Cassandra Voices

Author: Cassandra Voices

  • Irish Musicians’ Lives Without Live Music

    In the presence of great music we have no alternative but to live nobly … and indeed one can hardly think of life without music.
    Sean O’Faolain

    In March the live music industry essentially ground to halt in Ireland. Sadly, owing to safety concerns, live music remains prohibited under current restrictions, and now even buskers are banned from playing.

    Undoubtedly, the first lockdowns provided for a period of reflection, and many artists appreciated getting off the merry-go-round of gigs and promotional events.

    Indeed, music was to the fore throughout the spring. Who can forget the indomitable spirit displayed by musicians singing from balconies? Although in Ireland, where few of us live in apartment blocks, most musicians were reduced to entertaining the birds, or other local fauna, in their gardens.

    It is apparent that many musicians used the time wisely – drawing inspiration from introspection – embarking on new projects, and finishing off old ones that had been gathering proverbial dust in hard drives.

    Yet as time goes by it is clear that among the biggest losers from Covid-19 are musicians, and others involved in the live music industry. The term ‘gig economy’ actually derives from the way most of them have been earning a crust since time immemorial. But in March the taps stopped flowing.

    Lacking a live audience that is intrinsic to a performance, and which no Zoom session can replicate, we’ve heard that some are no longer even taking up their instruments.

    It was a mad enough career at the best of times, with many doing it for the buzz rather than the money. Sadly, many may never resume their careers.

    As we strike a balance between safety and the wellbeing of the population, music should figure prominently in the conversation, and state funding of the arts should be at least commensurate with other EU countries. In the short to medium term, concerts may take a different form, but we do need to make them happen or face a cultural decline that we may never recover from.

    We asked a number musicians and others working in the industry to strike four notes in response to the pandemic.

    From the top:

    Fin Divilly – Songwriter and Performer
    John Cummins – Poet, Musician and Creative Workshop Activist
    David Agnew – Musical Artist and Legendary Concert Performer
    David Keenan – Songwriter and Performer
    Aisling Moore – Songwriter & Performer
    Gareth Quinn Redmond – Ambient Composer
    Daniel Lambert – Music Venue Owner, Band Manager and CEO of Bohemians Football Club
    Avoca Reaction – Drag Artist & Producer
    Ger Murphy – Live Streaming Host, Photographer and Gig Organiser
    Robbie Dingle: Songwriter, Busker and Artist
    Stephen James Smith – Poet

    Fin Divilly – Songwriter and Performer (Also featured in the cover image by Daniele Idini)

    Optimistic Note: In the face of financial and social pressure, songwriters have far more to sing, think and talk about. Dreaming of comfort and stability is far more fruitful than the real thing.

    Pessimistic Note: Read above on a bad day when you can’t even support your arse in a pair of trousers.

    Practical Note: More time alone allows for more self-reflection on what it is you truly want to be creating and who you are.

    Existential note/How you are coping: Read above and picture me smoking, drinking and writing in peace at home in my underwear, forgetting what day of the week it is.

     

    Veteran Oboe player David Agnew by Virtuoso Fotografia

    David Agnew – Musical Artist and Legendary Concert Performer

    Optimistic note: Lucky to be supported by the broadcaster I work for, recorded many pieces remotely and lucky to have performed live several times despite restrictions.

    Pessimistic note: Worried that vaccines won’t bring the live experience back in a meaningful way for classical music. It will be a long time before older audiences will congregate, I’m sure.

    Practical note: It has given us all the time to evaluate exactly who we are as musicians, and value what we do. It has been difficult to maintain match fitness, going from one hundred concert performances a year for the past forty years in my case, to six small-scale live performances with twenty-five people in the large church. You need the constant organic and charged musical environment with colleagues and the big audience-throng to sparkle.

    Existential note/How you are coping: Online teaching has been rewarding. Remote recording on your own is difficult but fantastic to see it mixed and realised in the final cut. Writing, collaborations with others, when we haven’t had the time before has opened up new avenues and friendships. When we get back to something, and we still don’t know what that is going to be, we will have a greater sense of value and appreciation of everything we’ve probably taken for granted, and assumed would last forever.

    John Cummins. Daniele Idini/Cassandra Voices

    John Cummins – Poet, Musician and Creative Workshop Activist

    Optimistic note: time to take stock, see where my art is at…time to plan an approach when allowed to play again … levelling the playing field somewhat in the industry across the board, artists can stream easily enough, if they so choose…

    Pessimistic note: the impact on the mind and the pocket of so many people who have had the rug pulled…

    Practical note: difficult and frustrating for people to plan anything with certainty…

    Existential note/How you are coping: trimming the day down to its particular parts – having a morning, slow and steady … being in the afternoon … embracing the evening … connecting to the night … whether we like it or not, we are all in this together … I try to keep an eye on the bigger picture and not get bogged down in just me and me and …

    Songwriter David Keenan by Mark William Logan

    David Keenan – Songwriter and Performer

    Optimistic Note: Being creative and expressing observations, internally and externally has always been the go to reaction, a means of understanding. I sense a unity in the artistic community in the face of the current restrictions and the trauma inflicted on our way of life. Swells of creativity are stirring as people are going to their tools and collectively spewing. Adversity breathes action and there’s a duty to self and to the craft to try to articulate what we’re seeing now and beyond.

