Author Archives: Nick Kelly

 Ian Ritchie (right), creator of the Dublin Spire (top), and proposals for Notre Dame (left)

Ian Ritchie – who is best known for designing the Spire of Dublin, – plans to submit a competition entry including a spire that would be “a refracting, super-slender reflecting crystal to heaven.”

The structure, which would be made of crystal, stainless steel and glass, Ritchie said, would “get to touch heaven’s clouds in a piece of celestial gothic acupuncture.”

“I think it would need to be perforated — at least 50 per cent empty space to eliminate wind loads — and could be a beautiful contemporary tracery of glass crystals and stainless steel,” he added…

France launched a competition for designs to rebuild Notre-Dame (Insider)

Ian Ritchie, creator of the Spire in Dublin—one of the most vacuous large monuments in the world—said that the Notre-Dame spire should be “a refracting, super-slender reflecting crystal to heaven,” a glass version of his Dublin monument, in fact.

If French president Emmanuel Macron had any sense, he would forbid any modernist British architect from coming within a radius of 100 miles of Notre-Dame—not that French modernist architects are any better, of course.

The Egos Are Landing in Paris (Theodore Dlarymple)

Fight!

Theordore Dalrymple?

Free tonight?

Take That (top) and Rick Astley (above), 3 Arena, Dublin, Tonight and tomorrow.

The ‘90s boy band they could not kill supported by the ‘80s disco star who became one of the internet’s most famous memes

Nick says: After watching the most recent videos by these pop survivors, one’s first impression is that Rick Astley now makes records that sound like Take That… and Take That now make records that sound like The Mike Flowers Pops. Most peculiar.

Tickets are still available for both shows here

Free tickets here!

(chuckle)

Sean OB – Get My Shit Together

The new video from Tallaght troubadour Sean O’Brien is a stirring call to action that fuses hip-hop with The Clash for this tale of life in modern day Dublin. “Don’t mean to drag it down but I fucking love this town,” sings Sean.

He says:

“If I can get just one sentence that I feel like someone else would sing to me… I take a lot of happiness from that.”

Nick says: We think Sean’s cracked it.

Sean OB

This afternoon

The Cranberries tweetz:

‘In The End’ is out today. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for the support you have given us throughout our career especially in the past year, it has meant the world to us.

‘In The End’ can be downloaded or streamed here

In The End: An interview with The Cranberries (Limerick Post)

Free this weekend?

Soulful American songstress Rachael Yamagata takes her European tour to Dublin and Kilkenny where she will be supported by local guitar hero Clive Barnes (not to be confused with Cliff Barnes, JR Ewing’s arch nemesis from ‘Dallas’… millennials, ask your mother).

Rachael’s sultry, smoky vocals are to the fore on her most recent piano ballad ‘Be Somebody’s Love’ (above), and her songs have graced TV shows such as ‘The OC’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.

Wexford-born, Kilkenny-based Clive, meanwhile, is a six-string virtuoso steeped in folk, alt.country and blues and has shared a stage with such stellar names as Jim White, Peter Bruntnell and Marah. His album ‘The Ghost Country’ is a must for all fans of Americana.

Rachael and Clive play Upstairs at Whelan’s, Wexford Street, Dublin, tonight and Cleere’s Bar, Kilkenny, tomorrow night.

Nick says: A double-bill made in roots heaven!

Rachael Yamagata

Clive Barnes

Meanwhile…

Take you to church?

Sorry, all tickets gone.

BellX1 singer Paul Noonan takes to the pulpit tonight when he plays a sold out solo show in St John The Baptist Church on Church Avenue in Drumcondra, Dublin. Paul can be caught live elsewhere as tonight is the launch of an Irish tour (see top)

This gig, titled New Sounds In An Old Place, will showcase his recent solo material, including ‘Beautiful Phones’ which was produced by The Gloaming’s Thomas Bartlett.

Nick says: The bells, the bells!

Paul Noonan (Facebook)

Dena Shearer (left) with Paul, Catherine and Layla, of the Marino AFC Girls Soccer Academy, among the ‘Faces of Fairview

Free tomorrow?

The Faces of Fairview exhibition

At The Annesley House, North Strand Road, Dublin 3 at 6.30pm

South Africa-born, Dublin-based photographer Dena Shearer writes:

Come and enjoy an exhibition which celebrates a group of people that are a small representation of the incredible community that has been in the area of Fairview, Marino, North Strand and Ballybough for generations.

I will be showing 12 pieces from all walks of life that pay tribute to the warm sense of community that exists in the area and the kind-heartedness that the people living there have.

Entry is FREE!!

In fairviewness.

Faces of Fairview

Dena Shearer

Pic by Dena

Fontaines DC – Big

Fontaines DC – the band this country has been crying out for – have been receiving ecstatic reviews for their brilliant new album ‘Dogrel’. And proper order.

If The Fall and The Strokes had had a lovechild born in the Rotunda, then it might have sounded something like frontman Grian Chatten’s crew.

Now they’re taking things to the next level with the news that they’re set to gatecrash American living rooms from sea to shining sea when they appear on CBS’ ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’ next Wednesday.

Tickets for their UK tour in November are selling like extremely hot cakes and their two Dublin shows in Vicar St in December have long since sold out.

Nick says: Onwards and upwards, lads.

Fontaines DC

Folk project The Unthanks are one of the wonders of the modern world. And Emily Brontë is one of the wonders of ye olde literary world.

So what could possibly be better than Northumberland’s finest musical ensemble performing a song cycle of the legendary Yorkshire writer’s poetry set to music?

Yet this has come to pass!

Rachel (top left), Becky (top right) and the gang have announced a show in Dublin’s National Concert Hall on November 3 (tickets at link below)

The concert follows on the back of their most recent album trilogy ‘Lines’, the third part of which features the Brontë song cycle, which was recorded in the Parsonage in Haworth, Yorkshire, where Emily lived and worked.

But before that, a stripped down line-up of The Unthanks featuring just Rachel, Becky and Niopha Keegan will raid their own extensive back catalogue when they play two Irish shows at Dundalk Spirit Store on May 29 and Dublin Pepper Canister Church on May 30.

Nick says: Heathcliff, it’s The Unthanks, they’ve come home!

The Unthanks at the NCH