other activity options.

Go down a Clare hole

Deep beneath the Clare surface is a network of mesmerising caves where geology shows what she can do. The Aillwee cave system in the karst landscape of the Burren is a world of rivers, waterfalls, winding underground passages and lofty subterranean chambers house one of Europe’s finest and most accessible collection of stalagmites and stalactites. Seeping acid water, lime and carbon dioxide have interacted for millions of years to produce chambers of silent beauty. Only the Aillwee Cave itself can be explored without pot-holing experience – but to see this is experience enough. The cave, discovered in 1944, was opened to the public in 1976. Approximately 300 metres of cave passage is open to the public, one third of the total length of the cave. At the Aillwee Burren Experience guides will accompany and inform you during a 45-minute stroll quest through the beautiful

caverns – over bridged chasms, under weird formations and alongside the thunderous waterfall which sometimes gently sprays the unsuspecting visitor! Marvel at the frozen waterfall and learn about the now extinct brown bears’ bones – dating back some 10,000 years.

Wander through the county capital

A walk through Ennis will take you to the fore-mentioned Franciscan Friary. Occupying a tranquil spot by the River Fergus, this is just the sort of peaceful place to recuperate from the previous evening’s revelries. Through the haze, pay particular attention to the McMahon Royal Tomb, fashioned from carved slabs of stone in the 15th century – said to be the finest of its kind in Ireland.

Further up the town you’ll come to the De Valera Museum, a beautifully converted Presbyterian church.

Other points to look out for – Steele’s Rock in the River Fergus, carved like a lion, and commemorating ‘Honest Tom’ Steele, a chum of Daniel O’Connell; the monument to O’Donnell himself – his election to parliament is the reason Clare is referred to as the ‘Banner County.’

Play or listen to some music

As Christy Moore says, if it’s music you want, sure go to Clare.

Co. Clare has a strong music culture – much of today’s traditional music has been shaped by the Clare style. It has spawned legendary groups such as the Kilfenora Céilí Band, the Tulla Céilí Band, Stockton’s Wing, and is the home of Sharon Shannon and Martin Hayes.

Most towns and villages have at the very least one pub where a good session can be enjoyed – Doolin is particularly renowned, and Gus O’Connor’s is one of the main venues.

The 150-year-old pub has nightly sessions –and also serves local mussels in garlic with home-baked crusty bread.

A SPANISH

A recent report by Church authorities in Cordoba seems

THE Bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández

González, says the Catholic Church in Cordoba needs to “correct” what it considers an excessive Islamic vision of the city’s past. The main target of a report into the “tourist perspective” of the city is the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba.

The bishop wants to ensure that Cordoba is seen a Christian city, with the cathedral-mosque primarily regarded as a Christian church, never mind its Islamic heritage.

The ecclesiastical report criticised what it considered a “cultural reduction” that helps “transcend the brilliant past of Visigothic, Roman and Christian influence”.

The major Spanish newspaper El Pais, which has leaked the report, described the bishop’s views as “an attack against the clear and indisputable Islamic influence of the entire archaeological ensemble”.

Which would be a travesty.

The former Roman outpost of Cordoba is one of the triumvirate of Moorish redoubts which came to make up the glittering Caliphate of Al Andalus: Granada is dark and dreamy, Seville permanently dedicated to communal gaiety – no wonder more operas are set here than in any other city –while Cordoba is learned, beautiful and tranquil.

Modern day Spain had its origins in the 8th century when the Moors began to move in from north Africa. Here in the furnace heat of Andalusia, Islam and Christianity meshed with Jew and Gypsy to produce one of the richest cultures Europe has ever known. Centuries later, even the Inquisition failed to expunge this glorious culture from the southern Spanish character. It survives in the architecture, in flamenco music, in the poetry, the literature, even the appearance of the people. The food too – if you thought Spanish food was just olive oil with bits of stuff floating in it, this place

will soon disabuse you of that And nowhere better to experience it than in Cordoba, this stylish city, once the biggest and richest city in the western world by a long chalk. Mind you, that was as long ago as the thirties.

That’s the 930s – in 929AD Cordoba was made the capital of the Western Caliphate, third only in importance to Damascus and Constantinople, with a popu-

trees, its palms, and bougainvillea festooning the walls, is a paradise.

