Sinéad Gleeson’s blog
It might not be a surprise to learn that the DUP don’t like Catholics, Nationalists, people from Southern Ireland, gay and lesbians, immigrants and [insert a multitude of others it would take a while to list]. They also don’t like black people because I remember Peter Robinson remarking, when being asked what he thought of […]
John McGahern was among a delegation who met yesterday with Brian Cowen and the government yesterday in an effort to save Ireland’s artist tax exemption. McGahern said in The Irish Times that if his entire income from writing from the last 40 years was added up for taxation purposes, “It would come to […]
Last night I was watching a Bill Hicks DVD and at one point he spoke about Aids and what would happen if a cure was ever discovered:
I dunno how much AIDS scares y’all, but I got a theory: the day they come out with a cure for AIDS, a guaranteed one-shot cure, on that day […]
Comics and Graphic novels are something that in the past I have dipped into only occasionally. Years ago, I used to read my brother’s Crisis and Deadline comics. In the latter, I first discovered Tank Girl, drawn by Gorillaz’ member Jamie Hewlitt. Mostly though, he had lots of sci-fi, Marvel Comics, DC Comics and […]
Sporadic thoughts today as I’m racing to finish Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing before bookclub tonight. I can’t escape the feeling that although it was written in 1950 and is set in South Africa, it reminds me so much of Meirelles’ film version of The Constant Gardener. Race seems central but also peripheral at […]
One of the first books we read at our bookclub was John Le Carré’s Constant Gardener. Some of the others had read his spy stuff, someone else had read The Russia House but the general consensus on The Constant Gardener was not positive. Stuffy and dull, the comments ranged from “rambling and poorly-structured” to “bland […]
Tonight I’m going to see Icelandic band Sigur Ros at The Olympia. For the uninitiated, they create music that’s haunting, transportative, beautiful, and for many, indecipherable. The last time I saw them was over five years ago (August 2000 in the Temple Bar Music Centre) and when I think of that night, […]
In the last couple of weeks I have received several text messages (three from the same number) from someone who wants me to support the Rossport 5 by attending a table quiz. I don’t know who the person is, I don’t know where they got my number and I’m baffled as to why they think […]
Not so long ago Damien Mulley mentioned something to me about the Irish Blog Awards and we got chatting about arts blogs. One of the proposed categories is an Arts blog award and this week I’ve been mulling it over a bit. It then occured to me that apart from a handful of arts specific […]
Every nation has its literary kings and queens and Ireland, is no exception. For a such small nation, we have never had any problem making ourselves heard, particularly in terms of the arts, and notably writing. For every writer that is firmly ensconced in Irish literature’s Hall of Fame, there are many that have been […]
Depending on your viewpoint, Vincent Gallo is either an esoteric but talented erudite or an over-rated toss-pot. In the past I have tended to defend him for a couple of reasons: he makes very accomplished music (’When’ is beautiful debut), Buffalo 66 is a likeable film and the fact that he owns the largest collection […]