Nick Maxwell The Gallery, Farmleigh House, Phoenix Park, Dublin 8 www.phoenixpark.ie By Tony Canavan Residents of Dublin tend to take Phoenix Park for granted, never questioning its origins or why this prime piece of real estate has remained in public hands. Many would be surprised to learn that it started life as a royal deer-park for Charles … Read more
Flights of angels Would You Believe? RTÉ1, 26 November 2016 Directed by Seán Ó Mealóid By Tom Lodge Images of the world’s first televised famine were broadcast on RTÉ during 1969. An hour-long documentary, Night flight to Uli (reviewed in HI 16.5, Sept./Oct. 2008), prompted the surge of public support that sustained Joint Church Aid, … Read more
Blue Raincoat Theatre Company Project Arts Centre, Dublin 27 February–11 March 2017 By Tony Canavan Blue Raincoat is one of Ireland’s longest-running theatre ensembles, with a reputation for innovative, imaginative productions. Shackleton is their latest, described as ‘a visual theatre piece, the tale of the Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton’s escape from the Antarctic is told … Read more
Irish and Irish-American Catholic admiration for McCarthy, while widespread, was far from universal. By Gerard Madden When attendees gathered to hear Joseph McCarthy, the young junior senator for Wisconsin, address the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, on 9 February 1950, little did they realise that they were about to witness one of the … Read more
Joseph McCarthy was born on 14 November 1908 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, to a family with strong Irish roots. His paternal grandfather, Stephen, was born in Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary, in 1825. Moving to America in 1858, he married Margaret Stoffel, who was born in the present-day Czech Republic, and bought farmland in Grand Chute. McCarthy’s … Read more