by Ewa | 27 Nov 2016
Really looking forward to the “Finding a Voice” special evening on Thurs, 8th December at 18:30, when author, poet and playwright Dermot Bolger hosts an evening of readings and music at The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin.
The event celebrates Dermot’s 2016 writer’s residency, a collaborative project set up by the Museum’s 1916 Public Entertainment Programme and Poetry Ireland, which saw a series of events entitled “Finding A Voice” take place throughout the year. Combining workshop, panel discussion, lectures and readings, these afternoons were a pleasure for all – both the writers who read and spoke at them, and the participants – often first time writers – who benefitted from the series.
Elsewhere at the museum, the centenary is celebrated by “Proclaiming a Republic – The 1916 Rising” – a splendid exhibition in the Riding School venue at Collins Barracks – a visit to which would be more than worthwhile on Thursday afternoon, before the reading in .
With this aspect of the 1916-2016 centenary celebrations in mind, Dermot asked me to join in the final event, not only as a writer (I’ll read from my book, “Ferenji“), but also as the Granddaughter of the 1916 rebel Jimmy Mulkerns, who fought at the Four Courts during the Rising, and who then spent eight hard months incarcerated at Frongoch Prison Camp, along with almost 2,000 other Irish rebels.
My grandfather, a fine actor and tenor who had his own touring theatre troupe, was part of the “Amusements Committee” that set up the weekly entertainment evenings in Frongoch camp, along with some of the other prisoners involved in the theatre or the entertainment field of the day, who fought in the rebellion.
At the time, there were at least three theatres in operation in Dublin – the posh new Abbey Theatre, founded by Yeats and Lady Gregory, the more popular Queens Theatre, and several other music hall style venues – including the old Empire Palace Theatre (now The Olympia). It wasn’t surprising that a number of the rebels were also entertainers and actors. To keep up the spirits of the men, they organised a little cabaret/seisúin each Friday evening.Their efforts included the presentation of music, original drama as well as skits and satire.
Jimmy Mulkerns served in the role of Master of Ceremonies and satirical songster at these evenings, earning the nickname “The Rajah of Frongoch” in playful reference to the exotic costumes he would derive from curtains, rags or donations from women of the local Welsh community. The Rajah was the inspiration for my own entertainment evening, The Cáca Milis Cabaret, at which Dermot Bolger has been a much appreciated participant on several occasions.
So this Thursday evening promises to be a lively and enjoyable event, with the participation of those who have attended Dermot’s excellent workshops through the year since March and from literary friends, as well as a few songs to remember those who might have fought in the area in or around what is now the National Museum, Collins Barracks, in 1916.
For more fun stuff, click the links:
www.DermotBolger.com
National Museum of Ireland 1916 Public Event Programme
The daughter of the Rajah of Frongoch Val Mulkerns, visits the location of the camp, 2016 (by Maev Kennedy)
With thanks to Matthew Lloyd for the links to his fascinating website on old music halls and theatres:
http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/
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by Ewa | 3 Feb 2017
This evening, we meet around eight o’clock, at a rambling old colonial villa in the heart of Eritrea’s sleepy capital, Asmara. Bougainvillea and Clematis crawl along the old stone walls, Italianate stucco designs frame the peeling storm shutters, the hallway has that 1930s feel of space and marble that disappeared after the Second World War. The equally spacious living room is hung with paintings, lined with books and evinces the peripatetic essence of the international worker: wood carvings from Indonesia, wall hangings from Afghanistan, carved wooden footstools from Kenya and batik prints from Benin. On the coffee table, a beautifully crafted Eritrean bread basket.
Apart from this hodge-podge of domestic style, the most fascinating sight to behold here tonight is a massive collection of books, arrayed on the dining table, tumbling over onto the sideboard, piled on chairs and on the windowsill, arranged without rhyme or reason. Their authors range from Shakespeare to Michael Herr, from Jane Austin to Zadie Smith, but their random placement is all part of the charm and glory of what is simply known in Asmara as “The Book Club”.
