all those feckin fugees

'The Blowin of Baile Gall'
That most innocuous of diurnal events, the coffee break, proves to be a potential minefield in "The Blowin of Baile Gall," a densely plotted drama by Ronan Noone that opened last night at the Irish Arts Center in a crisp production directed by David Sullivan.
Mr. Noone, an Irish-born playwright living in Boston, has clearly taken to heart the rule that conflict is at the root of drama. The tensions that arise among the small cadre of contract laborers who populate this play would be enough to fuel a whole season of a television serial. Engrossing as it often is, the play is also mechanical in its rhythms. Mr. Noone seems to be under the impression that the audience will nod off if each and every scene doesn't boil to a moment of fierce confrontation.
Eamon Collins (Colin Hamell), a plasterer with more chips on his shoulders than paint stains on his pants, is the primary troublemaker. A man of minor ambitions and major loquacity, he's galled at having to take employment from an old family nemesis, Samuel Carson (George C. Heslin), referred to as the G. C. (for general contractor). The prosperous Samuel has only recently returned to Ireland from America, stirring more of Eamon's ire.More irksome still, the house under renovation, recently purchased by an outsider, was once Eamon's family home. (Owners beware: Richard Chambers's meticulously distressed kitchen set will send chills up the spine of anyone planning renovations.)
Eamon also has some history with his co-worker Molly Black (Susan B. McConnell). They had a brief romance before she took up with their fellow laborer Stephen O'Gorman (Ciaran Crawford), a sensitive younger man who has recently found God and given up alcohol - and rather more to Molly's dismay, sex.
But the primary cause of Eamon's bottomless irritation is the newly hired man on the job, an African immigrant, Laurence (Ato Essandoh). Eamon had been hoping the G. C. would hire his cousin for Laurence's position, and he is a hearty racist and general xenophobe in any case. (Title translation: a "blowin" is slang for an outsider; Baile Gall is the town where the play is set.)
Having laid before us all the potential sources of conflict among his characters, Mr. Noone methodically develops each in turn to a moment of physical or emotional violence, as if springing traps one by one. A few lapses in plausibility notwithstanding, he displays notable efficiency and craftsmanship in this pursuit. But by the time the play's climax arrives, the relentless waves of tension have engendered something like tedium. And numbness, too.Mr. Sullivan's fine cast succeeds in giving some complex contours to Mr. Noone's sharply but simply defined characters.
Ms. McConnell's understated warmth and bone-dry humor flesh out her role as the play's peacemaker and voice of reason. Mr. Hamell's Eamon, bobbing around like a fighter spoiling for a bout, is an almost criminally charming bad boy.Mr. Crawford's brooding intensity befits his wounded character, as Mr. Heslin's brisk efficiency does his self-assured one. And Mr. Essandoh, who appeared in the recent independent movie "Garden State," brings a fine ferocity to Laurence's outbursts of anguish and rage. But like much else in the play, these impassioned speeches seem preordained by the playwright's devoted adherence to dramatic formulas, not inspired by the effusions of a strained heart.

CHARLES ISHERWOOD
source - http://theater2.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/theater/reviews/14blow.html

Ronan Noone immigrated to the US from Ireland 10 years ago to "escape the rain." After landing in Massachusetts, this former journalist was inspired by the writings of Sam Shepard, and he began writing The Lepers of Baile Baiste, his first play, while painting houses on Martha's Vineyard. His talent caught the attention of Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, head of Boston University's MFA playwriting program, and he was asked to join the program. The Lepers of Baile Baiste won the National Playwriting Award at the American College Theatre Festival and was produced at the Kennedy Center. It received rave reviews (and a Critics Pick from the Boston Globe) for its professional premiere in Boston in 2002. It received a west coast premiere at the Celtic Arts Center in Los Angeles in 2003, where it was a Critics’ Choice by the Los Angeles Times and Backstage West.
Mr. Noone's second play in the Baile trilogy, The Blowin of Baile Gall, was staged at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in December of 2002, and was nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for the Steinberg New Play Award. The play won the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script. Both plays shared the Independent Reviewers of New England Award (IRNE) for Best New Script for 2002. Noone was chosen by Boston Magazine as the Best Young Playwright for 2003, and in July of 2003, he was commissioned as a playwriting fellow from Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, under the Sanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays.

