Sinéad Gleeson’s blog
When E. Annie Proulx describes Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist as “both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life”, we’re not quite expecting what comes next. These weather-beaten men of the land meet one summer guarding sheep on the remote Brokeback Mountain - and fall in love.
This short novella explores the kind of love […]
As the Republic of Ireland football team face Israel tonight, I have a ticket to see them play China this Tuesday in a friendly at Landsdowne Road. Now, it wasn’t the lure of China as opposition that made me buy a ticket. It’s two things. One - you had to buy the ticket as part […]
A few months ago on sigla we interviewed award-winning documentary maker Simon Fitzmaurice. This weekend RTE are screening his fourth short film Full Circle. It’s a poignant film dealing in hope, humour and taking risks and has screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide. It has picked up numerous awards including best short film at […]
After that surprise bout of sunshine that snuck up on us at the weekend, I did that Irish thing of lulling myself into a false sense of security that it was a harbinger of a good ’summer’. And by ’summer’ I mean no more than six to eight days of total sunshine, the kind where […]
The Slits
Live At The Gibus Club ***
The annals of music always have a bias and invariably there are omissions and massive generalisations bound to divide and overlook genuine talent. The Slits, for all their uniqueness, were not the only all-girl punk band of the 70s. There were plenty, like The Castrators and The Raincoats […]
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
B-Sides and Rarities *****
Less than six months since the release of his double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and Nick Cave returns with another release. B-sides and Rarities is a whopping 56-track triple album and it’s only on listening to his work assembled in such a way that […]
Well as the beer, and subsequent vomit, runs green for today it makes you wonder why we bother with Paddy’s Day.
The fact that he was English makes me think of St. Patrick as a bit of a Tony Cascarino-during-the-Jack-Charlton-years in the way the Irish have embraced him as bona fide Oirish. And Jack’s army […]
The Redneck Manifesto
I Am Brazil ***
This is the third album from a Dublin band consistently pushing things forward musically. Experimental without leaving the listener behind, the composition is clever and original. The addition of keyboards to the bass/drum/two guitar line-up adds a warm tone to these tracks, which is more low-key than earlier work. These […]
Based on the life of a real courtesan of the ninth century Tang dynasty in China, Justin Hill brings Lily Yu to life in her various incarnations and examines the fate of women in China over one thousand years ago.
When Scholar Yu proclaims: “All worry in life begins from learning to read and write” to […]
Bombarded with tales of repression under Mao, ‘The Drink and Dream Teahouse’ refreshingly breathes life back into representations of modern China.
In recent years, the book market has been flooded with Oriental tomes detailing life in pre-Revolution China. Works like ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ and ‘Wild Swans’ painted portraits of Chinese womanhood that gripped the […]
While translating the poetry of Lily Yu, a ninth century Chinese poet, Justin Hill discovered that a colourful, controversial life. His new book, ‘Passing Under Heaven’, looks at a woman who was a concubine, a Taoist nun, a courtesan and is recognised one thousand years later as China’s greatest female poet. Sinéad Gleeson asked him […]
The subject of Matthew Sturgis’ first biography was Aubrey Beardsley who died aged 25. This time the author has gone to the other end of the age spectrum with a book about the grand old man of English painting, Walter Sickert, who lived to be 82. It’s a massive tome to say the least but, […]