The Book Club is an anarchic entity. Its library of around 700 tomes has no geographical resting place. People meet, discuss books, drink wine, and at the end of the night, somebody just volunteers to host the next Book Club. It’s like ‘Fight Club’ without Brad Pitt. There is no treasurer, no fee, no headquarters, no membership requirements. The books travel, each month, in an assortment of cardboard boxes, from the location of the last Book Club, to the location the next Book Club, and are then simply stacked in any suitable space in the host/hostess’s living room for all to peruse. (more…)
by Ewa | 31 Aug 2017
Trawling through my hard drive in search of an errant fiction file, I came across my original “Trainspotting” review, done this month 21 years ago for one or other of the New York publications at the time …
Currently not so much a film as a phenomenon, “Trainspotting” has been preceded by a blast of mega-hype reaching all the way across the Atlantic. Do you have to see it? Do you really? Well, read on…
Based on the novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh (who also wrote “The Acid House”), the book meanders in and around of the lives of the post-punk, no-future generation of unemployed Edinburgh youths enmeshed in heroine addiction, not unlike many in our other favourite post-colonial city, Dublin.
For all the hype, though, it grossed $15 million, more than any other Scottish film. Made by director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew McDonald (who made “Shallow Grave”, released last year), it deals with heroine addiction, AIDS, unemployment and poverty. But it also delivers a full-blast infusion of the lust for life that any gang of twenty-somethings will have in any city.
Taking no prisoners, it’s an honest, brilliant and devastating take on a very real part of urban life, managing to deliver that world faithfully – with all its gallows humor and its highs and lows.
If the book is one of the best ever penned about about heroine addiction, the film follows suit. Because while anybody watching the film will work out that heroine is an evil that consumes its victims continuously and relentlessly, you see that the characters, to put it in their own words, “aren’t stupid” – they do it because of the sheer pleasure. They have fun, they are rebels, they care nothing for the society that has provided them with nothing, they run around committing small-time robberies, organizing scams and petty deals to fund their habits, and they do their drugs. Addiction is set out on the screen with no frills, no excuses. It’s comparable in grit to Gus Van Sant’s “Drugstore Cowboy”, although for sheer scatological detail “Trainspotting” is more harrowing.
Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, Begby and the others know no pain when they are on smack, they have no everyday worries, no bills, no problems, no rent, no emotional hassles – everything in their lives is solved and sugared by this incredible substance. And yet everything in their lives is at the same time reduced to a vile lowest common denominator, as when one squat mate’s baby dies of neglect in its cot, and all the mother can think of doing is banging up another hit of smack. Or when Tommy, the only one in the crowd who remained outside the game, finally joins in and falls faster than any of them.
The controversy surrounding “Trainspotting” in England and Ireland is centred on whether this film “glorifies” drugs. This is fairly typical of the Irish and British authorities, who seem to get more worked up about peripherals than actually getting down and dealing with the everyday challenges of their gang-strangled streets. Recently the Irish government sent 500 of their policemen up to the Northern Ireland border to save the Republic from the illegal crossings of potentially “mad” cows, while journalist Veronica Guerin was gunned to bits in Dublin city by drug lords. With an estimated 10,000 heroine addicts in Dublin alone, how worrying can one film about drugs be?
Take “Trainspotting” as you like. See it to get a bloody hard look at a problem that is widespread in Irish and Scottish society today. See it for its spectacularly stylish cinematic qualities or its fabulous soundtrack. See it for Ewan McGregor’s grin, for Spud’s glasses, for Kelly McDonald’s demented school uniform, see it to have a good laugh – or see it and weep. But see it.
Helena Mulkerns
by Ewa | 12 Sep 2017
I’m really looking forward to reading this Friday, 15th September, at the Shorelines Arts Festival in Portumna, Galway, a wonderful long weekend of the Arts on the shores of historic Lough Derg.