source - http://www.theblowin.com/ronan_bio.html

Eamon, an Irishman with an overload of grudges and a caustic tongue, sits on a crate at the construction site where he’s employed and, at a work break, fulminates against “all those feckin fugees” – i.e., refugees, immigrants from places like black Africa – “walking around our basterin’ town “[a]nd us accommodating them with our taxes. It ain’t right..”“They’re not all black,” says Molly, the slightly overripe but still handsome woman whom Eamon used “to have a thing with,” but who now favors his young fellow worker, Wild Stevee, an introspective, insecure reforming alcoholic.“They’re all black to me,” says Eamon. “I’ll tell you we spent eight hundred years fightin’ for independence, and then two years in a civil war killing ourselves because of it. I don’t need no black bastards coming over here takin’ my job, dirtin’ our streets, stealin’ from us and sleepin’ with our women,”“You’re some primitive,” says Molly.“Primitives don’t have my vocabulary, Dolleen,” Eamon snaps back. And he’s right. That vitriolic tongue of his is never still, never stops needling Molly, or Stevee (whom Eamon refers to as “Jehovah”), or G.C., the worried general contractor who is their boss and whom Eamon calls “Yank” for the years the man spent in the United States. Above all, Eamon has his verbal claws in Laurence, the handsome young black whom Molly has befriended and who works beside them to raise money to bring his ailing mother over from Africa.Put these several people near one another, on and off their proprietary milk crates, give them a knife, a hammer, a sharpened trowel, some mistaken suppositions, and you have “The Blowin of Baile Gall,” a play by Irish-born, Boston-based 35-year-old Ronan Noone that is itself like a knife waiting, waiting, waiting to strike.It enters previews September 8 for a Tuesday, September 13, opening — under the aegis of Gabriel Byrne and the direction of David Sullivan — at the Irish Arts Center on West 51st Street, hard by the Hudson River.
“Blowin” – no apostrophe — doesn’t mean blowing up, or anything like that. In the part of Ireland, where playwright Noone comes from, it means something like “an outsider” – somebody not from here. Somebody, perhaps, from Africa.
Ronan Noone, with his full head of curly black hair, and his “blue-ish eyes maybe,” doesn’t look 35. More like 19. The reason there are so many bloody-minded Irish plays, he says, is that “Ireland is such a bloody-minded place.” Then he dryly appends a throwaway: “Let Brian [‘Philadelphia Here I Come’] Friel take care of the rest.”It was after a summer or two of painting houses on our own country’s Martha Vineyard that Noone went back, in 2002, for a visit to his hometown, Clifton, Ireland.“I didn’t meet any people of any other nation where I grew up,” he says. “It’s a white town.“One morning, standing at Mass, I saw this young black family, a father and his son – a boy about four years of age. Not far away there was another father and son, whites, about the same age.“The black child went over to play with the white child – and the white child hit him in the face. I didn’t know why. Because the black child looked strange, perhaps.“There’s always the same kind of bigotry, here, there, everywhere. America more so, because it’s not as homogenous as Ireland. There are black immigrants all through Ireland actually,“Well,” says Noone, “that was the trigger. I’d worked on a few building sites in my time, and I realized how people sat around on milk crates at lunch breaks and so forth. If you sat on somebody else’s, they told you to get off. So these two things came together – that incident in the church, and milk crates.”
Ronan Noone, the son of an engineer and a mother whose job was to stay home and take care of her husband, her son, and three daughters – “Some job!” the son murmurs in irony and awe – was born April 7, 1970, in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.While at Galway University he started free-lancing for several small-town newspapers. (Free-lancing, says the interviewer, a mug’s game. “Tell me about it,” Noone replies.) Came to the United States “to do anything but journalism” and found himself bartending and writing poetry (“ ’twas doggerel”) on Martha’s Vineyard.Wrote a play, “The Lepers of Baile Baiste”; submitted it to Boston University’s MFA program, where it came to the attention of Kate Snodgrass and Nobel Laureate playwright Derek Walcott.They liked it and invited him into the program. “Lepers” won a National Student Playwriting Award and was done at the Kennedy Center in Washington. No, Noone wasn’t in it. “I never act, but I thought I could make a career out of playwriting. Like a fool,” he murmurs, then quickly tacks on: “Don’t have me say that.”It was published by Samuel French, and “it was while all that was going on that I wrote this play, ‘The Blowin,’ and another … and another … and another … Just kept going. Can’t tell you why.”How many plays altogether so far?” “Short? Long? I guess about 20.”The characters of “Blowin” – Eamon, Molly, Stephen, G.C., Laurence, played by Colin Hamell, Susan McConnell, Ciaran Crawford, George Heflin, Ato Essandoh – all came out of Noone’s own head.How much of devilish Eamon is in you?“Well, they all are. You’ve got a lot of time, winters on Martha’s Vineyard, to create a lot of characters – and sometimes it’s juicy to create a malignant character.”The character G.C. (General Contractor) is not malignant; if anything, he is gravely put upon as a Blowin, an outsider – because of his years in the United States – and, more cruelly yet, as a desperately non-drinking alcoholic.Do you drink, Noone is asked. He shrugs and touches his beer bottle.Ronan Noone and his wife Jessica Roche met on Martha’s Vineyard. They are the parents of 12-weeks-old Molly.Named for the character in the play?“Maybe. I doubt it,” says her father as he boldly sets forth to navigate a subway to West 50th Street in a large, strange city where there are more black and white faces than in Boston, Dublin, and Clifton, Ireland, all thrown together.