    Pessimistic: The eradication of live gigs has been a severe trauma on the individual, the facilitators and the audience. Live medicine, that age old human ritual is being denied. Psychologically this is so destructive as well as to the livelihoods that have been erased. It brings into question the concept of essential work and how reverence for the Arts has diminished in recent times. I worry that the Arts are not being valued as crucial sources of emotional and psychological wellbeing and will continue to be devalued in the new year.

    Practical note: Those involved in the production side of the industry have vast experiences to teach. I suggest that initiatives to support unemployed teachers such as these should be set up to help them pass on this knowledge to young and old. The same goes for funded workshops for artists be it online or in person. We have to revalue the work, not devalue it even more in a time where so much is given away for free online, almost expectedly so. The shop local concept should be encouraged and applied to Irish Musicians / Artists. Buy a physical copy of a record / t-shirt / book from your favourite artists or venues. Streaming is of no use in terms of making a viable living.

    Existential note/How you are coping: I’m doing my best to stay as creative as I can and trying to protect my energy reserves, building for the new year. These past few months have invoked a lot of anxiety, confusion and anger but it’s important to me that I try to grow and turn the base into something pure. Expressing myself through music and words has always gifted me healing and renewal. I’m staying as tight as I can to those lights, hopeful of what’s to come.

     

    Ashling Moore by Megan Shannon Photography.

    Aisling Moore – Songwriter & Performer

    Optimistic note: I think there is a lot of opportunity to wrote and really find myself as an artist. In terms of the music industry, there is more and more recognition from the government and others of how important music is. I just got awarded a grant to start my EP which is a helping hand. Also a scheme might be coming out that pays musicians hourly like other jobs which is ideal.

    Pessimistic note: Trying to be inspired to write about things other than the lockdown can be difficult. It is hard to know how long it will take before performing can go back to the way it was

    Practical note: Lack of practice with performing.

    Existential note/How you are coping: I’ve started reading books again. I’ve started exercising and being more aware of what I’m eating. It’s been hard but I have a socially distanced gig coming up so that has helped a lot. Knowing that there is solutions being created gives hope to us musicians

     

    Gareth Quinn Redmond by Daniele Idini

    Gareth Quinn Redmond – Ambient Composer

    Optimistic note: I felt very vindicated having spent so much money on recording equipment at the start of the first lockdown, it has been a lifeline being able to continue writing and recording throughout the year. I’m not sure what state I would be in now if I didn’t have this set up.

    Pessimistic note: It has been a tough year mentally, which got even harder at the start of October when I lost one of my best friends and bandmates to suicide. I have a great support network of friends around me but nevertheless it is so hard to grieve his loss when nothing about my day to day life reminds me that he is gone.

    Practical note: It has been a great year for reflection but this is constantly overshadowed by the eternal dread of possibly not gigging ever again, not like I did before anyway. I can’t imagine doing anything else in my life, so I’m worried about the impact the new reality will have on the arts.

    Existential note/How you are coping: Taking it day by day, my family and friends are so supportive. Compared to many I am very fortunate, I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

     

    Daniel Lambert – Music Venue Owner, Band Manager and CEO of Bohemians Football Club

    Optimistic note: we’ve been given the space to somewhat remove ourselves from the rat race, to breath and contemplate.

    Pessimistic note: the lack of a clear date for the restart of live music as we knew it makes it hard to motivate each other.

    Practical note: spend the time wisely, develop the online shop, investigate opportunities outside of core gigs, see the opportunities in difficult times.

    Existential note/How you are coping: by swimming in the sea every single day.

    Optimistic note: It’s nice to have a break from the hustle.

     

    Avoca Reaction by Kyle Cheldon Barnett

    Avoca Reaction – Drag Artist & Producer

    Optimistic note: It’s nice to have a break from the hustle.

    Pessimistic note: Performing on Zoom/similar platforms is a paltry substitute for a real crowd at a regular gig.

    Practical note: All of the work opportunities I’ve had since March have been better paid than pre-pandemic.

    Existential note: The first lockdown showed me how much my self-worth was tied up in my work/output. Over lockdown I’ve been working on finding satisfaction outside of performing.

     

    Ger Murphy – Live Streaming Host, Photographer and Gig Organiser

    Optimistic note: I’m in the unique position of doing pretty well out of Covid so not sure my opinion counts! But here ya go…. A lot of people and businesses were working nonstop, gig to gig, so this break has given time to look at how they work and hopefully come back stronger.

    Pessimistic note: Can’t see live events coming back for another 6-12 months so bulk of my mates jobless until then.

    Practical note: I have a live streaming company so never been busier.

    Existential note/How you are coping: I’m graaaaaand.

     

    Robbie Dingle by Daniele Idini

    Robbie Dingle: Songwriter, Busker and Artist

    Optimistic note: I’m finding this time to be very productive and am using the time to hone and polish my skills. I have surrounded myself with great musicians and am learning and busking on the street every day (with safety precautions). I am finding myself to be more focused and driven as it gave me the time to really think about what I want to do, projecting myself and thinking about my future in music. In the band I am in we have been chosen to be part of a Covid series called “justtheone” alongside some great artists and this gave us a kickstart to release more which I am very excited about.

