BY AODHÁN CREALEY MARCH 14/1880 Hazel Martyn was born in Chicago, the daughter of Edward Jenner Martyn, a wealthy industrialist. Hazel’s early life was dominated by her mother, whose ambition for her daughter was a refined education, a suitable marriage and consequently a prominent place in the city’s fashionable society. She succeeded at first, sending … Read more
Carlisle Memorial is a former Methodist church in Belfast and an active regeneration project of the Belfast Buildings Trust. Many people in the city recognise the building, but few know its story. Its name derives from its benefactor, James Carlisle. Born into poverty in rural County Derry/Londonderry in 1810, he moved to Belfast for work … Read more
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin 10 April–10 August 2025 By Joseph McBrinn For a friendship that so profoundly shaped the course of modern art in Ireland, just how Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett met is curiously unrecorded. What took them to Paris and induced them to approach Albert Gleizes, the only original pre-war Cubist painter … Read more
In the wake of the devastation wrought by Storm Éowyn I was reminded of a phrase often used by my late father—‘the worst in living memory’. In meteorological terms it was even worse than 1961’s Hurricane Debbie, although less lethal in human terms; Debbie killed eighteen people, Éowyn only two. Debbie was my own earliest … Read more