The Alcazar de Los Reyes Cristianos, the Palace of the Christian Kings, didn’t start out as a Christian building either. It was begun by the Caliph Abd al-Rahman in 936. Ten thousand workmen, a slave family 4,000 strong and growing, and a harem of reputedly 6,300 women were on-site. For their daily sustenance caravans brought thousands of pounds of meat, cartloads of rice, and gallons of wine. Eventually the glittering building was both a power-house and pleasure dome. But despite all those Abd al-Rahman declared that he had known only fourteen days peace in his life. Presumably those harems can be tricky enough to look after.

wildly exotic architecture and completely over-the-top flora. Something you could do very easily in Seneca’s hometown of Cordoba.

The philosopher was not without his detractors. In his own time he was widely considered to be a hypocrite or, at least, less than ‘stoic’ than the lifestyle he preached.

But who wouldn’t be in this exuberant, luxurious and beautiful place? It’s about the last place in the world where you might expect such a movement to be founded.

One of the finest places to contemplate all this, as Senneca would have done, is the Plaza del Potro, a quaint old square mentioned in Don

Quixote –Cervantes himself stayed at the inn opposite. You can still sit outside and enjoy a drink under the orange trees, day-dreaming about fighting windmills in La Mancha or wondering how stoical you would have been under the rule of Nero, or indeed the current Bishop of Cordoba.

lation of half a million people who were spiritually served by several hundred mosques.

The main mosque which is today Cordoba’s most striking feature. After the reconquest of Spain by the Christians in the 15th century, a Catholic cathedral was built in the middle of it.

As Charles V said in the 16th century to the cathedral authorities: “You have built here what could have been built as well anywhere else; and you have destroyed what was unique in the world.” But the authorities needed somewhere to put the offices of their Holy Inquisition, and this was their office.

Despite the presence of another building inside it, the Mosque, or Mezquita, is still one of the most breathtaking buildings in Europe. The red and white horseshoe arches provide an airy feel to the place, allowing for contemplation and prayer. The Patio de los Naranjos with its cleansing fountains its orange

Later, a philosopher –to whom Abd al-Rahman might have turned for solace an guidance – said: “We best endure any frustration that which we have prepared ourselves for and understand. And are hurt most by the frustration we least expect and can’t understand.” This was Seneca, the philosopher who founded Stoicism. He lived through the oppressive reigns of both Nero and Caligula, so probably knew what he was talking about.

When he was finally imprisoned he coped quite well. Stoically even. During what must have been intolerably tense years – expecting to be murdered at any time –the philosopher devoted himself to the study of nature. He studied the constellations, the mountains, the sea, earthquakes, lightning, and how they might all come about. The result of all this work was a six-volume work Questiones Naturales. It was remarkably inaccurate. In fact, the book is complete nonsense scientifically. Seneca’s understanding of the natural world was totally cak-handed.

But it seems such a wonderfully dotty, carefree thing to do; something in fact you could imagine doing yourself if seduced by sunshine, wine,

SERIOUS CHRISTIANITY Penitents prepare for a long Easter walk Picture: Getty Images

Patio de los Naranjos at The Mezquita in Cordoba Picture: Getty Images

Notification of Death MARTIN GRADY

Died peacefully on Monday, 27th February, 2023 at Moss Cottage Nursing Home, Ashton under Lyne. Martin, aged 77 of Droylsden, and formerly of Ballinagare, Co. Roscommon, will be deeply missed by his family, friends and all who knew him.

Funeral service to be held at Droyslden Cemetery Chapel on Friday 17th March 2023 at 11am.

Family flowers only please, donations if desired to Francis House Children’s Hospice.

Martin’s family request that those attending the funeral wear a touch of green to remember him, and to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. All enquiries, contact: N. Gill Funeral Directors, Droylsden: 0161 370 2129

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Kilkenny man’s cool nerves

Gavan Holohan showed himself to be equal to the big occasion when he coolly slotted two goals for Grimsby in the FA Cup tie against Southampton

BY CONOR O’DONOGHUE

AT the beginning of March, Grimsby Town pulled off a massive FA Cup upset when they beat Southampton 2-1 at St Mary’s.

