lockdown

Liking Lockdown

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The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone. Martin Amis, in an interview with The Paris Review (1998) The empty streets, quiet from dawn to dusk and beyond. No noisy, polluting rush hour traffic, or at any other time of the day. No shuffling, stifling crowds of commuters … Read more

Ciarán O’Rourke: Breaking the Cycle

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One Big Union is a self-published collection of essays by Irish poet Ciarán O’Rourke. The essays, many of which have been previously published in such outlets as Poetry Ireland Review, Irish Marxist Review, and indeed, Cassandra Voices herself, are a mix of literary criticism, political theory, and personal writing. The book’s introduction locates itself in … Read more

Covid-19 in Ireland: Landfall

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In August of last year I wrote an article pointing to the impending consequence of the Irish government’s rolling lockdown policy, ‘The Perfect Storm’[i] gathering on the horizon over the country. By that I meant a significant second wave of Covid-19 – to hit this winter. I made that prediction based on the following factors: … Read more

Looking Back on Lockdown

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With lockdown actively under consideration in some European states once again, including Ireland, we look back on a selection of testimonies from a period many of us thought we had put behind us. It all happened too fast, so quickly that we didn’t have time to fully understand. The night before we were sipping beer … Read more

Covid-19: A Simple Moral Calculus

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Introduction There are still many unresolved questions regarding the pathogenesis of this disease and especially the reasons underlying the extremely different clinical course, ranging from asymptomatic forms to severe manifestations, including the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). SARS-CoV-2 showed phylogenetic similarities to both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV viruses, and some of the clinical features are shared … Read more

Artist of the Month – Uluç Ali Kılıç

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I am a visual artist based in Istanbul. I was born in 1979 in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. I studied painting at Hacettepe University in Ankara, graduating in 2003. As a student I was mostly influenced by abstract expressionism. I also began to use installations and video art. These three media are now … Read more

Barcelona Under Lockdown

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It all happened too fast, so quickly that we didn’t have time to fully understand. The night before we were sipping beer and eating tapas and waiting for spring to come in the warm evening breeze; the following day we were on the sofa consulting the Netflix schedule for the umpteenth time, without finding an … Read more