When you read the full story this @irishtimes headline does not really match the story at all, at all… pic.twitter.com/cUHK2qsaiR
— MargaretEWard (@MargaretEWard) January 21, 2014
Food FIGHT!
Eva Orsmond: ‘Young women have no reason to be overweight’ (Bernice Harrison, Irish Times)
[Dr Christian Jessen and model Daniella Moyles in Dublin today]
Not so fast.
Dr Christian Jessen, presenter of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies, helped launch a new public awareness campaign to help those suffering from premature ejaculation. Takecontrol.ie aims to help take the taboo out of PE, a condition that effects one in five men.
All viral on the Imgurz this week and firmly at the nightmare end of the squee spectrum: pictures by Jessica Florence (top 4), Ellen van Deelen (5) and others.
You better believe this is an actual thing that you’ve not seen the last of.
20 years ago Jeff Buckley played 2 gigs in @whelanslivepic.twitter.com/avsdcW7fa9
— publin.ie (@publinie) January 21, 2014
Previously: Broadsheet Trailer Park: Greetings From Tim Buckley
“On the morning of the 21st January, in Vaughans Hotel on Parnell Square, a man named Tom McGuire elevated and turned the Sovereign Seal of Dáil Éireann, from the rising sun to the setting sun, from north to south and from east to west, and from Pagan to Christian to Sovereign; As in the 1916 Proclamation, claiming sovereignty over the elements, earth, air, fire and water and all there in and there of, on behalf of the Sovereign people and the Sovereign Republic of Éire.”
Inscription on the ‘sovereign seal of Dail Eireann’.
Irish Republican Brotherhood President, Billy McGuire (top centre and above) and party members at the Mansion House this morning protesting over a refusal to let the organisation use the Mansion House for the annual ‘turning of the seal of Dail Eireann’
Lord Mayor, Labour’s Oisin Quinn banned Mr McGuire, who is described as “Keeper of the Sovereign Seal”and IRB members from using the Mansion House dining room following an incident at an event in Wood Quay, Dublin last year.
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
[Part of the Trinity College Dublin Scholars and Fellows Calendar 2014 photographed in the college’s Senior Common room]
“In a competition for the ten dumbest Fellows of Trinity College Dublin in 2013-2014 the public-spirited charitable nudists in the Senior Common Room will be hard to beat. In my view they ought to be banned from membership of the Senior Common Room for a year.”
“…Fellows with bird brains and poor judgment disporting themselves in various states of disarray”Dr Gerald Morgan, Former Fellow of Trinity College and professor in the School of English,
[Fiach MacChongail outside the Abbey Theatre, Abbey Street, Dublin]
“Tonight we’ll perform The Risen People at Larkin Community College in Dublin City Centre to secondary school pupils and the local community. On Saturday we concluded our inaugural Theatre of Memory Symposium which saw the leading thinkers and doers in Ireland imagine how theatre and the arts can respond to the events of our past. However following the unprecedented publication by The Irish Times on Saturday 18 January of private evaluation reports about productions at the Abbey Theatre, there is another debate ongoing.
The cruel publication of these reports, without a clear context, and halfway through a private evaluation process has undermined the trust between the Abbey Theatre and the artists we invite to work with us.
The background to this event is as follows. An international evaluation panel was established as a pilot for the Abbey Theatre because I was concerned that people who had a possible conflict-of-interest with regard to the Abbey Theatre were assessing us. Also I felt as a national theatre we should be benchmarked against other theatres.
When The Irish Times submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Arts Council in mid-November I advised the Arts Council that there was a need to protect the artists and individual directors, actors, designers and writers referenced in these reports. When the Arts Council advised me they were making these documents available to The Irish Times, I asked that all the names of all the actors, writers, directors and designers be redacted.