The Mariners became the 13th side from the fourth division or below to beat top-flight opponents since the Football League was rebranded at the start of the 2004-05 campaign.

It was Grimsby’s fifth straight win against higher-league opposition in football’ oldest competition. The League 2 side has already beaten Plymouth Argyle, Cambridge United, Burton Albion, and Luton Town before they overcame Southampton in the fifth round.

Grimsby will now play another Premier League side, Brighton & Hove Albion, in the next round.

The man who helped them get there was Kilkenny native Gavan Holohan.

Holohan (31) scored Grimsby’s two goals in the game. A welltaken penalty in the first half was followed by another in the second half.

The former League of Ireland player took time out with The Irish Post to go over the famous night for the club.

For a refresh, a drab first half at St Mary’s sprang into life when VAR spotted a handball close to the end of the first half.

Southampton’s Brazilian Lyanco was adjudged to have handled Joshua Emmanuel’s

cross. According to a BBC commentator, Holohan had never taken a penalty at the senior level, but he proved equal to the task.

He coolly slotted the ball past Southampton’s keeper Alex McCarthy at the end of the first half and said in the interview with The Irish Post that he had taken penalties before but none of this magnitude.

“I’ve taken a few for Waterford and one for Galway, but none as big as that,” said Holohan. “It’s a different situation to be in; it’s a pressure kick. I suppose anyone who takes a penalty has a bit of relief when it goes in, so yeah, it was nice to see it go in.”

Grimsby went to the dressing room 1-0 up.

Holohan described the feeling in the Grimsby dressing room at half-time.

“It was pretty calm. We returned to the changing room, regrouped a bit, and calmed down,” Holohan added.

“You know, just after scoring at half-time, everyone was a bit hyped up. It was really about calming down and getting the points across in what we could have done better.

“It was just a few pointers. We knew we were going to have our backs to the walls. We were under no illusions about that. We were going to be put under pressure, and then we obviously were not expecting to be awarded another penalty, but we knew we were going to have to dig in, and it was going to be a big ask.”

After the restart, things would go from good to excellent for the fourth-division team.

Duje Caleta-Car, the other Southampton defender, slapped Grimsby’s Danilo Orsi in the back inside the 18-yard box, which prompted the ref to give another penalty.

Holohan repeated his first-half trick and sent the ball past McCarty into the left corner of his goal.

“To be honest, I hadn’t a clue what was going on. I saw Danilo, our striker. He just went to the floor, and I thought it was a nudge or a push in the back. I didn’t think much of it, and the next thing I saw was the ref pointing to the spot, so it was a weird feeling.”

Holohan says he was relaxed about putting Grimbsy 2-0 up on the night with the second penalty.

Despite the win, Holohan admitted that there was little time to celebrate because of future commitments in League 2

The Grimsby midfielder is a boyhood Manchester United fan and was eager to draw United in the next round, but that never came to pass: Grimsby will play Brighton away in the next round.

“It’s going to be a good day out, nice crowd, big stadium. You are testing yourself against top players, world-class ones. It will be a good experience.”

 The game at the Amex will take place on Sunday, March 19, and will be broadcast live on BBC One for the 2:15 kick-off.

Celtic man Johnston opts for international duties with the Republic

BY CONOR O’DONOGHUE

CELTIC winger Mikey Johnston has declared for the Republic of Ireland having received his FIFA international clearance.

Johnston, on loan at Portuguese Primeira Liga side Vitória Guimarães this season, has completed the eligibility process and is now available for selection for the Republic of Ireland.

Glasgow-born, Johnston qualifies for the Republic of Ireland through his grandfather who was from Derry. He started the eligibility process months ago after making Ireland manager Stephen Kenny aware of his desire to play for the Republic.

The 23-year old made his first-team debut in 2017 and has since gone on to win the Scottish Premiership three times with the Glasgow club, as well as two Scottish Cups and two Scottish League Cups.

He started in the 2019 Scottish Cup final where Celtic claimed a 2-1 victory over Hearts and also scored a decisive penalty in the 2020 Scottish Cup final where Celtic claimed a penalty shoot-out victory over the same opposition.

Johnston also has extensive European competition experience in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, scoring against French side Rennes SC in a 3-0 win in the 2020 addition of the competition.

