casswp In February Anne faced the days with her usual shaky stoicism. She opened the curtains to cold stunted mornings glimmering through the window and at the bottom of the park the pathetic trees. At lunchtime Ryan’s was full of the office crowd so she went at three when she only had a couple of old … Read more
As a child I was drawn to draw figures. I watched my mother paint and listened to my father tell stories. As my study and practice of art and anatomy have progressed in depth and complexity so too has my choice of models. As we all grow, live, love and age we acquire scars, stretchmarks, … Read more
Listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from just €5 p.m.) on Patreon. You can also listen to Part 2 (Bonus Episode) by subscribing (from €15 p.a. for all episodes) on Apple Podcasts. Did COVID-19 originate from a pathway connected to China’s trade in wildlife-for-consumption, or did laboratory activity trigger the pandemic? Where do … Read more
It is a notable feature of the prevailing world order that citizens of Western states, in particular, are significantly ill-informed and mis-informed of the past and present contexts of either their disadvantage or their comfort. For centuries the corporate/political/church covenant (imperialism) has sucked the earth of its bounty, dissipated its coherence, shattered communities and brought … Read more
Faerie Fire From forests, fields and fens, fair folk are found, where witchery winds with the wailing wind, dug deep down dreams drooled by departed drowned, as painfully professed by powers pinned. In iron, imps immersed incur ill eye, manacled to mortal machinations, while led by living lights, our lost lives lie sunk ‘neath stars … Read more
My relationship with making art began aged twenty-one as a means to bolster my ego and be cool. I chose photography, mainly because I can’t draw. Also my mum and her brothers were into photography in their twenties, so there were a few nice old cameras around my house when I was growing up. Maybe … Read more
What is a ‘real country’? For the Irish, living as we do on a divided island, the question doesn’t have to be facetious. As a negative example, to try to land on a positive answer, Northern Ireland comes to mind. Wherever that congenitally deformed statelet ends up, its passage through the twentieth century will form … Read more
It’s Mother’s Day morning and I am on the brink. Desperate, determined, exhausted and certain all at once. I have passed an eternal night trying to push out a child, with no apparent progress. I don’t have a midwife gently coaching, or calling the ambulance, as the case may be. I am freebirthing. ‘Is that … Read more
Anyone watching the agonizing progress of the Julian Assange case proceeding through the U.K. justice system will be aware that it’s highly unlikely that any judge will simply throw open the gates of Belmarsh prison in assent to calls to ‘Free Assange’. Sadly for those sympathetic to him, extradition has inched ever closer over the … Read more
His blue look was on the ground, as though it held the reason for the last five minutes. She took him all in. The hair was wavy on top and cropped tight at the sides, sprinkled grey. He looked down at her on the step. Are you ok? My hero? she ventured. From her seat … Read more