Jerry Tallmer
source - http://www.thevillager.com/villager_123/lifeasanoutsider.html

from Little Lea to Narnia

Devin Brown took some time to answer some questions about the upcoming film, and his Chronicles of Narnia book.

Devin Brown is English Professor at Asbury College, where among other things, he teaches a class on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. A recent review has called his book Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Baker Books, Sept. 2005) an “indispensable reference” for those who want to learn more about Lewis’s classic story.

NF: How do you think the movie will impact Lewis's legacy?

Devin Brown: Certainly the movie is going to generate a tidal wave of positive interest in C. S. Lewis and his writing. Some of this interest will be new, some will be renewed as it will come from an audience who read the Narnia stories when they were younger.Lewis, whether in his books or now on screen, has an incredible ability to bring together very different kinds of people, which is a tremendous gift, one that we need now more than ever. The Chronicles of Narnia, perhaps more so than any other set of books, unite very diverse groups of people who join together in their appreciation of them: believers and non-believers, the old and the young, the literary and the non-academic, and even (gasp!) very different kinds of Christians. And this aspect, along with many others, makes The Chronicles of Narnia worth reading and the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe worth seeing.By the way, though it will be almost negligible, I expect the movie to also bring out a small amount of anti-Lewis sentiment. It will come from certain elements on the far right who criticize the Narnia stories because of their use of magic, and from certain elements on the far left who criticize the Narnia stories, not because they are Christian, but more, it seems to me, because Lewis himself was a Christian, a very serious, committed Christian.

NF: Will the movie attract new fans to Lewis's other works?

Devin Brown: While some movie goers who enjoy the film won’t be interested enough to want to read more, many of them will, and for these people their interest can take them as far as they like. Because of the film, there will be a large number of people who will go on to read or to re-read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Some will read a second or a third book from the series (Prince Caspian would be a good choice); others will read the entire seven volumes. Going beyond the Narnia stories will be a step that, I think, will be taken mainly by older fans. For them the next logical place to go after Narnia would be to read Lewis’s space trilogy, beginning with Out of the Silent Planet. The film is also going to generate interest in Lewis’s life, and for these people there are two really good biographies available, one written by Green and Hooper (just revised) and the other by George Sayer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a jump in sales of the movie Shadowlands, which tells the story of Lewis’s marriage late in life to Joy Gresham.For people who would like to read more about Narnia, there are a number of good books for them to choose from depending on exactly what their interest is. My book, Inside Narnia, goes through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from beginning to end looking closely at the text and adding interesting insights and details from Lewis’s life and other works.

NF: What were Lewis's intentions for writing the work?