The festival will be opened by
Vinnie Browne of Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway on Thursday at 7pm and end on Sunday evening. I’ll be booking into what looks like a lovely place to stay:
Portumna House on Friday, to read at
lunchtime, but plan to make a weekend of it.
Particularly looking forward to seeing
Cherish The Ladies, and catching up with the wonderful Joanie Madden, a friend from the days I lived in New York. Joanie’s father, Joe was an All-Ireland Champion accordion player who hailed from Portumna himself, so that’s a gig not to miss.
There is a spectacular art exhibition at the formidable, now restored Irish Workhouse Centre and a pop-up museum on the theme of “Lace”. There are short and feature films, plays, workshops, children’s events. But don’t just trust me, download the brochure here yourself and see the full programme.
But if you want to hear some good stories and poems, of course – I want to invite you to join fellow
Doire Press author
Martin Malone and myself, along with Kerry poet Simon O’Faoláin, for the
lunchtime reading on Friday at 1:30pm in Hayes’ pub – all three for a fiver, plus songs and sandwiches! Click on the image below for details.
by Ewa | 1 Dec 2017
While a full blog entry about the Bórd Gais Energy Irish Book Awards is pending – here are some photos for now:
by Ewa | 27 Jul 2018
Here’s an advance hint to keep Sunday, 30th September open, when I’ll be reading at the upcoming Bray Literary Festival with fellow-Doire Press poet, Michael J. Whelan:
Michael J. Whelan and Helena Mulkerns read at Bray Literary Festival 2018
by Eibhlin | 14 Feb 2015
Birthday wishes to author Val Mulkerns – my favourite Irish lady of twentieth century letters, 90 years today: pictured here last week, on a morning walk near her home. Starting out in the literary world as Associate Editor working with Seán O’Faoláin in The Bell, she has published five novels, three collections of short stories, two children’s books and many published essays and critical writings. The third edition of Val’s 1984 novel The Summerhouse was published last year, and a new edition of her 1986 novel, Very Like A Whale follows this Spring. For more see: www.valmulkerns.com
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by Eibhlin | 1 Mar 2015
THE SAN FRANCISCO BOOK FESTIVAL turns out to be exactly what it’s billed as: a “celebration of books”. Leave your cares, your TV, your Internet (although it does rear its ugly head) and your sense of time behind you,and head into an arguably dying realm. After all, the Japanese have already invented the slim, compact, CD ROM book-reading device which you hold in your hand and press a tiny panel to turn the “pages”.
For all that, books, their creators and their enthusiasts appear strangely healthy this weekend, by the end of which strong backs are necessary to cart away compulsive print purchases, many signed by the gang of authors who have descended on the town for the event. Over the weekend, you could attend readings by American book heroes as diverse as Amy Tan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tobias Wolff, Joy Harjo or Alice Walker, with visits by writers from China, India and Peru.
The Pads, of course, are no exception. Not to be completely out done by the mucho-sexy Frankfurt extravaganza, San Francisco this year featured a strong Irish – Indeed Celtic – presence, with writers travelling from the auld sod and around the US to participate in a special panel entitled “The Wild Colonials: The Writing Irish Abroad”. (more…)
My grandfather, a fine actor and tenor who had his own touring theatre troupe, was part of the “Amusements Committee” that set up the weekly entertainment evenings in Frongoch camp, along with some of the other prisoners involved in the theatre or the entertainment field of the day, who fought in the rebellion.
Jimmy Mulkerns served in the role of Master of Ceremonies and satirical songster at these evenings, earning the nickname “The Rajah of Frongoch” in playful reference to the exotic costumes he would derive from curtains, rags or donations from women of the local Welsh community. The Rajah was the inspiration for my own entertainment evening, The Cáca Milis Cabaret, at which Dermot Bolger has been a much appreciated participant on several occasions.