Currently on loan in Portugal, Johnston has enjoyed an impressive season for Vitória where he has made 20 appearances in all competitions, scoring three goals and providing three assists.

“I’m delighted to declare for the Republic of Ireland and excited for what my future holds in an Ireland shirt,” said Mikey Johnston.

“Myself and my family have always

been proud of our Irish roots with my grandad hailing from Derry and to potentially now play for Ireland is something that really excites me.

“It’s up to me now to impress the manager and to get selected to the squad but my focus now is to break into that squad and to make an impact for the team in a big year for the team.

“I’ve always watched the Ireland matches and the atmosphere always looks incredible. I can’t wait to play at the Aviva Stadium and hopefully create some great moments for the team.”

Ireland manager Stephen Kenny said: “Mikey is an exciting player, a great individual talent and we’re delighted to see him declare for the Republic of Ireland.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him play at the Aviva Stadium, dribbling in the way that he can and we look forward to helping him fulfil his potential in an Ireland shirt.”

STRIKER: Gavan Holohan Pictures: Getty Images

BUGAA University Men’s Football Championship Final (After extra-time)  LIVERPOOL

University of Manchester claimed the Shield competition with a six-point victory over Dundee in Saturday’s final.

Teams – Sean McDermott’s vs Roger Casement’s:

JOHN MOORES

1-16  (19) UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL 1-13  (16)

BY ANTHONY MCLAUGHLIN

LJMU bounced back from the disappointment of February’s Corn na Mac Leinn competition by retaining their University Championship crown last Sunday in Glasgow.

In an all-Liverpool final, it was LJMU that finally broke the resolve of University of Liverpool in extra-time to claim a threepoint win to take the title in Clydebank. That loss to Mary Immaculate College, Thurles in the semifinal of the Corn na Mac Leinn was firmly put on the backburner as they headed to Scotland for Saturday’s group games, emerging unbeaten from Group B to set up a semi-final clash against old rivals Liverpool Hope which they won by seven points.

In the other semi-final, University of Liverpool edged Nottingham Trent by 0-10 to 1-05 to set up the Merseyside decider the following morning that began with a poignant minute’s silence for the late George McGuigan

– the Tyrone man synonymous with the GAA in Britain as President of the Provincial Council during the 1970s, as well as a player and Chairperson for Warwickshire and inter-county player from minor through to senior for his native county. The Moy native played for Warwickshire in the 1957 All-Ireland Junior Championship Final against Mayo and was a prominent referee both in Ireland and abroad, taking charge of the first Gaelic Football match held in Bahrain during his

time in the Middle East during the 1980s.

In the group game there was barely a point between the sides and this second encounter proved just as close with Liverpool leading for large periods before a strong finish by LJMU forced extra-time on a score line of 1-11 apiece. Yet it was in extra-time that LJMU showed their quality, forging a three-point lead that they refused to yield and remaining top dogs in University GAA in Britain. Meanwhile,

More silverware journeyed back to Merseyside last weekend as Liverpool’s John Mitchel’s emerged victorious during the Oisín 7’s tournament. The Ladies’ Football tournament at Old Bedians brought clubs from across England to Manchester on Saturday as part of the events to mark International Women’s Day – due to the poor weather last weekend it was not possible for Erin go Bragh to hold the 2023 EGB Women’s Festival in Birmingham, however it will return later in the season.

The league season in Warwickshire is now taking shape, with St. Brendan’s leading the way at the top of the Senior Football League. Meanwhile, Sean McDermott’s faced Roger Casement’s for the second time in three weeks last Sunday at Páirc na hÉireann with McDermott’s bagging their first points of the new season through a 5-11 to 3-09 success thanks largely to a bright first-half that saw them ten points to the good by the interval. It was a similar story for the two club’s Reserve sides with McDermott’s going top of Intermediate League B thanks to a 0-19 to 2-06 win over Casement’s.

SEAN MCDERMOTT’S: D Hallahan; J Rogers, D O’Brien, J Chapman, M Mannion, L Gilbride; N Gilbride, R Bennett; J Hallahan, C Dowling, T Monteith; J Powney, J Owens, F O’Brien.

