the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burthens ever accumulating. Thomas Jefferson, 1813. Laura’s Decision Laura has not found the job that will make her happy – more accurately, she does not want a job. Her vocation is reading, playing the cello, and, maybe, teaching. She is … Read more
As a barrister I am given to quoting from Shakespeare’s plays in closing speeches. This may seem pretentious, but I find his acute observations on the human condition continue to speak to juries, and judges. He remains highly relevant to legal education, and indeed the practice of law. I would go so far as to … Read more
I’m of an age to be intrigued by death. My 84-year-old grandmother, widowed, came to live with our family, and took over my bedroom. I was forced to give up the room, to share instead with a sibling. The old woman was hale and hearty, retained her wits, preserved her down to earth assessment of … Read more
An grá is an gráin, say these two words out loud, say them out loud to yourself, out loud to the listening others around, and feel in your mouth how subtle the shift is between them; how the open mouth of love — grá — gets slighted by the brush of your tongue’s curled tip … Read more
The appeal of exotic cuisines and esoteric diets has done little to diminish bread’s status as the primary foodstuff of the Western world, and many areas besides. Symbolic as the ‘staff of life’ and ubiquitous, the Oxford English Dictionary describes it in wholesome simplicity as a ‘well-known article of food prepared by moistening, kneading, and … Read more
I have a story for all kinds of weird sleep-related shenanigans. Walking, talking, singing, dancing, fucking, wanking. One of my earliest memories is of sleep misadventures. Waking in my parents’ bathroom, freezing cold, alone in the blue predawn hue. The long narrow room, icily humid like all 90s Irish lavatories, except filled with a fear … Read more
Dervla Murphy’s father was one of Pádraig Pearse’s patriots. Schooled in St Enda’s, aged eighteen he was incarcerated in an English prison for three years, ‘sewing sacks for the post office, wretchedly fed and crawling with lice’, as she wrote in her autobiography, Wheels Within Wheels. The Murphys were anti-Treaty Republicans. Every one of the … Read more
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film ‘Dr Strangelove’ dramatizes the still not-altogether-remote scenario of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It begins with a deranged U.S. Airforce General, Jack D. Ripper, overriding Executive Command and ordering a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The Russians, unbeknownst to the Americans, have developed a deterrent – the Doomsday Machine – … Read more
Entering the dragon’s den I arrive twenty minutes late for a casting, but it doesn’t really matter. Only three other girls have found their way into the casting room so far; ‘girls’ being a euphemism – the youngest person in the room is a women in her early twenties. At a fashion casting we are … 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