September Books

It seems to have been a frenzy of buying and reading this month, not sure what it made it so, though the stockpiled book tokens may have had some influence.
Admittedly the Pirates books are really short (and addictive) so they’re really the equivalent of reading one normal-sized book. It’s the followy-upperness that had the second [...]

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Bloom’s Book

Part of the reason to read Ulysses is to find out what all the fuss is about.
The book takes place on one day in Dublin 16th June 1904. The book has had such an effect on scholars that the date has even become part of the calendar of our lives. Each year on 16th June [...]

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In the beginning was the Word

Ulysses
It’s not really a book for reading, it’s more something that you would leave lying around the house, possibly laying open at a random page or if you’re more industrious you could mark various pages with post-its and write notes in the margins. Be sure to dog-ear it, spine-crease it, batter it, it’s not a [...]

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Up

How many secrets are hidden in your town or city? How many do you pass by everyday? Have you ever taken a good look at where you live?
For the past few months I’ve been intrigued by the clock and lamps on the GPO, I don’t remember seeing them there before, I think that maybe they’ve [...]

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Pillar

For many a year in the centre of O’Connell St was Nelson’s Pillar. My father can remember climbing the steps to the top and having a view over all of Dublin.
In 1966, to “celebrate” the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, the IRA blew it up.
By way of another celebration (the millennium), a competition was [...]

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Exodus

A friend was telling me the other day that if it wasn’t for the Famine, there would be 27 million people living on the island of Ireland now.
Before the Famine there were 9 million people living on the island, now 150 years later there are 5.5 million living on the island. There were 12 million [...]

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A Clear Eye

One problem I’ve always had with taking photos in Dublin is that it’s too normal, too ordinary, it’s home and home generally isn’t all that exciting. Drop me in the middle of nowhere or anywhere else and I’ll be reaching for my camera within seconds. Merely because it’s different. Different light, different colours, different everything.
It’s [...]

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The First Step

A friend recently gave me a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook, I spent the day today reading through it. I’ve been at my new project for three weeks now and I’ve still got nothing to do, each day I have to think of new things to do to keep me looking busy, to [...]

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Two Lives

Sometimes I get these notions that I want to be a writer, to see something that I created out of the words buzzing around in my head. To see my name in print. Recently I’ve felt there was something lacking in my life, a gap hitherto unfulfilled, this strange slightly artistic side that I can’t [...]

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No good just bad and ugly

I’ve already extolled the virtues of the good music of the eighties so I guess it’s time to work through some of the rest:
The BadWake me up before you go-go – WhamI have no idea what the song is about but it still brings a smile to my face and a repressed bounce to my [...]

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