ROGER CASEMENT’S: C Gallen; O Webb, C Kelly-Evans, P Kilkenny; S McKenna, J Gavin, P Heffernan; J Ferron, J Keogh; D Bonnar, L Towey, R Smith; M Walsh, T Massey, D Leavy.

Referee: M. McLoughlin

Liverpool John Moores bounce back to lift University title LONDON CONFIDENCE AHEAD OF RELEGATION DECIDER

Allianz National Hurling Leagues

LONDON      5-16  (31)

SLIGO           2-20  (26)

LONGFORD           0-18  (18)

LANCASHIRE        0-10  (10)

BY ANTHONY MCLAUGHLIN

LONDON secured a much needed victory against relegation rivals Sligo last Saturday in a bottom of the table clash at McGovern Park in Division 2B of the National Hurling League.

With London unable to catch either Donegal or Tyrone ahead of the them in the table, they will once again meet Sligo on Saturday 25th March in the relegation play-off to determine who will drop down to Division 3A. Given the familiarity in the offing, Saturday’s five-point win for Kevin McMullan’s side should prove a confidence booster ahead of that crunch game at the end of the month.

Andrew Kilcullen opened the scoring for the visitors with a free before Eoin Comerford

added a second for the Yeats County but a penalty for London converted by Emmett’s wing-forward Ronan Crowley gave the home side a foothold in the first-half. Two goals before the interval ensured that London headed into the changing rooms five points to the good, their second goal coming from Dáithí Barron before captain Jack Goulding added a third past Jimmy Gordon in the Sligo goal.

That came with Sligo reduced to fourteen men when Comerford picked up a red card but another couple of Kilcullen frees and a Conor Hanniffy goal kept Sligo in the hunt before half-time. However, London started the second-half with aplomb, Sean Treacy’s full-forward Eoghan McHugh grabbing his sides fourth goal to extend their advantage –now leading by nine, the first league points of the year loomed on the horizon for McMullan’s side.

Both sides traded frees as the second-half wore on – Crowley for London and Kilcullen for Sligo – but it was the visitors who were finishing strongly despite their reduced numbers, Hanniffy’s point from play bringing the margin down to five. With the game

heading into added-time Sligo made matters more uncomfortable for the home side with their second goal, Tomás Cawley making it a three-point game. Three dropped to two thanks to a Diarmuid Hanniffy point but London had one more sting in the tail, McHugh securing the win with a fifth London goal right before the final whistle.

London welcome Meath to McGovern Park this Sunday, themselves unbeaten and clear at the top of the table, in what is another home game free to attend at Ruislip. While it promises to be their toughest test of the season so far, it affords McMullan’s side the chance to get more valuable minutes under their belt ahead of a potential relegation decider the following week against Sligo: throw-in is set for 1pm.

Meanwhile in Division 3B, Lancashire’s bid to make the promotion play-off effectively ended last Saturday when Liam Knocker’s side dropped to an eight-point loss away in Longford. Cavan’s victory the following afternoon over Leitrim means that Lancashire cannot leapfrog either Longford or Leitrim to secure third-place in the table to qualify for the play-offs, given their two rivals have already defeated Lancashire and play each

other in the final round of games on Saturday. Lancashire will finish their league campaign against Warwickshire this Saturday, the Round Five game scheduled for Páirc na hÉireann in Birmingham to throw-in at 2pm.

For both counties, it’s one final competitive fixture ahead of the upcoming Lory Meagher Cup – with both counties having only one victory between them after six games, victory in this fixture affords the chance for a much needed shot in the arm ahead of opening Championship matches against Longford for Lancashire and Cavan for Warwickshire.

Teams – London vs Sligo:

LONDON: C Hackett; E Phelan, S Bardon, K Fennelly; L Hayes, S Glynn, E Ryan; D Heffernan, R Lodge; N Broderick, D Dawson, R Crowley; D Barron, E McHugh, J Goulding.

SLIGO: J Gordon; N Kilcullen, J Weir, K O’Kennedy; N Feehily, R McHugh, G Connolly; D Cawley, F Connolly; C Hanniffy, E Comerford, T Cawley; E O’Donoghue, A Kilcullen, J McHugh.

