Sinéad Gleeson’s blog
If, like many people, you plan on putting your feet up tomorrow and reading the papers, you have even more reason to coerce your menfolk into running the hoover around and washing some clothes. Tomorrow January 6th - as mentioned last year - is Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Christmas. Celebrated chiefly in Ireland and […]
This week, a bridge in Paris was named after French writer and intellectual Simone De Beauvoir. According to this piece about Pont Simone de Beauvoir, critics claim that it “bears some resemblance to a discarded bra or an outstretched woman’s arm”.
While it’s timely to honour de Beauvoir in this way, it’s worth mentioning that […]
Thus begins a profoundly moving and honest essay from Sarah Byam over on the Tuppenceworth blog about her battle with depression. It particularly struck a chord with me because last week a friend went to a funeral of one of her friends who had taken his own life. In the same week, I read […]
In a discussion here, a few months back, about working from home, a fellow hack confessed that he has seperate day time and night time pyjamas as a result of domicile-based situation. The latter for sleeping in (obviously), the former for faffing about in all day as you work at home, away from the […]
In recovery mode from the Blog Awards last night, I put on Crufts for Fred. He’s a keen TV viewer and things with dogs, horse-racing or animals doing the “funniest things” are his favourites. An improbably named Australian Shepard dog called Caitland Isle Take a Chance won Best in Show. I preferred The Guardian’s down […]
Many thanks to Stellanova for reminding me of the Bill Napoli affair. The State Senator for South Dakota has outlined what he feels is “acceptable rape” in terms of exemptions for abortion in his home state.
Stellanova also reports that the ladies over at Smart Bitches are attempting to get a googlebomb off the ground linking […]
In the light of last week’s riots in Dublin, I thought it might be worth posting an article I recently wrote. The idea was to take a stroll through Dublin’s city centre on a Saturday afternoon to seek out people engaged in protests. I asked them about their various causes, their motivations and if […]
Ok, forgive the sensationalist title, but it’s not wholly inappropriate. Doesn’t a massacre involve an excess of red stuff? Well so does the once religious feast that is Valentine’s Day because every shop and newsagents is splattered with scarlet, dripping with vermillion. From red cuddly toys to shiny foil heart balloons, the feast […]
Colm Bracken thinks that women are less interested in current affairs than men. He believes that in post-Sex and the City Ireland, the Irish female is more concerned with shopping than politics.
I agree with him about Candace Bushnell - Sex and the City was an amusing diversion on metropolitan life. After a couple […]
This Sunday, January 29th, is the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dog. I recently wrote this article for Capital magazine about the Chinese community in Ireland and interaction between the two communities and have reproduced it here.
Almost a year ago, in the space of one week, I had two very different encounters […]
Pre-Christmas I had the best of intentions of reviewing King Kong, but with all the usual Christmas distractions, it ebbed away in to the ether. The junket in London was good fun, but then film junkets are so misconstrued. You tell a friend you’re off to interview X actor about Y film and they have […]
Like many bloggers, I avoided my computer over the Christmas/New Year period. I’m hoping to blog some more reviews this year, but here’s a lengthy piece I had intended to post in December and it’s especially relevant this week as it’s three years since the leukaemia diagnosis that prompted me to address my own fertility […]