    Pessimistic note: The fact that bars have been closed and sessions I used to play at, open mics, jams I attended and hosted I am missing the interaction with a crowd and artists. In these spaces artists share their ideas and performances. Artists polish and cut the fat off songs to see what works and without this space I feel it will have a detrimental effect on art, creativity and an artist’s livelihood.

    Practical note: With no gigs and regular busking I have set up a PayPal and moved into the city centre to play every day. The money earned from YouTube videos via PayPal has paid for a bike I now use to travel mobile and light around the city. The bike has a rack and I just use my busking amp and guitar which is very handy. No time on buses which is saving me money and I can access and travel to places that I could not before as I used to carry a hiking bag with all my busking stuff for the day. Now I can busk, go home for lunch, relax, recharge my batteries and even busk a second time.

    Existential note/How you are coping: Recently I moved to the city centre to busk and play every day and sometimes struggle with rent (like everyone if you’re not a politician). Some days can be very bad and others brilliant. This can be due to the weather, location or getting stopped by the police if there is a congregation of people. The public are very generous to us and I feel we are much appreciated during these hard times. People light up as many have not heard live music in weeks or even months, they dance and sing and for us to bring that out of them while doing something we love outweighs anything negative about a buskers life.

     

    Poet Stephen James Smith by Babs Daly Grace Photography

    Stephen James Smith – Poet

    Optimistic note: What won’t kill you….

    Pessimistic note: Many won’t recover.

    Practical note: We’re learning

    Existential note/How you are coping: ‘Let everything happen to you / Beauty and terror. Just keep going / No feeling is final ― Rainer Maria Rilke.

    Are you a musician denied a living from live music? Answer these questions in the comments section.

    Optimistic note:
    Pessimistic note:
    Practical note:
    Existential note/How you are coping:

  • Purchase Cuban Love Songs

    ‘They sang Cuban love-songs and moonsweet madigrals and selections from the best and finest of Italian opera’.
    Flann O’Brien
    At Swim-Two-Birds

    Edited by Ronan Sheehan under the imprint of Cassandra Voices, Cuban Love Songs is a joint effort of the Writers and Artists Union of Cuba (UNEAC) and a variety of Irish writers and poets, including established names and rising talents. Tastefully designed by Kate Horgan, it is an Irish salute to Cuba and a Cuban salute to Ireland.

    ‘Two islands, together in a sea of struggle and hope,’ was the phrase used by Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins when visiting Cuba in 2017, and also in welcoming the President of the Republic of Cuba H.E Mr Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, along with his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza to Ireland in October 2019

    José Martí

    The outstanding figure among the fifty Cuban poets represented in this volume is José Julián Martí Pérez (1853-1895), who is generally referred to as José Martí. The literary-political career of this poet, essayist, classicist, journalist, translator, university professor, publisher, and revolutionary is evocative of the Young Irelanders of the 1840s, or even the organisers of the 1916 Easter Rising. His lyrics for Guantanamera became Cuba’s best known song.

    A widely travelled abolitionist who mourned the death of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Martí settled in New York during the 1880’s and 90’s. There he encountered the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario and possibly our own Oscar Wilde. He believed that Latin American countries needed to gain an awareness of their own history and nurture native literature, a view echoed in the writings of Patrick Pearse.

    Martí died at the Battle of Dos Rios on May 19th, 1895, and is still revered as a national hero.

    Purchase Cuban Love Songs through our Shop Page.

    Ronan Sheehan. Image (c) Daniele Idini.

  • ‘This is science which should go on trial’

    A zoom panel discussion organised by Lindau, which included two other Nobel-prize winning scientists, provided Stanford biophysicist and Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt with a platform to vent his fury over the global scientific community’s flawed response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as he saw it.

    In particular, he condemned Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson for failing to respond to his emails at the height of the crisis. He said that a flawed response had caused hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of suffering and damage, that had disproportionately affected a younger generation, and which would not substantially alter the ultimate death toll.

    Levitt began by saying (at 11.41 in the video below):

    One thing that strikes me is that once the virus moved from the China-Korea phase is how totally inadequate science structure is for real time science. People are insisting on refereed reports. No one wants to share anything. The scientists are more panicked and scared by reality than anybody else. The august organisations like Lindau, The Royal Society, The National Academy of Science, have been totally silent … As a group, scientists have failed the younger generation.

    ‘There should have been a committee formed’, he said, ‘either by the Nobel Foundation, by Lindau, by the Royal Society, or the National Academy of Science in the middle of February.’

    He continued:

    The worst opposition I got was from very, very prominent scientists, who were so scared that the non-scientists would break quarantine and infect them. There was total panic, and the fact is that almost all the science we were hearing from organisations like the World Health Organisation, was wrong. We had Facebook censoring WHO-contrary views. This has been a disgraceful situation for science … We should have been talking to one another ..

    Over the course of the pandemic, he said he was releasing reports openly, but all he go back was abuse. Nonetheless, he argued, everything he said in the first six weeks was true, but that ‘for political reasons, we as scientists, let our views be corrupted.’

    He argued that ‘the data had very clear things to say. Nobody said to me: ‘let me check your numbers’. They all just said: ‘stop talking like that’.’

