Nick Maxwell The Ulster Museum Botanic Gardens, Belfast www.nmni.com, +44 (0)28 90440000 [048 90440000 from RoI] by Tony Canavan Two of Belfast’s iconic buildings recently reopened after being closed for refurbishment. The City Hall, once seen as a bastion of unionism, used the reopening to rebrand itself as the ‘people’s hall’ where all Belfast’s citizens would … Read more
The enduring popularity of the Victorian melodramas of Dion Boucicault, especially his major Irish plays, is a tribute to their ability to survive changing theatrical tastes. The plays lend themselves to high-speed performance and broad characterisations, which are nowadays played for comic effect. An actor-manager-playwright with a talent for riding the wave of popular taste, … Read more
Invictus Directed by Clint Eastwood by John West Apartheid and how to confront it caused a split in most countries. In Ireland in 1970 the IRFU followed the mantra that sport and politics should be kept quite separate and they were keen to welcome the Springboks to Dublin. Outside Lansdowne Road the anti-apartheid marchers, … Read more
I was a boy in Belsen Praxis Pictures 18 January 2009/27 January 2010, RTÉ2 by John Gibney Tomas Reichental was born in Slovakia and is now an Irish citizen. He arrived in Ireland to help establish a zip factory in 1959, got married and stayed put. In his retirement, he chose to break a … Read more
Bornin north Dublin in 1886, Oscar Traynor participated in the 1916 Rising,led the attack on the Customs House in 1921, was jailed for his part onthe anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, was elected a Fianna Fáil TD andserved as minister for defence in various Fianna Fáil administrations .. . and he played in goal … Read more