‘sup?
Kaziranga Forest Trail, Dublin Zoo
Siobhan Grogan writes:
Dublin Zoo is celebrating the birth of a female Asian elephant calf. Proud mum Bernhardine (Dina) who is the herd’s matriarch, gave birth to the healthy calf on Monday night after a 22-month gestation period. The calf is estimated to be 1 metre tall and weighs approx. 80kg. The new arrival is Dina’s third calf and the fifth elephant calf born at Dublin Zoo in less than three years.…
Mmf.
Pics: Patrick Bolger
This morning.
Smithfield, Dublin 7
Emma Ní Cheallacháin at the Mythbusting launch to mark the end of Seachtain na Gaeilge le Energia.
Mythbusting?
Via Conradh na Gaeilge:
There are many myths surrounding the Irish language, some of which are centuries old, others which have only come to the fore in recent years, including the idea that Irish is somehow a “dead language” or that Gaelscoileanna are elitist.
Today, Conradh na Gaeilge is launching Mythbusting, an awareness campaign to challenge misinformation about the Irish language with a series of videos and nationwide talks with Colm Ó Broin. All details can be found here www.cnag.ie/mythbusting
Translation: Tá go leor miotas a bhaineann leis an nGaeilge, roinnt acu atá ar an bhfód leis na céadta bliain agus cinn eile ar cumadh iad as an nua le déanaí, an tuairim gur ‘teanga mharbh” í an Ghaeilge ina measc. Tá Conradh na Gaeilge ag obair le Colm Ó Broin chun na ‘fíricí ailtéirneacha’ is coitianta faoin teanga a bhréagnú le sraith d’fhíseáin i mBéarla agus de chainteanna ar fud na tíre. Tá gach eolas ar anseo.
Tá Emma Ní Cheallacháin ó Shligeach le feiceáil ag seoladh an fheachtais Mythbusting i Margadh na Feirme, Baile Átha Cliath inniu (Déardaoin, 16 Márta 2017) chun Seachtain na Gaeilge le Energia a thabhairt chun críche.
Troid!
Mythbusting (Conradh na Gaeilge)
Pic: Conor McCabe
Paul McGrath in College Green, Dublin 2 during the Italia ’90 homecoming
Oooh.
And, if you will, ahh.
On the Late Late Show…
Gareth Naughton writes:
As the Irish team prepares for a crucial World Cup Qualifier against Wales, football legend Paul McGrath joins Ryan Tubridy in studio to assess the Republic of Ireland’s chances. He’ll be chatting about the glory days of Irish football and what life has been like for him since hanging up his boots…
Earlier this year broadcaster Maura Derrane, soccer pundit Eamon Dunphy, comedian Jason Byrne and politician Michael Healy-Rae gamely agreed to have their DNA tested to determine their ancestry. On Friday night they will find out the results live on air…
…A perennial favourite, The Late Late Show Antiques Special is back. Viewers will meet the brave souls who’ll be transforming some unloved furniture into treasures to keep.
*refashions telly into footrest*
The Late Late Show, St Patrick’s Day, RTÉ One at 9.35pm.
Rollingnews
Free tonight?
Broadsheet on the Telly Patrick’s Day special at 11.45 streamed live here and on our YouTuibe channel and available thereafter in perpetuity.
Ring in March 17 with Broadsheet readers from across the WORLD.
Porter, spirits and and whatnot allowed on the premises.
No foam headgear.
Please leave show suggestions/advice/snark below.
What you may need to know:
1. Here comes the new one from Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013), sometimes known as the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. You’d have thought the trailer would signpost that fact, but it looks like a bit of a tonal shift for him so perhaps you don’t want to create an expectation of the same kind of slapstick comedy and endless film references.
2. Wright was also responsible for Channel 4 sitcom Spaced (1999 – 2001) and the underappreciated graphic novel adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010).
3. Baby Driver sees Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars) play the title role as an unnaturally talented driver who puts his skills to work as a wheelman for Kevin Spacey’s idiosyncratic armed robbers. That is until he meets the girl of his dreams and sees a way to get out of the criminal life before his ruthless boss blackmails him into one last….wait a minute, we’ve got déjà vu…
4. The similarities to Drive (2011) are certainly there, right down to the hero’s savant-like skills, but that was hardly a groundbreaking work itself. According to Wright, his film owes more of a debt to Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978) than anything else. Also, given Wright’s track record, you’d hope Baby Driver has a similar surfeit of ideas that would give a well-told story a feeling of freshness.
5.The film, while not a musical, is entirely driven by music happening within each scene – i.e. what’s Baby’s iPod rather than on a soundtrack or score. (It’s less common than it sounds). The film takes its title from this Simon & Garfunkel song.
6. The supporting cast includes Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal, as well as (if rumours are to be believed), an uncredited Meryl Streep. Oh, and Flea.
7. Wright has also been busy with Marvel in recent years. He was slated to direct Ant-Man (2015) but left the role after shooting had begun, while retaining screenwriting and executive producer credit. Given his hyperactive directing style, it’s a good bet he wanted to do something “different” with the otherwise indistinguishable Marvel universe, but Kevin Feige and the lads had different ideas. That’s a question of ‘who knows best?’ Look what happened with Rogue One last year, for example.