When I was alerted to the fact that The Irish Times were planning to report on this matter, I offered to meet the journalist in question to discuss the wider context. I felt strongly that The Irish Times should understand and acknowledge the bigger picture with regards to the process of evaluation between the Arts Council and the Abbey Theatre. The journalist didn’t agree to meet with me but it was suggested to me that I could write a piece in response to his article. I declined the offer because I disagreed with the publishing of this article. I am however concerned about the ramifications of this event.
Theatre is built on trust and collaboration. I believe artists should be able to create theatre and art in supportive and respectful conditions. The making public of private evaluation reports poses questions about how publicly funded arts organisations are evaluated in order to receive funding. I believe artistic sensitivities should be treated in the same manner as commercially sensitive information. Otherwise how can theatre be evaluated? How can artists at the Abbey Theatre and elsewhere go about their creative work with a degree of trust and the respect they deserve? Does this risk setting a precedent for the publication of every Arts Council evaluation report?
This is an extremely tough environment to make theatre in. The whole arts sector is working with diminished resources. It means I have to make tough decisions so that the investment in our art can be maximized to the best of our ability and that value for money for the Irish tax-payer can be achieved. I have no issue with evaluation. Every publicly funded organisation is evaluated and rightly so.
Saturday was a sad day for the arts in Ireland, a day when opinion was presented as fact. I’d like thank all the supporters of the Abbey Theatre, the artists we rely on, the audiences that we make our work for every night. I am proud of every play that we have staged at the Abbey Theatre. I am proud of every artist who chooses to collaborate with us to achieve theatre on a bigger, more ambitious scale than any other Irish theatre. I am proud of our dedicated staff. I am proud of our support of emerging writers, actors, designers, directors. I am proud that we are a mission led theatre – that our theatre is socially and civically conscious and that we hold up a mirror to Irish life as our founders intended.
The Abbey Theatre will not be left wanting when it comes to interrogating and reflecting Irish society at a time when we need our artists to help us make sense of our times. May this debate continue but with respect for the artist at the heart of it.”
Fiach MacChonghail.
Fiach MacConghail’s response to The Irish Times article (AbbeyTheatre)
Earlier: ‘World Class Drama’ Drama
(Sam Boal./Photocall Ireland)
Directed by Bálint Nagy and Nándor Iőrincz, this video for Noveau Parfum by French singer-songwriter Boggie, applies the digital retouching beloved of fashion and style mags to the singer as she performs.
Oh.
Fergus O Neill from Grand Grand writes:
I’m here at ‘Showcase’ in the RDS [Ballsbridge, Dublin], Ireland’s premier trade event for Craft & Design. All the high rollers are here, Eamon Gilmore, Brendan Howlin, Mary Kennedy, Twink. But sadly no coverage from Broadsheet. Soooo… I thought I’d shamelessly whore my new greeting card range which I’m debuting at Showcase.
The Irish Independent reports that Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan won’t be “forced to go head-to-head with a garda whistleblower when he is quizzed about penalty points” at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday.
Shane Phelan reports:
“The committee has confirmed that while the whistleblower may be called to give evidence at a future date, there will be no showdown with Mr Callinan this Thursday.”
Meanwhile, a report in the Irish Daily Mail this morning [not online] states that the anonymous garda whistleblower has given PAC a new dossier which apparently details further evidence of widespread termination of penalty points. This dossier is separate to a box of evidence that was handed to PAC in November and prompted a row between PAC and Mr Callinan.
Philip Ryan writes:
“[Public Account Committee chairman] John McGuinness confirmed he had received a 20-page document from the whistleblower. He added that Mr Callinan would be questioned about the dossier and the previous findings of an internal Garda report on the points controversy, and any apparent differences.
“…Mr McGuinness said the whistleblower’s evidence and a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General seemed to ‘contradict’ the findings of an internal Garda report on the points controversy.”
Hmmm.
No face-off for Callinan with garda in penalty points quiz (Irish Independent)
Previously: Not Seeing Your Points
Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland