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
Most people whose Irish childhood was spent between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s wistfully remember the comics then available. They were mostly published by the DC Thomson company based in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Beano and The Dandy were read by boys and girls, and girls’ comics like Bunty and the School Friend (this for older girls) … Read more
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
This Mortal Coil The Covid pandemic brought a public health emergency, political and legal challenges, intense media coverage, social divisions, and intense debates among scientists. Yet, in public commentaries, attention fell almost exclusively on a single cause of suffering: the virus itself. This framing of the crisis contributed to an atmosphere of extreme danger, a … Read more
‘I confess I do not believe in time.’ Vladimir Nabokov On a hostel rooftop in Morocco, I met a Russian man who had not been home since the war broke out. I was there to catch the last of the sun and read my book in peace so when he first introduced himself I made … Read more
Review: We Must Begin with the Land: Seeking Abundance and Liberation through Social Ecology by Stephen E. Hunt (Zer0 books, 2025) Environmentalists find themselves in the paradoxical situation of living in a golden age of radical ecological thinking – even as our global economic system blasts through one climactic tipping-point after another, more or less … Read more
The future of urban transport policy lies not in expansion but in the intelligent use of existing traffic areas. The objective of ensuring mobility for people travelling to work and shopping and during leisure time requires urban traffic management based on modern information technology. Ernst Joos, Deputy Director of Zurich Transport. ‘Lessons in Transportation Planning … Read more
How would you feel upon discovering the objects of your daily, habitual use—ordinary objects of every imaginable function and variety—were inspirited, sensitively keen observers with their own desires, gripes, preoccupations, and ways of understanding the world? This is precisely the brain-tickling puzzle Jennifer Maier’s newly-released third collection The Occupant (University of Pittsburgh Press) shakes, opens, … Read more
At the end of Roger Scruton’s short book On Hunting, an out-of-print memoir about the British conservative philosopher’s discovery and participation in fox hunting during middle age, Scruton focuses on the final days of his cob Bob. Shorn of the energy needed to gallop in herd-like fashion through the landscape as a part of the … Read more
I play electronic music, experimental ambient sets or hypnotic techno sets. It’s exciting to begin a set, stepping into a space of anticipation. The audience doesn’t know what’s to come, nor do I. I start with something and if I’m lucky, I catch them – they follow me. Together, we create a journey in the … Read more