8. Aswell as being needlessly long, this trailer struggles to put across the tone of the film. It’s colourful, with plenty of pause-for-a-one-liner moments, but none of them seem particularly funny. Spacey is playing it straight, while Foxx and Flea are not, and Elgort is somewhere in between. The vehicular stunts do promise there’s plenty more where that came from though…dig those donuts and reverse-180s. The reviews from its premier last weekend at SXSW are mostly very positive.
9. Variety calls Wright’s style of directing “a bit like someone smoking in a fireworks factory”: packed with potential but with the possibility of all going horribly wrong at any moment. Sounds about right.
Verdict: Bad trailer for a great film? Let’s hope so.
Release: TBC
Percolator – Dublin shoegaze/indie
What you may need to know…
01. Comprised of former members of Irish outfit Dae Kim, Percolator came together in 2009, with the current lineup solidifying a few years later: founder members Ian Chestnutt and Eleanor Myler were joined by Ilya K/Guerrilla Studios man John Murphy.
02. The band have made with a consistent stream of extended-play releases over the past few years, and their journey into a Venn diagram of shoegaze, psych, kraut and ’80s UK indie has led them to tread stages in support of Michael Rother of NEU!, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Deerhoof.
03. Streaming above is the video for new single CRAB SUPERNOVA, directed by Thom McDermot. Self-produced and mixed by the band at Guerilla, it’s been mastered by veteran engineer Harvey Birrell (Therapy?, among others).
04. It’s taken from the band’s upcoming debut full-length, entitled Sestra, releasing April 14th in Ireland and France via Penske Recordings and Permafrost Records, and April 28th everyplace else. Digital and vinyl pre-orders here.
Thoughts: Precise and pointed, yet layered and gently exploratory. Nerds of the aforementioned genres will find as much as ever to love here, but so too will lapsed indie-rock heads looking for something genuinely new.
From top: the old Irish passport, 1978; Dan Boyle
We are far from being the welcoming, inclusive Irish, we often pretend to be.
It’s a question of degrees.
Dan Boyle writes:
The proposal to allow Irish citizens, not residing here, to vote for our Head of State, is not the most pressing constitutional issue needing attention. It probably is being suggested to deflect from many more serious issues.
Nonetheless it should be considered as bringing about a necessary change, to allow for standards that are in practice in many other countries.
What I find worrying is the making of the proposal has brought out a reaction, that seems to go beyond an understandable disdain towards political cynicism.
It seems to reveal an attitude that a pecking order of Irishness exists; a pecking order defined as much by the how and where a person chooses to live, than by any genetic privileges earned.
At the top of this pyramid are those who live in this country, and have always lived in this country. Let’s call them The Famine Survivors. These are the people who have the right to say ‘My country right or wrong’. That they usually choose wrong, remains only their privilege.
Below them are The Returnees. Emigrants, with their children, who have come back to the ‘auld sod’. They were Irish there, but they are not thought fully Irish here, because of a disconnect they are made feel they have made.
Then we have Our Northern Brethren. De Valera’s constitutional conceit that there is the State and there is the Nation, has created a particularly Irish Limbo in Northern Ireland. We like to romantically believe them to be our compatriots, but we are reluctant to make any economic changes of ourselves to fulfil that romance.
To be fair to De Valera, the idea of lost countrymen in other territories wasn’t uniquely his. It was quite a popular idea in the 1930s.
A more recent category would be that of The Wilder Geese. These are our more recent emigrants. Economic reasons may have informed their leaving, although some have left out of choice! The temerity of seeking better lives outside of the motherland.
We have The Honorary Irish. The children of emigrant Irish, who however much soaked in their adopted culture, gain honourary status by being successful in their fields, usually in the entertainment industry. We are happy for them to be Irish out there. Less so here.
The same could be said for their parents, and of those who left in other eras, The Lost Generations. We mock their wistfulness as being twee. We condemn their vision of an Ireland that if it ever existed, certainly doesn’t exist now.
Last, and sadly for many least, we have The New Irish. A moniker born out of political correctness that has assumed Orwellian proportions. As in The New Irish are not considered Irish at all.
We fear their different ways. We fear their differentness. We are wary they will dilute our cultural purity. The thoughts of a samba infused nine hand reel blows our minds.
Maybe I am deflecting here. We are though far from being the welcoming, inclusive Irish, we often pretend to be.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursdyay. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
The whole system’s starting to creak
Beneath the great orange skinned freak
A court stopped his ban
Which enrages a man
Who thinks human rights make him look weak.
John Moynes
Meanwhile…
Scenes Of Moderate Violence, the debut collection of poems from John Moynes (above), is currently being crowdfunded.
You can support John’s work here.
This morning.
On Dame Street, Dublin 2.
Mark Malone tweetz:
Solidarity message. “Happy St Patrick’s Day to the undocumented in the US from the undocumented in Ireland.”
A 2017 update of Liverpool-based Dorothy Collective’s map of 900 film titles. to wit:
The Map, which is loosely based on the style of a vintage Los Angeles street map has its own Hollywood Boulevard and includes districts dedicated to Hitchcock and Cult British Horror movies. Like most cities it also has its own Red Light area. There’s an A-Z key at the base of the Map listing all the films featured with their release dates and names of the directors.
Available as a 60x80cm print for £25 (+p&p)
