The bomb might be dropped any time soon now, apparently. The end of all ends, a nuclear war, looms among the narratives of where Ukraine and Russia’s war might end. Timothy Snyder warns in this regard that a nuclear bomb ‘would make no decisive military difference’; adding that looking at ‘the mushroom cloud for narrative … Read more
Deities or daimons held strong associations with the cities of Classical Rome and Greece, projecting how freemen, and sometimes women, wished to represent their civic virtues. Thus Athena, the patron god of Athens, combined an association with crafts such as weaving and valour on the battlefield. The gods of Antiquity yielded to saints or angels … Read more
The life of Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, has been celebrated on two primary occasions in Ireland. First, in 1997 at the centenary of his first wireless transmissions, and also in 2007 at the centenary of his first commercial TransAtlantic wireless transmissions between Ireland and Canada. Both anniversaries were celebrated in Clifden, Connemara, where, in a … Read more
Winifred Barrington, only daughter of Sir Charles Barrington, led a charmed life – far removed from the political and economic struggles of the general population in the 1920s. The Barrington family, who lived in what was then known as Glenstal Castle, were landed gentry and enjoyed the associated trappings. However, they were well respected as … Read more
‘I have never met a man so in love with the written word – provided he himself has written it’ Vincent Mercier on his editor at The Bell Sean O’Faoláin. In this second and final instalment, Frank Armstrong reviews Periodicals and Journalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland 2: A Variety of Voices edited by Mark O’Brien and … Read more
This is the first of two articles occasioned by the recent publication of Periodicals and Journalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland 2: A Variety of Voices, edited by Mark O’Brien & Felix M. Larkin and published by the Four Court Press in Dublin. Here, Frank Armstrong reviews the first instalment in this illuminating study, Periodicals and Journalism … Read more
Through Fernando Pessoa the flesh was made word. Reminiscent of the renowned Chinese painter Wu Daozi, who, as legend has it, vanished into one of his own landscape paintings, Pessoa (1888-1935), the great Portuguese poet, appears to have disappeared bodily into his written works. Dispersing himself into the many lives of others through the medium … Read more
Don’t you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the Black Shorts. His general idea, if he doesn’t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is … Read more
I’m living in cloud cuckoo land And this just feels like Spinning plates Radiohead, Like Spinning Plates, Amnesiac 2001. Ten years on from the Irish Banking Crisis and the subsequent taxpayer funded bailouts, how are we faring in term of regulating the financial sector? In view of the possibility of another property bubble, it is … Read more
Ger-mania… Extraordinarily, Germany appears on the brink of following the lead of Austria in mandating a vaccination against COVID-19, as segregation of the unvaccinated continues. We seem to have entered what Gore Vidal described as the United States of Amnesia, as all history is forgotten. So let us cast our mind back. I maintain the … Read more