    Levitt reserved particularly harsh comments for epidemiologists who he said:

    see their job, not as getting things correct, but as preventing an epidemic. So therefore if they say it is 100-times worse than it’s going to be, then it’s ok. Their mistake was that we listened to them. They said the same thing for Ebola, they said the same thing for Bird Flu, no one shut down for them. We should never have listened to the epidemiologists. They have caused hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of suffering and damage, mainly on the younger generation. This is going to be a tragedy. It’s going to make 9/11 look like a baby story. This is much, much worse. I am not against lockdown, I am against stupid lockdown, without considering the full picture, i.e. not just combating a virus, that is exactly as dangerous as flu, but also avoiding the economic damage, that every country has caused itself except Sweden. We have really, really failed as a group. There have been smart people in Sweden, and that’s about it. Germany is getting reinfected because they cut down too strongly. You know the level of stupidity that has been going on here has been amazing, and it just required a little bit of discussion of smart people. I am not saying I am right, but I would like people to contra me on the details.

    He says that ‘simple logical assumptions’ such as the infection fatality rate ‘got discussed so slowly and so late,’ while, ‘we circled the wagons against this, and it really, really hurt us.’

    Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson.

    Neil Ferguson, he said, ignored his emails, and that the problem did not simply lie with a lack of communication with the public, but that scientists refused to listen to people not in their fields.

    Now he said:

    Scientists are getting away scot-free for causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage and this is something that cannot be allowed to happen. It’s not just the World Health Organisation. Ferguson wanted Sweden to lockdown, got Britain to lockdown, and when the numbers become normal, exactly what you would expect without lockdown. He then says, ah it’s because of lockdown. This is terrible science. This is science which should go on trial. Scientists cannot cause damage like this and refuse to listen. I really, really tried hard to get them to at least discuss this with me. In the end I said something I never say: whatever. Just leave me alone, go ahead and die. And the fact is that epidemiology and modelling has been a disgrace. They have not looked at the data. They have been wrong at every turn. We are going to see that although coronavirus is a different disease, the net impact of death is going to be very similar to severe flu and it’s going to be that way without lockdown.

    Levitt reserved praise for Sweden:

    Sweden is the only country that has done the right thing by heading for what they consider to be herd immunity. It occurs at 15%, not at 80%, another error that the epidemiologists made. Sweden is going to end up with about 600 deaths per million.

    https://vimeo.com/433350887/33bbbe4090

  • TEXTILE MOUNTAIN: The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

    Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 20th, 2020 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM (IST), Documentary Filmmaker Fellipe Lopes and Producer Catriona Rogerson will host a preview of their new documentary TEXTILE MOUNTAIN: The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

    Below is an abstract of its press release:

    We in Europe throw away 2 million tonnes of textiles each year. But do we know what happens to our clothing when we donate them to charity shops and textile recycling banks?

    Up to 70% of our donated clothing are baled, sold and exported overseas to sub-Saharan Africa for re-sale in local markets. This short documentary looks at the ‘afterlife’ of our clothes, tracing our donated garments from textile recycling banks in Europe to landfills and waterways in the Global South. It encourages us to rethink how we make, wear and reuse our clothes for a more sustainable future for all.
    It’s time to #SlowDownFashion – we need to think before we buy!

    Register to watch!

    Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eco-week-advance-screening-talk-textile-mountain-tickets-104951033366

    After the screening, join film maker Fellipe Lopes and Caitriona Rogerson to discuss some of the issues raised in the documentary, and explore how YOU can use the medium of film as a powerful tool for change.

  • Shane MacGowan and ‘the Riddle of Ballinalee’ in Bob Dylan’s ‘I Contain Multitudes’

    At Cassandra Voices we uncover stories behind stories. Just occasionally these accounts reach the mainstream. So it has proved with what is being popularly referred to as ‘the riddle of Ballinalee’.

    Let’s recall the adventure so far. Last week our then anonymous sleuth advanced a theory as to the origin of the words in the opening lines of Bob Dylan’s new song ‘I Contain Multitudes’. It might just explain why the previously unheralded village of Balllinalee in County Longford has shot to global prominence:

    Today and tomorrow and yesterday, too,
    The flowers are dyin’ like all things do,
    Follow me close, I’m going to Ballinalee,
    I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me.

    Ballinalee, County Longford, Ireland.

    We are now quite convinced that Ballinalee is indeed an Irish reference, especially considering ‘the flowers are dyin’’ in the line preceding is an obvious play on the second verse of the Irish ballad: ‘Danny Boy’.

    But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
    If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

    It’s certainly a ballad that would be well known to Dylan.

    The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

    It’s a plotline that might have been lifted from a Cold War spy novel. Our agent’s identity has been revealed. Like the best of them, pride proved his undoing.

    The honey trap was an invitation to be interviewed on Shannonside FM, a local radio station broadcasting to the Longford area, and surrounding counties. He is Dr Francis Leneghan of Oxford University no less. George Smiley himself couldn’t have found a better cover.

    In the interview – which is available here as a podcast – Dr Leneghan repeats his hunch that the Ballinalee reference might be traced to a banquet involving Dylan and his excellency, the resident Bard of Ballsbridge, Shane MacGowan, formerly of the Pogues and the Popes. The meeting of bards, now the stuff of legend, took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin in 2017 while Dylan was touring Ireland.