Devin Brown: So many people get confused about this issue of what Lewis’s intentions were that a few years after the story was published, Lewis himself decided to set the record straight. In a letter written to a fifth-grade class in Maryland, Lewis explained that he did not begin by trying to represent Jesus as he is in our world by a lion in Narnia. He made it clear that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is not an allegory where everything is supposed to “represent” something in this world. (Lewis did write an allegory; it’s called The Pilgrim’s Regress.) When Lewis set out to write The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe he set out to write a story, one that would communicate truth in a way not possible with a non-fiction format. He set out to write in a mythic way, because Lewis believed myth was “a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination.”

NF: Were the characters in the book based on people in Lewis's life?

Devin Brown: Lewis was a professor during World War II, he did live (somewhat) in the country, and like Professor Kirke in the story, Lewis was a bachelor at the time and did have school children come stay with him when London was being bombed by the Germans. So you could argue that Lewis put some of himself into this character.At the same time, Professor Kirke also resembles the tutor Lewis privately studied with instead of attending the last years of high school. William Kirkpatrick, besides bearing a similar name to Professor Kirke in the story, shared a number of other similarities. He also had white hair and shaggy white mutton chops and was noted for his rigorous logic, a passion which gets echoed in the Professor’s statement, “Logic! Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” There were several other elements from Lewis’s life which he adopted for his own story-telling purposes and made his own. For example the Professor’s house and the surrounding countryside could be seen to be loosely based on Lewis’s memories of Little Lea, his boyhood home in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interestingly, there were actually two wardrobes, one in Little Lea and one which Lewis owned as an adult, which may (or may not) have been in the back of his mind when he was picturing the one at the Professor’s.

NF: How faithful is the movie going to be to the original writing?

Devin Brown: To fully know how close the movie is to the book, we are going to have to wait until December 9th when the final version of the film comes out. In interviews, director Andrew Adamson has always said it was his intention to be faithful to the original. Even when he has added more material to flesh out some of the lesser developed characters, he has claimed that anything he added was “all there in the book.” Comments from two other heavyweights add further support. In an interview Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson and one of the film’s co-producers, claimed, “Of course, the story is adhered to, so it is going to be terrific.” Michael Flaherty of Walden Media put it this way: “The film is the book, pure and simple. So many themes in the book are there in the film.” Lewis fans, in addition to loving Narnia, also love the internet. Within 24 hours after the movie trailer was released, I read in a chat room that one viewer was “outraged” because the wardrobe in the movie has a dustcover on it. I doubt this is the kind of detail most people think about when the question of faithfulness comes up. Having said this, I think having Lucy pull this cover off actually improves on Lewis’s original scene from the book (gasp again!). Sixteen-year-old Anna Popplewell, who plays Susan, has put a slightly different twist on the fidelity question. When asked about the way she interpreted her character, Popplewell said, “Not that it's very different from C. S. Lewis's Susan, but the way in which C. S. Lewis wrote the books means that the characters are open to a certain amount of interpretation,because he writes with this wonderful style and tone that encourages you to use your imagination and create characters for yourself slightly.” A final difference worth noting is that fact that Lucy and Susan play a somewhat larger role in the fighting in the film than in the original. This may or may not be something that lovers of the books find bothersome. In a later story, The Horse and his Boy, Lewis has Lucy going off to war armed with a bow and a quiver full of arrows, dressed in a mail shirt and a helmet.NF: How was Lewis's writing able to be so powerful and memorable yet so simple?Devin Brown: There are lots of ways that you could answer this question. Let me offer four.First, Lewis spent many years writing poetry, a genre where every word, every comma, every line break is given great importance. A second reason Lewis was such a successful writer was because he was so widely read, one of the most widely read scholars of his day. Young writers today sometimes want to skip over this step. Thirdly, during the years when Lewis was turning out one great book after another, he was part of a writing group called the Inklings, a group which included his best friend J. R. R. Tolkien, a group which was a very important source of both encouragement and criticism. Finally, Lewis simply wrote a lot, a whole lot. And as he wrote, he revised. This is another step that young writers today sometimes want to skip over.Of course, I could also mention Lewis’s sheer genius, his incredible imagination, or his nearly photographic memory. I could also mention his wonderful blend of making the imaginary world of Narnia seem familiar but not too familiar, strange but not too strange.

