Early Days in RTÉ

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

Musician of the Month – Bartholomew Ryan of The Loafing Heroes

‘Descend the stairs, bend your legs, melting one by one. / Open your mouth to the snake in the sand, swallowing you one by one.’ So begins the first single from our latest album. It’s one of my treasured moments in the meandering Loafing Heroes journey: in how it came about, how it was constructed, … Read more

Artist of the Month – Héctor Castells

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”38″ gal_title=”Featured Artist of the Month: Hector Castells”] These poems belong to the Puddle Heroes series, by the hectic fish.   Puddle heroes is a collection of pictures of puddles with people on it, people not necessarily drowned as much as free floating They are the icons of all the rhymes that follow. All … Read more

Fine Gael’s Habitat Denial

The idea of home is a recurring Irish preoccupation – níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.[i] This can be traced to a history of Famine dispossession, and a subsequent Land War. The Irish Constitution still commits the State to supporting women as home-makers.[ii] It perhaps explains the vehemence of recent criticism, from across the … Read more

HAP-less – Addressing the Needs of Homeless in Temporary Accommodation

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

Getting Growing

It was exciting to meet the enthusiasm at the inaugural meeting of Talamh Beo, a grassroots organisation of farmers, growers and land-based workers on the island of Ireland. It aims to ensure a living landscape, where people and ecosystems thrive together. Inspiration comes from the Landworkers’ Alliance (UK), which in the five years of its … Read more

BREXIT – A Poem

Once I had finished it I didn’t understand my own poem, so how could you? There had been a moment when, possessed by a sort of deftness, I had made choices about matters such as line length but now all that had left me. I was confused. The intriguing question is what path led me … Read more