    The Word from Ballsbridge

    Lo and behold, The Sunday Times reports: ‘Bob Dylan fans tangled up in clue to solve Irish riddle of I Contain Multitudes.’ Perhaps unsurprisingly, the journalist fails to credit this august publication when he writes:

    In online forums, some fans state that Dylan might have picked up Irish poetry tips from Shane MacGowan, with whom he spent time on a trip to Dublin in 2017.

    We can exclusively reveal that another one of our agents – who insists he won’t fall for the same ruse as Dr Leneghan who has since been sent for a ‘cooling off’ period in the Scilly Isles  – managed to catch up with Shane MacGowan himself.

    MacGowan said he remembers having a great night with Bob, so great indeed that he cannot recall what they spoke about. There you have it.

    When Bob met Shane as reported by VIP magazine.

    It is widely recognised that mystery coincides with all great poetry, and it seems the riddle of Ballinalee that features in Dylan’s song will remain just that, unless of course we can persuade Shane MacGowan to undergo hypnosis.

  • In Conversation with David Langwallner

    London-based Barrister David Langwallner, the founder of the Innocence Project in Ireland, responds to the latest interview with Edward Snowden.

    He distinguishes between private concerns and socio-economic rights; with the latter more urgent than ever during this period of crisis. By comparison, he says, privacy considerations are not essential: ‘the most important human rights are food, shelter and housing.’

    Langwallner also addresses the increasingly blurred lines between our real and virtual selves asking: ‘once we have de-humanised social interaction how are we really to know one another?’

    He reckons people are over-reacting, ‘in a state of shock,’ and losing all sense of proportion: ‘Yes it is a crisis, but it is a hyper-inflated, neo-liberal world pandemonium that has taken place and the danger is that you lose sight of the bigger picture.’

    He fears, ‘they’ll bail out the bankers, but small businesses will be screwed,’ and asks, ‘will the Germans finally step up to the plate?’

    Langwallner traces many of our current problems to a technocratic style of governance that has overtaken many institutions, such as the European Union. He says: ‘I don’t like textbook people – they are useless and shouldn’t be in decision-making positions.’

    ‘What the press should pay attention to,’ he says, is the melting of the largest glacier in Antarctica which could raise ocean levels by five feet.’

    As regards the threat of the virus, he reckons more people will die from mental illnesses, as a collective de-humanization occurs. Yet he reserves hope that Boris Johnson’s brush with death could engender a more compassionate conservatism. He hopes that within Britain there is enough of a social democratic consensus, but isn’t so hopeful about Ireland.

    Langwallner also revisits his stern criticism of post-modern philosophy which is helping extremists get into power. Neo-liberalism has failed as an idea he says: ‘we require a Keynesian New Deal and prohibition of vulture funds, as well as the introduction of basic income.’

    He fulminates against a media that reports on the speech of ‘corporate monsters’ such as Michael O’Leary who has denied climate change.

    As regards the forthcoming U.S. Presidential election he urges Americans to support Joe Biden against Trump for the sake of a global consensus on climate change.

    Coronavirus is like the symptom of an underlying disease. It is the toxic combination of ecocide and neo-liberalism … If you are very rich you can self-isolate, but most of us have to interact with the public

    He closes out with a call for people with an interdisciplinary approach to take control, the abandonment of neo-liberalism, and a radical response to climate change. ‘There is hope, but there is real danger.’

    Interviewer: Daniele Idini
    Mixing: Massimiliano Galli
    Video: Fellipe Lopes

    Apologies for the poor sound quality in parts of this conversation. We aim to improve!

  • Covid-19: What Twitter is Saying

    Despite a mortality rate not far off Ireland’s (107 v 150 per million), Sweden has come in for a lot of criticism over its response to Covid-19 of leaving responsibility in the hands of civic society, with little acknowledgement of potential health benefits of not imposing one.

    Interestingly, nor did neighbouring Norway impose a full lockdown of confining people to their homes, as in most European countries, although schools were closed, along with pubs and restaurants.

    The first Norwegian case was discovered on February 26th, with physical distancing measures introduced on March 12th when the first death was recorded. Most of these cases were traced to holiday-makers returning from ski trips in Austria and Italy. On March 16th non-residents were banned from entering Norway. As of April 17th 2020, Norway has performed 13,6236 tests, reported 6937 confirmed cases and 161 deaths (30 per million).

    Norwegian-based doctor, and occasional Cassandra Voices contributor, Samuel MacManus provided a Twitter thread on Euresilience which offers an interesting explanation for why the country, which like Sweden has a long tradition of social democratic government, has endured the outbreak without great difficulty.

    First he acknowledged that ‘Norway has had some natural advantages, and some less tangible ones,’ in what is not only a health crisis but a societal challenge: ‘The low density of population in Norway has helped. Viruses love crowded cities.’

    About a thousand cases arrived at once from northern Italy, but these were mostly youngish fit skiers, who ‘had the best chance of survival, but more importantly were rapidly identified, contact traced and isolated.’