Referee: B. Keon (Galway)

Liverpool John Mitchel’s at the Oisin 7s Tournament Picture: courtesy of John Mitchel’s

James Gavin for Casement’s

Grimsby’s

Spat over Irish chat on BBC

NEW IRISH SOCCER CREST UNVEILED

BY GERARD DONAGHY

EDDIE Jordan, the former owner of Formula One team Jordan Grand Prix, has claimed a BBC producer ‘went absolutely ballistic’ after he spoke Irish while working as a pundit for the broadcaster.

The Dubliner made the claim while speaking to former McLaren driver David Coulthard on the pair’s new podcast, Formula for Success.

Jordan, a former driver who founded Jordan Grand Prix in 1991, worked as an F1 analyst for the BBC from 2009 to 2015.

As he and Coulthard discussed their encounters with famous F1 fans, Jordan recounted a meeting in Montreal with fellow Gaeilgeoir Michael Fassbender, who was there with some of his X-Men co-stars.

“Michael, with such a strong German name, was actually brought up and educated in Kerry in Ireland and he’s a fluent Irish speaker,” Jordan told Coulthard. “I remember going on the pit walk and I started to speak as Gaeilge – in other words I was speaking Irish – to Michael as I normally would have done.

“I remember [a producer] from BBC, he went absolutely ballistic –what was I doing speaking a foreign language on the great BBC?!

“I said, ‘Oh, get stuffed’ or whatever I said to him, I forget.

“But anyway, I enjoyed it. Fassbender tells this story to everybody because it was kind of unique that someone should just broach an Irish language story.

“As a result, I keep in touch with him all the time, he needs to know who’s doing what – you can’t imagine how involved he is in Formula One.”

Jordan’s team regularly punched above its weight, finishing third in the 1999 F1 Constructors’ Championship as driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen came third in the Drivers’ Championship.

Legendary driver Michael Schumacher made his F1 debut for Jordan Grand Prix in 1991, while former World Champion Damon Hill scored the team’s first Grand Prix win in 1998.

Scottish driver Coulthard’s best showing was in the 2001 championship when he finished as runner-up to Ferrari’s Schumacher.

New logo introduced by the Republic’s football governing body

BY CONOR O’DONOGHUE

THE Republic of Ireland’s national teams and its football governing body the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) have changed their logo and branding.

This is the first update to the brand in almost 20 years. The refreshed identity is comprised of redeveloped logos, including a new crest for the national teams, alongside newly created distinct identities for the association.

Today marks the start of a new era for the FAI as an organisation as we unveil our new brand identity... It also represents a change in what we stand for

Jonathan Hill, CEO of FAI

The decision to rebrand came after extensive dialogue with the FAI staff, players, fans, volunteers, match officials, club officials, coaches, and managers as well government, Sport Ireland, and commercial partners over the past year.

The new national team identity focuses on the unique Irish symbol of the shamrock, with research undertaken by the FAI amongst fans and players clearly demonstrating a desire for the shamrock to feature within the new crest, and the bold Irish green being at the heart of the logo.

The decision to create a new and distinct identity for the FAI, separate to that of the National Team, was taken to highlight its

role as the governing body of the sport, driving the growth and success of Irish football, as well as the need to create a professional look and feel for the organisation and how it engages with internal and external stakeholders.

Jonathan Hill, CEO of the FAI, commented, “Today marks the start of a new era for the FAI as an organisation as we unveil our new brand identity. We set out an ambitious four-year strategy in 2022 and building a trusted and respected brand was outlined as a key enabler.

“The delivery of our new identity is a key step in delivering

against this objective. The development of our new brand identities has been a significant and strategic undertaking that reflects our commitment to being a best-in-class, modern organisation.

“It also represents a change in what we stand for and how we will engage with the football community as we continue to drive the growth and development of the game in what is a new and exciting era for Irish football. Most importantly we have a new national team crest that we hope our fans, players and everyone in Irish football will be truly proud of.”

Louise Cassidy, Director of Marketing & Communications, for the FAI, added; “Our new identity will extend from social media to the national stadium and far beyond while also taking pride of place on our national team shirt. The new identities are so much more than a simple logo mark, we now have the assets and resources to really bring our communication and activation to life with our partners.”

Ireland’s next scheduled matches are a friendly against Latvia on March 22 and a UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying match against France on March 27.

REBRAND: The new crest

Eddie Jordan