Yearly Archives: 2016

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From the people behind the Video That Does Not Exist

A ‘Defiant’, chirpier return.

Rory Walsh writes:

After becoming thoroughly downhearted while making one of our last projects we here at Spire Productions decided we would like to make something a bit more positive at the earliest opportunity.

So we took our cameras down to Scoil Chaitríona national school in Renmore, Galway a few months back and made a mini documentary called Up She Flew.
It documents the presentation of our national flag and a copy of the 1916 proclamation to the students as well as the raising of the flag on Proclamation day.

Up she flew will become part of our next full length documentary ‘Green Towards the Head’ which will explore modern Irish life through the eye’s of people with connections to our national flag.

If any of your readers have some sort of connection to the Irish flag, we would love to hear from them at spirefilm@gmail.com

Green Towards The Head (Facebook)

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European Central bank president Mario Draghi at Dublin Castle, June 2013

The far right are leaving.

And the left should  join them.

Nigel Wilmott, letters editor of The Guardian, writes:

Tomorrow despite a wobble over the horrible killing of Jo Cox and Ukip’s appalling poster, I shall be voting to leave the EU – the same way I voted in the 1975 referendum.

However, there is no straight line from one to the other. I have been for many years a strong supporter of the EU and am slightly surprised to be making this choice.

But an EU that is now based on mass unemployment and mass migration is not one worth supporting.

Of course Ukip plays the race card. But I’m still voting for Brexit

Official unemployment is 9% across the union and over 10% in the euro area. And those figures are flattered by unemployment rates of just over 4% in the EU’s biggest country, Germany, and the UK’s rather dubious 5%, which excludes the millions on zero-hours, part-time and temporary contracts.

In Greece, 24% are unemployed and 20% in Spain.

Youth unemployment (under-25s) is 51% in Greece, 45% in Spain, around 40% in Croatia and Italy, and over 30% in Portugal, with an average of 19% across the EU.

The only response in an austerity-bound EU is migration. It was somewhat odd to hear Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the party of which I am a member, explaining this matter-of-factly and with obvious approval, given the overtones of Norman Tebbit’s “on yer bike”.

And it needs to be remembered that this is not a temporary phenomenon at the bottom of an economic cycle.

This has been the situation more or less since the financial crash in 2008. If anything, we are probably near the top of a cycle with a downturn more likely than a new burst of economic growth.

Apart from the obvious impacts of unemployment on those immediately affected – poverty, lack of status and sense of worth – it keeps down wages generally for those sectors of the labour market affected.

It is this widespread sense of insecurity and fear that drives the growing rightwing populism across the continent, just as it did in the 1930s…

Remain and reform is wishful thinking – the left should vote leave (Nigel Wilmot, Guardian)

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From top: Ronnie Hanna, Frank Cushnahan and Enda Kenny

You may recall how Taoiseach Enda Kenny has repeatedly rebuffed calls from various TDs for a Commission of Investigation into Nama’s sale of its northern Ireland portfolio, Project Eagle.

The calls came after two men were arrested in Co. Down on May 31 in relation to the sale and later released pending further inquiries.

Earlier this month, in the Dáil, Mr Kenny said, “Nobody has presented me with evidence of wrongdoing by Nama in this jurisdiction” and, on another occasion, Mr Kenny said: “Nama has done nothing wrong”.

Just last week, Mr Kenny stated: “I am informed that this loan sell was executed in a proper manner. Despite all the comments and allegations, there are no claims of wrongdoing against NAMA.”

Further to this…

Frank Connolly, in Village magazine, reports:

The arrest of two men in connection with the criminal investigation into the sale of Project Eagle, the single largest disposal of Irish state assets, has discharged a seismic shock through the establishment, north and south.

…Ronnie Hanna, a former head of asset management at NAMA in Dublin and Frank Cushnahan, a former member of the agency’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee were arrested by police who also seized documents and computers during raids on a number of properties in Belfast.

Village has learned that the arrests came just days before the BBC ‘Spotlight’ programme was due to reveal fresh information concerning the role of both men in the Project Eagle saga.

The arrests of the two men by the NCA forced the cancellation of the programme, for legal reasons.

On Thursday, 2nd June, the Irish News reported that Hanna and Cushnahan had been arrested two days earlier by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and were being released on bail “pending further enquiries”.

It was the only news organisation to identify those arrested although, in its report, the Irish Times mentioned the pair as having been previously named in the Dáil by Mick Wallace in connection with the Project Eagle controversy.

… It is utterly wrong to say there is no allegation of wrongdoing against NAMA, when a central figure to its Dublin operation has been arrested, in the North.

The figleaf the Taoiseach and Michael Noonan sought, that there was no taint on the southern operation, has now been blown out of the water.

Kenny and Noonan under pressure and in denial (Frank Connolly, Village magazine)

Previously: Spotlight Falls On Noonan

Pics: Irish News

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A chilling chronicle 121 years of influential horror flicks from The Execution Of Mary Stuart (1895) to The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2016) by Brazilian editor Diego Carrera. To wit:

1 year = 1 film. “A History of Horror” is a video essay which proposes a timeline of influential and aesthetically beautiful horror movies around the world since 1895 until 2016.

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What you may need to know.

01. Manchester-based Gavin Murray has lost none of his accent, judging by his recent output as ambient-electronic troubadour Trick Mist.

02. Last year saw the release of debut EP Jars in Rows, completely written, performed, mixed and recorded by Murray himself over the course of six months.

03. Streaming above is the video for single Crumbs Abound. Directed by Graham Patterson, it places a full living-room in the bogs of Connemara with which to create a thinkpiece.

04. Coming up next: a visit home, with a gig on Saturday in Dublin at Whelan’s, alongside fellow expat Video Blue and Dublin’s Participant.

Verdict: Pensive yet likeable electronica complements Murray’s baritone, creating sparse, atmospheric songs.

Trick Mist