Podcast: The Ghosts of Monto: Terry Fagan on 1950s Dublin

Terry Fagan is a renowned Irish local historian and storyteller from Dublin’s North Inner City. Born in the 1950s and raised in the historic heart of what was once Europe’s largest red-light district, the Monto, Fagan witnessed firsthand the rapid transformation, and often erasure, of the surrounding Dublin tenements and their culture. He is, to … Read more

Guantanamo Founded on U.S. Occupation

A week after U.S. Democrat Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib wrote to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defence demanding a halt to the use of Guantanamo as a detention facility, CBS obtained internal government records exposing the Trump administration’s accelerating transfer of detainees. Departing from the earlier policy of only holding migrants from … Read more

Psychopomp

The magic place lay under a blanket of snow. On the ridge of the park he walked, a silhouette shifting, hunched and thoughtful under night. The lone trudging figure, wearing a long black wool coat and a brown fedora, moved carefully through the virgin white crunch towards the warren of streets by the Thames. He … Read more

Teenage Sex for Meth

Aged sixteen, I started trading sex for meth. There was no discussion about this with the drug dealers. It was understood. To me, this was a natural progression. My stepfather began to gawk at me when my first breast bud appeared, then molested me when I was twelve. Until I left home for college, I … Read more

The Release of Love

Todo lo que vemos o nos parece, no es sino un ensueño en un ensueño! ‘Everything we see or seem to see is nothing but a dream within a dream’ – Ruben Dario My father was cremated in Dublin, but he belonged to the heat. In Ireland, he carried Nicaragua on his shoulders—low, heavy, as … Read more

Musician of the Month: Jaed

On recovering a lost part of the soul She was summoned back from the dead, a spirit with form to keep me company, sword, sister for me, brother- man. I missed her, was lonely so she came. Her voice tore down buildings as she flew around me, and though it comforted me, the price was … Read more

Review: Chile in Their Hearts

U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi were detained and executed in Chile during the early days of the US-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Investigative reporter and author John Dinges, who has written extensively about Latin America and Operation Condor, investigates the earlier premise that both men were murdered by the Chilean military upon direct … Read more

Poem: ‘No animals died’

No animals died Our research on toads and carabids considered predator and prey. Japanese toads and bombardier beetles were ‘introduced’, let’s say. The relationships were explosive – but complied with current laws. We intend to show you footage. Please, hold your applause. Our methodology? Each beetle placed in tongue’s reach of a toad. Each swallowed. … Read more

Poem: Vincent in Hiroshima

Vincent in Hiroshima “A work of art is a corner of creation viewed through a temperament.”—Emile Zola I. Daubigny’s Garden, a late masterpiece of Vincent van Gogh, painted in July 1890 (the same month he died), now hangs in Hiroshima. Talk about ghosts of the blast. Beauty clings to Horror, and still clings, even when … Read more

The Carbon Tax Scapegoat

We are regularly presented with press releases from government departments that express empathy for those struggling to make ends meet while facing exorbitant day-to-day living costs—not least among them the price of petrol, diesel, and home heating fuel. Yet, in the next breath, government bureaucracies issue statements justifying the ‘need’ to raise Carbon Taxes so … Read more