Sail-Rail passage between Dublin and London currently takes about eight hours – but could be slashed to under four. The emergence of what the Swede’s call ‘flight shame’ in this era of Climate Change, may motivate many to look for alternatives on what is Europe’s busiest air corridor. I – Outset An era of climate … Read more
Repost… The year is 1500 and Jesus Christ returns – to the city of Seville in Spain. There he performs a sequence of miracles, whereupon he is arrested and hauled before the Grand Inquisitor, as imagined by Ivan Karamazov – a character from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1880 novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In his infinite mercy he … Read more
In the year of our Lord 2019, what remained engrained was an émigré from the hoi omphaloi of confusion and strife. The Easter in question came late on the calendar but much like the highly controversial transubstantiation, the bitter end of Holy Week started as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall … Read more
Back in Dublin again, I was one of thirty, all-male trainees destined to become the camera, lighting and sound operators with the new television service. I started late, in November 1961 and found the first work ambience I had ever enjoyed. We were based in the hall of a school near Ringsend and then in … Read more
Irene H. Going into your house, I sat in the conservatory waiting for the door to open. Waiting for your familiar rasping voice to call, “Mann! Herzenskind, komm rein.” I remained there still in the leather chair, trying to pluck up the courage to open the door and be met with emptiness. You’d snuck out … Read more
Brilliant white cinder-block walls and pastel-coloured floors. In between, lightweight partition walls carve up what is essentially a warehouse, and inspire confusion in short tangential corridors. Varying odours and temperatures permeate the air, where a multitude of individuals experiencing homelessness have the fortune of a roof over their head. Some move quickly, others slowly, some … Read more
‘What is law?’ This is a fundamental question posed at the outset of any course in the philosophy of law. The standard form of response includes that it is a system of rules, according to a tradition known as legal positivism. Such is a ‘black letter’ lawyer, and Anglo-American approach. This is a product of … Read more
I’ve just made my last film, a short called Bog Graffiti. Another last film. I always make that resolution when a film is put to bed. Never again, I say, will I go through the pain. In my childhood the cinema was already a fantasy, one which we could only occasionally afford. When as day … Read more
Czech border police snoop along the rail carriage as we pass the frontier from Germany. They seem to linger outside our compartment long enough to survey the light pigmentation of the young Dutch couple and this Hiberno-Norman specimen inside, passing by without seeking identification. White skin remains a passport – carte blanche – to unspoken … Read more
“every member of the Earth Community has three inherent rights: the right to be, to habitat, and to fulfil its role in the ever-renewing processes of the Earth community.”