NF: How will Inside Narnia help readers and moviegoers better understand The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

Devin Brown: Perhaps the best way to describe my book is to use an analogy. Every July, my wife and I watch the Wimbledon tennis tournament on TV. Now I suppose if you searched hard enough, you could find someone who liked to watch the matches with the sound turned off, but most people find that the commentary provided by the experts adds to their understanding and enjoyment of what’s going on. I hope that Inside Narnia provides that same kind of helpful observation and insight.

NF: How does Inside Narnia illuminate the rich meaning in the text?

Devin Brown: Let me reply to this with a sample passage from my book which shows the kind of thing I try to do. In chapter four, “Turkish Delight” I wrote this:Lewis’s point here with the Turkish Delight is not that enjoying sweets is bad; in fact, his position is quite the contrary. Enjoyment of life’s pleasures in all their variety and plentitude will be an essential quality of proper Narnian life, as has been seen already in the tea that Mr. Tumnus provided for Lucy which included “a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake” (15). In both his fiction and non-fiction, Lewis suggests over and over that “to be fully human involves a certain stance toward the things of creation” (Meilaender 1998, 8), one of enjoyment but not slavish adoration.

NF: And finally, why is a literary analysis of this work so important?

Devin Brown: By way of response, here is another paragraph from my book, this one from the Preface:My claim is this: although The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe can be simply read and enjoyed by children, it also can be read seriously by adults because it is a work rich with meaning. Some of this meaning will be discovered just by spending time with the text and paying close attention to what Lewis has written. Further meaning will be seen by drawing connections—connections not only to other passages within the novel but also to other works by Lewis, to the events of Lewis’s life, and to the work of other writers who influenced Lewis. The most significant of these other writers is J. R. R. Tolkien, who not only greatly influenced Lewis but also was greatly influenced by him. I contend that this twofold approach—first, a careful reading and then second, adding these kinds of connections—will result in greater enjoyment of an already enjoyable book.

Exclusive Interview with Devin Brown, Author of Inside Narnia 23 Sep 2005 by Paul Martin

Devin Brown, author of Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (Baker Books, Sept. 2005)

Trailer......... The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Video code provided by NarniaFans.com

source - http://www.narniafans.com/?id=395

towards an inclusive society

International Community Arts Conference

October 21-23 2005

is an international community arts conference for community arts activists, artists, community workers, and policy makers. Organised by the Community Arts Forum in conjunction with the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, NICVA and the Rural Community Network.

Conference Venue - Belfast Waterfront Hall

Friday

8:00 am - 2:00pm Registration

9:30am Opening Gerri Moriarty, conference chair

Transforming communities through the arts: access, participation, authorship, and ownership Arts in the context of conflict: what are we learning? Transforming the arts through communities: sustainability, connections, interdependence

Moyra Donaldson, Belfast poet and writer

Jennifer Williams, executive director of the Centre for Creative Communities, London.

11:00 am - 12:30 pm Session 1: Perspectives

Consider the challenges of introducing change through community arts within very different contexts in Northern Ireland, the United States and South Africa.

Speakers: Linda Frye Burnham, writer, artist and activist, Community Arts Network, USA Gerard Hagg, director, the Flemish South African Community Arts Centres project, South Africa Other speaker to be confirmed

12:30 - 1:15 pm

Breakout session: Sharing your community context

Swap insights and learn about the varied contexts within which delegates from around the world practise community arts

1:15 - 2:15 pm Lunch

2:15 - 3:15 pm Session 2: Transforming communities through the arts: access, participation, authorship, ownership

Innovative approaches to community arts work in Northern Ireland

Speakers:Conor Shields, programme director, New Belfast Community Arts Initiative

Antoni Gabarre Gonzáles, director, Programa Pintamuro, Jerez, Spain

David Boyd, director, Beat Initiative, Belfast

3:30 pm Buses Depart for Community Centres

3:45 - 5:45pm

Spotlights 1: interactive workshops and panels

Board a conference bus to visit a community centre in north, south, east or west Belfast.