    But there are ‘less identifiable factors at play,’ he said. ‘Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as society … In Norway society is everything & everywhere. ‘Dugnad’ in Norwegian means a collective voluntary effort; It’s a word used all the time here. For covid a National dugnad was declared.’

    He reveals how: ‘people see the institutions of the state not as some kind of foe, but as an expression of themselves.’

    He also alludes to how in ‘the mission statement of the Norwegian education system it states that their aim is to produce not improved individuals, but citizens.

    Moreover ,‘The government and health institutions have been transparent and open on the hows and whys of what they were doing.’

    Also, importantly, ‘The public received their info through the same, reliable channels. 9 out of 10 Norwegians listen to or watch the national broadcaster #nrk each day.’

    The economic measures have been all encompassing he said: ‘A patient told me today that non-national sex workers in Norway had a special government fund so they could be paid while business was bad … THAT is enlightened policy.’

    New Economic Thinking

    Elsewhere economic anthropologist Jason Hickel brings attention to 5-point manifesto signed by 170 Dutch academics in response to the crisis that builds on ‘degrowth’ principles, and which has gone viral in the Netherlands. Hickel summarises the points in English.

    1. Shift from an economy focused on aggregate GDP growth to differentiate among sectors that can grow and need investment (critical public sectors, and clean energy, education, health) and sectors that need to radically degrow (oil, gas, mining, advertising, etc).

    2. Build an economic framework focused on redistribution, which establishes a universal basic income, a universal social policy system, a strong progressive taxation of income, profits and wealth, reduced working hours and job sharing, and recognizes care work.

    3. Transform farming towards regenerative agriculture based on biodiversity conservation, sustainable and mostly local and vegetarian food production, as well as fair agricultural employment conditions and wages.

    4. Reduce consumption and travel, with a drastic shift from luxury and wasteful consumption and travel to basic, necessary, sustainable and satisfying consumption and travel.

    5 Debt cancellation, especially for workers and small business owners and for countries in the global south (both from richer countries and international financial institutions).

    IF YOU HAVE ANY STORIES THAT YOU FEEL NEED TELLING PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW OR EMAIL US CONFIDENTIALLY TO ADMIN@CASSANDRAVOICES.COM

  • Bob Dylan’s New Song and Ballinalee County Longford

    Butterflies continue to fly from septuagenarian Bob Dylan’s cocoon. Last week the Bard of Duluth released yet another song ‘I Contain Multitudes’ after his long hiatus. The opening lyrics piqued our curiosity:

    Today and tomorrow and yesterday, too,
    The flowers are dyin’ like all things do,
    Follow me close, I’m going to Ballinalee,
    I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me.

    Why does Ballinalee, a remote village in County Longford in the Irish midlands, feature in the song? One of our correspondents has a theory.

    He suggests it is a reference to the early nineteenth century, Irish-language poet Antoine Ó Raifteirí’s (Anthony Raftery) poem ‘The Lass from Ballynalee.’ Raftery was a contemporary of James Clarence Mangan, beloved of Irish songster Shane MacGowan, the resident Bard of Ballsbridge.

    Rumour has that the Bard of Duluth met the Bard of Ballsbridge for dinner in the Intercontinental Hotel a few years ago and talked poetry all night.

    Conceivably, the Bard of Ballsbridge, who is a great admirer of James Clarence Mangan, suggested his fellow Bard take a look at Raftery, who was blinded as a child after a dose of smallpox. We’re actively pursuing comment from the Ballsbridge citadel.

    It’s known that Dylan spent three days in Ardmore Studios, Bray, during the same trip, working on an as-yet unnamed project with his touring band. Was he inspired by Shane to write some new songs and then record them straight away?

    The link might sound fanciful, but another online sleuth has noticed that a line in the final verse of the same song, “Keep your mouth away from me”, matches a line from Lord Longford’s translation of the seventeenth-century Irish poem, “Keep your Kiss to Yourself”.

    The latter is anthologised in Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella’s An Duanaire, 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed (Bord na Gaeilge, 1981). Did the Bard of Ballsbridge reach to his shelf and grab a copy to present to Bob on their meeting? And what did Bob give Shane?

    Our operatives are tracking down the book to check if Raftery’s poem is in there too.

    We know that in recent decades Dylan has littered his lyrics with quotations and allusions to sources as diverse Ovid, Chaucer and Homer and the obscure Civil-war poet, Henry Timrod, as well as the usual panoply of blues and folk sources, often within the same stanza. Can we now add an anthology of translations of Irish-language verse to his reading list?

    But Dylan may have come across Raftery way back in early-60s New York, via his ballad-singing idol Liam Clancy, who loved to recite his poems.

    Or maybe Bob actually sings, ‘I’m goin’ to Balian Bali’. He’s off surfing, and we’re barking up the wrong tree.

    If you can help solve this mystery leave a comment below.

    Here is the Raftery poem itself:

    The Lass from Bally-na-Lee
    (translated from the Irish)

    On my way to Mass
    To say a prayer,
    The wind was high
    Sowing rain,

    I met a maid
    With wind-wild hair
    And madly fell
    In love again.

    I spoke with learning,
    Charm and pride
    And, as was fitting,
    Answered she:

    ‘My mind is now
    well satisfied,
    So walk with me
    To Bally-na-Lee.’

