Mount Trenchard Direct Provision Centre

Three of the residents have gone on hunger strike in protest over the lengthy delays in the asylum process and the conditions in which they have to live while waiting for their applications to be processed. The three men – from Congo, Afganistan and Iraq – say they have all been in Ireland at least a decade waiting for their applications to be processed

…Another of the protestors – who is from the Congo – described the direct provision centre as being like “an open prison”.He said he had been in the asylum system for the past 14 years and had lived in Mount Trenchard for the past three years.
“There are some people who have been waiting up to 12 years in this place,” he said.

Asylum seekers mount protest in Foynes centre (Colm Ward, Limerick Leader)

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvSbgAe9Zl4&start=275]

From 1992, an appearance on the Late Late Show where Cliff Richard was joined by the previous guest, comedian Ben Elton.

Uncle Gaybo asked him the following question:

Gay Byrne: “How do you respond to the old cliché, Cliff, you’re too good to be true?”

Cliff Richard: “Well I suppose what can you do about truths?”

Byrne: “You really are asking for it, aren’t you?”

Richard: “You’ve brought out the absolute worst in me. I’ve said, I’ve spent since 26 years ago, I became a Christian so my lifestyle took on a whole new look and feel for me which I really enjoy. And ah I feel it’s the right thing for me to do. And I’ve spent nearly all that time saying to people ‘You can’t..’. The media do want to put us into bags. They want to compartmentalize us and say well he’s the goody two-shoes. And for a little while it was Bob Geldof and I had the weight taken off my shoulders for a little while you know. He was Saint Bob for a while.”

Ben Elton: “But he kept swearing and that was the end of that. You’ve got to do that. Swear more.”

Richard: “But I’ve been saying to people it’s crazy if people actually believe that people like myself are too good to be true, then they just don’t understand human nature at all. Nobody is perfect. Nobody. All I want to do is show my best side rather than my worst. There is a side of me that I don’t like and I try to what’s the word sub..what’s it?”

Elton: “Em..subdue it..?”

Richard: “Sublimate it.”

Elton: “Cover it up.”

Richard: “And obviously I succeed. So it’s a side of me I don’t want to share necessarily. And I guess a lot of people just don’t understand it. And so I get labelled ‘the goody two-shoes’. And it just means that I don’t cuss and swear at people or perhaps it means that I’m just nice with people and they consider that… What I don’t understand is though that is a kind of reversal of things isn’t it? So that nowadays people like myself it’s a derogatory term ‘Ugh the goody two-shoes’. In other words, trying to be right and good is becoming a thing that you deride.”

Sir Cliff Richard: ‘allegations are completely false’ (Channel 4 News)

Cliff Richard’s home searched by police following sexual abuse claim (The Guardian)

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Alternative Northern Ireland flag submissions from ‘Barry’, Dave Regan, Hilary Reid, Mick McMenamie and Anon.

MORE: Paddy Barnes calls for new Northern Ireland flag: We are asking you to send us your submissions (BelfastTelegraph)

(Thanks Spaghetti Hoop)

GetFile-2

Ballyturk by Enda Walsh starring Cilian Murphy, Mike Murfi and Stephen Rea has  opened at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin.

What do you mean you ‘weren’t invited to the first night’?

Neither were we.

However…

Victoria Mary Clarke writes:

“I once went to see Nicole Kidman in a play in the Donmar Warehouse. I remember only two things about it. One is that she was totally naked on stage, and the other is that someone offered me a thousand pounds for my ticket. But I did not sell it. I simply had to get in to that play, I needed to have been there.
Ballyturk is currently generating this kind of frisson. It stars Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea, it is directed by Enda Walsh, who cares what it’s about? Who cares if it turns out to be boring? Or plotless? (as a playwright friend suggests it will be) You get to see Cillian Murphy in his underpants a lot, and they are practically see-through. The Olympia is jammed, and the audience does not look like regular theatre goers.
Domhnall Gleeson is sitting next to us. He accepts a Malteser, but refuses to lend us his programme in return, because he feels that we should allow the play to happen without any pre-conceptions about it.
He is right. I have absolutely no clue what the play is about when we sit down and half way through I still have no idea what is happening nor can I predict what will happen in the end.
But it is not plotless. Neither is it boring. It is in fact quite the opposite. It is one of the best plays I have ever seen. It is mesmerising. It has the surreal comedy of Flann O Brien and the pacing and theatrical genius of Martin McDonagh, but it is also tragic and brutal. Every human emotion is here, and you will not escape any of them. A chap next to us runs out sobbing.
It would be wrong for me to reveal any of the story. Suffice it to say that the play is magnificent in every way that a play can be magnificent. The acting, the directing, the lighting, the sound, the costumes, all are superb. And Cillian Murphy can be seen in his underpants.”

Blimey.

Ballyturk at the Olympia (Olympia)

Pic: Patrick Redmond

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