    Given the offer,
    I didn’t delay,
    And blowing a laugh
    At this willing young lass,

    I swung with her over
    The fields through the day
    Till shortly we reached
    The rump of the house.

    A table with glasses
    And drink was set
    And then says the lassie,
    Turning to me:

    ‘You are welcome, Raftery,
    So drink a wet
    To love’s demands
    In Bally-na-Lee.’

    This article contains contributions from Dr Francis Leneghan.

  • Poems for Holy Week

    Poetry editor Edward Clarke selects poems from Paul Curran, Billy O Hanluain, Haley Hodges Schmid, Ned Denny and his own work to mark Holy Week.

     

    A corona Sonnet

    With no less haste than the crisis deserves,

    All faces one mask of consternation,

    We’ve learnt, through conversing in spikes and curves,

    This virus respects no race or nation.

    Virgil could not have foreseen the Tiber

    Would fill so fast with the fallen of Rome,

    Hospitals built with sinew and fibre,

    Children in hiding, on their own, at home.

    His toll’s still rising, but Death, if he could,

    Would make no attempt to keep numbers down;

    Warm April predicates wearing no hood,

    His scythe keenly sharpened shines like his crown.

    Unfasten quick this dead pathogen’s trick

    Lest lists of the late outnumber the quick. 

    April 4th, 2020

    Paul Curran was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1975. He holds a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford and a Masters Degree from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. He has worked widely as a professional actor. His Only Sonnet loosely follows the pattern of the seasons, comprised of 100+ ‘alternative’ sonnets; Repeat Fees and its 80 sonnets and longer poems was published in July 2017.

     

    Stock Pile On Hope

    Walk down the bare,
    trembling aisles of your
    self. Everything dispensible
    is now after its Best Before.
    Pass by the Two for One indulgences
    of fear and doubt. Shelves stripped
    of the superfluous. The tattered packaging
    of novelties that amused us
    fade behind their
    spent Use By dates. Remembered now
    as infatuations bought to distract us.
    Is it time to close shop?
    Turn out the lights?
    Time for the din and dirge of shutters?
    We are open twenty four hours
    and we must never close.
    No matter the Feast Day.
    The Plague or The Hour.
    Turn toward that aisle within,
    so often passed in the hurry
    of what seemed to matter
    there you will find the plenty that
    always was and will be.
    Load your cart, fill your bags,
    weigh your trolley down.
    Stock pile on hope!

    Billy O Hanluain works as a language teacher in Dublin. His work has appeared in The Village and The Passage Between. He frequently reads at open mic nights across the city and has contributed to RTE’S Arts Tonight and Arena. He is a DJ with a special passion for Jazz. He lives in Kimmage, Dublin.

    The Ape in the Meme

    Like those who crouch in a bird-catcher’s hide,
    _             He has put up and part-designed
    A shiny means of destruction online,
    Whose checkout page is set and open wide
    _             As all blind graves must look for business.
    And so he means to capture browsers and listeners
    _                            Like birds in a wicker cage:
    That ape who ate his stockpile in the meme,
    _                                           Or famous adage,
    Who licks his unclean lips and can’t be seen.

    He has become fat and sleek, yeah, he’s smoothed
    _             Out all anxieties we had
    About his bad business: he prospers at
    The expense of all of us who are sweet-toothed.
    _             A devastating and wondrous thing
    Is committed in our land and we all sing
    _                            Blindly its praises. No prophet
    Even prophesises and almost every poet,
    _                                           To no one’s profit,
    Tells tales of a life, but not as you’d know it.

    What will be the end of it? Just now,
    _             At the limits of the eye, just off
    The shore of the ear, that ancient boundary of
    The world, the world can’t pass, no matter how
    _             Hard it smashes its waves into it,
    Or coaxes endlessly: just there, I intuit
    _                            You are rowed out with your answer,
    And stand before the multitude on a sea
    _                                           Of radiant stanzas
    For those with eyes to hear and ears to see.

     

    Edward Clarke’s latest collection of poems, A Book of Psalms, has just been published by Paraclete Press. He is poetry editor of Cassandra Voices.

     

    ‘See now the bewildered Christ’

    See now the bewildered Christ
    In the empty streets of Jerusalem;
    The surefooted clip clop of donkey and colt
    Accentuated by this brimming vacancy,
    By this our iron-held breath.
    We are inside reading the news;
    We are stacked in buildings, racked
    With urban exodus and suddenly beset
    By the fragrance of country miles.
    Need bares her teeth at need—
    No hosanna can emerge, no palm
    Softens the anxious cobblestones.
    Christ passes unhailed through our midst
    With eyes downcast for love.

     

    Haley Hodges Schmid came from her native America to England in 2017 to pursue introductory theological study at the University of Oxford’s Wycliffe Hall. A musician by training, she is drawn to the intersection of theology and the arts and eager to explore themes like redemption, joy, and sacredness in her writing

     

    Iron Age

    When jail shines like a blue marble in space
    and masks of fear eat into the face
    and new strains of deceit are going around
    and the dead demand to be more tightly bound
    and they scramble nine jets at the sight of a dove
    and drive in the nails yet call it love
    and cameras watch live Eden’s knoll
    and separation is the protocol
    and the long war wears the look of peace
    and Medusa stares from a million TVs
    and the cure is seeded with wasp-eyed death
    and all I can trust is my own wise breath
    and misinformation’s the name for the Word
    and they tell the biggest lies this chained world’s heard
    and commit the greatest fraud hell’s ever seen
    and say the withered tree is green

    when a dragon is about to be crowned
    and streets are empty save for the drowned
    and the wolf has the lamb’s best interest at heart
    and to stay alive you stay apart
    and an hourly dose of dread sets the tone
    and the sun itself’s been turned to stone
    and the hungry ghost of the moon descends
    and the axle of the heavens bends
    and the stars disappear through chinks in a rock
    and the hands go haywire on every clock
    and a black horse rides upon manback
    and you still think you’re not under attack
    and they turn the key to “keep us safe” from the Lord
    and at certain times we all applaud
    and death is getting desperate and iron old

    a bird will sing dawn wield your gold

     

    Ned Denny’s collection Unearthly Toys was awarded the 2019 Seamus Heaney Prize. B (After Dante), a version of the Divine Comedy, will be published by Carcanet this autumn.

  • ‘Alive Alive O’ Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle

    Sé Merry Doyle’s 2001 documentary film, ‘Alive Alive O – A Requiem For Dublin’ chronicles the lives of Dublin Street Traders. Their patron saint ‘Molly Molone’ became the inspiration for Dublin’s unofficial anthem, ‘Cockles and Mussels, Alive Alive O’. The final stanza remains poignant in our troubled times:

    She died of a fever,
    And no one could save her,
    And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
    But her ghost wheels her barrow,
    Through streets broad and narrow,
    Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

    Following the spirit of Molly, the film demonstrates the fragility of a vibrant culture, and with so many closures, including of the Dublin Flea Market which had to shut up shop due to the lack of a venue for its Christmas market last year. This loss of colour and character to the city is incalculable.

    Shot in stages over many years, the documentary contains rare archive footage, capturing the demolition of tenement homes immortalized in the plays of Sean O Casey, as well as vintage shots of U2 in their formative stage as they play an inner–city concert.

    U2 on Sheriff Street. Photo courtesy of Christine Bond.

    There are also disturbing scenes of street traders being harassed by police, and we witness the last day of trading in the Iveagh Market, with one trader opining: ‘whatever happened to Molly Malone and the city’s pride in her’. It also includes an interview with the independent politician Tony Gregory in which he recalls being incarcerated for defending street traders’ rights.

    This is an unprecedented record of the suppression by the State of Dublin’s traditional street traders, the closure of marketplaces, as well as the heroin epidemic that devastated inner city communities in the 1980s. The collection also contains moving recordings of actor Jasmine Russell reading verse especially commissioned from Paula Meehan, now the chair of Poetry Ireland, as well as traditional Dublin ballads sung by musicologist Frank Harte.

    We spoke with Sé (over the phone unfortunately from where he is self-isolating in London). He first describes how he had made his first film in 1982 called Looking On, which is set in the North Inner City against a backdrop of civil strife, and the emergence of a yuppie culture that brought speculators into an area considered ‘ripe’.

    Sé lived in that part of the city for many years himself, before being attracted to the bright lights of London where he blazed a trail for Irish filmmakers. He returned to his native city of Dublin in 1992, once again taking up residence in that part of the city

    He recalls that Tony Gregory had by then won a few battles, especially after he agreed to support Taoiseach Charlie Haughey after the 1987 election, the so-called Haughey-Gregory Pact, in exchange for gaining crucial financial assistance for the inner city in return. Social housing had by then been built, but the persecution of street traders continued unabated.

    Sé also remembers how:

    I saw a pram dealer on Henry Street have her wheels removed by the Gardai. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce were promoting the removal of traders on behalf of the shopping district. Ironically the women who loaded up on produce bought in the fruit and vegetable market would normally go to Dunnes Stores and fill their prams with their own household purchases at the end of the day.

    Then he says:

    A notion came into my head. Here was the city singing ‘Alive Alive O’ at football matches, while at the end of rich Grafton Street there is statue of Molly. My family all come from the Liberties and some had been street traders, and so a new film began that would also use footage from Looking On.

    Sé said he wanted this film to be lyrical, so he brought in Paula Meehan to add poetry and Frank Harte to sing traditional ballads. ‘A highlight,’ he said, was ‘filming the last days trading at the Iveagh Markets’

    Eternally mischievous, Sé reveals how, after the market was closed for the last time, he bribed a security guard to let him back in, and then brought in the old traders to whom he showed old footage of the market to see what would happen. That became the last scene.

    According to Sé, raising the money ‘ was a nightmare. I got a small grant from the Arts Council, then another small amount from the Irish Film Board and eventually RTÉ came on board and the film was born.’

    The film was premiered at the Cork Film Festival in 2001, and won a number of awards, including at the Galway Film Fleadh. In 2009 it was the official representative of Ireland at the Doc Europa Festival in Lisbon, Portugal.

    The Iveagh Market is still closed and mired in controversy. Sé reckons that ‘markets in general are victimised by red tape and speculators wanting their patches. Alive Alive O!’

    To watch the film in full click here.