Explore the conference themes in greater depth through an interactive workshop or panel, then relax and enjoy a buffet meal in the centre. Workshops will be held in the Indian Community Centre, Conway Mill, Farset International, Morton Community Centre, Dee Street Community Centre and Mount Vernon Community Centre

5:45 - 6:30pm Buffet Meal at Community Centres

Optional evening activities

6:30pm Return by bus to the city centre to join in the opening parade of Belfast Festival at Queen’s led by Sarruga from Spain and the Beat Initiative

8:00pm The Belfast Festival at Queen's Opening Concert in Waterfront Hall

Saturday

8:00am - 12:00pm Registration

9:30 - 11:00am Session 3: Arts in the context of conflict: What are we learning? Explore issues of ethics, identity and memory through arts in conflict situations

Speakers:Gerri Moriarty, community artist and consultant

James Thompson, professor of applied and social theatre at the University of Manchester, director of the Centre for Applied Theatre Research, and director of the In Place of War project

Erishnee Naidu, senior educationalist and researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Transition and Reconciliation Programme

11: - 11:30 pm Break

11:30 - 12:30pm

Session 4: Divided histories, shared future

Reflect on the broader social and political context in which community arts is produced in Northern Ireland, balancing the impact of the conflict with issues of class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality in an increasing globalised world. Participate in a lively exchange about the Northern Ireland experience with local community activists and artists

Speaker:Robbie McVeigh, human rights activist and director of An Dúchán community research and evaluation services, Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Panel to be confirmed

12:30 - 1:45pm Lunch: Taste of Belfast at St. George’s Market

Enjoy traditional Belfast hospitality provided by the specialty food vendors of Belfast’s restored Victorian market and browse through the market stalls.

1:45pm Buses Depart for Afternoon Showcase Sessions

2:00 - 4:00pm Spotlights 2: interactive workshops and panels

Choose from different locations and activities, for example:

Rhythm is it! Queen’s Film TheatreSee the amazing story of a stunning dance project with conductor, Simon Rattle, choreographer, Royston Maldoon, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and 250 Berlin children and teenagers of 25 different nationalities. First showing in Northern Ireland of this award-winning film. Includes panel discussion.

Additional workshops and activities showcasing innovative community arts practices from Northern Ireland and around the world to be confirmed

4:00pm Buses Depart for afternoon showcase sessions and hotels

4:15 - 6:15pm Spotlights 2: interactive workshops and panelsChoose from different locations and activities.

Circus Arts WorkshopHelp celebrate Belfast Community Circus School’s twentieth anniversary. Visit the purpose built venue and participate in a lively community circus workshop.

River Lagan boat tour and traditional music session

Other workshops and activities to be confirmed

6:15pm Buses depart for City Hall

6:30 - 7:30pm Welcome Reception, City Hall

Delegates are invited to Belfast’s historic and architecturally impressive City Hall for an opportunity to see some of the city’s political history.

7:30pm Buses depart for Indian Community Centre

8:00pm Conference Dinner - Indian Community CentrePerformance: The Humour of the Troubles According to Martin Lynch, with Martin Lynch

Sunday

9:30 - 12:00pm Registration

10:30-12:00 Session 5: Transforming the Arts Through Communities: sustainability, connections, interdependence

Hear about some remarkable projects that began at community level and have become powerful catalysts for change

Speakers:Katherine Zeserson, director of learning and participation, The Sage Gateshead, UK

Sean Paul O’Hare, Féile an Phobail, West Belfast Festival

Lab Ky Mo, independent filmmaker

12:00 - 2:00pm Networking lunch and roundtable discussions

2:00 - 3:30pm Keynote speaker Bill Strickland, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh PAThrough his work in an inner-city Pittsburgh neighbourhood, Bill Strickland is changing the way people see themselves, and transforming the concept of community arts in the US. The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild includes arts programs that reach 2500 disadvantaged children, contemporary jazz recordings on the MCG label, job training programs, and an office complex.

3:30 - 4:30pm Closing Plenary

Participate with fellow delegates in a review of the conference. Conference feed-back provided by Bag-a-trix from Derry

source - http://www.caf.ie/conference

adjourned

&

Satan fights back in Belfast
In June 2004, Belfast's alternative freesheet, The Vacuum, published by Factotum, caused great controversy when it published two issues themed 'God' and 'Satan'. Based on one complaint from a member of the public, some city councilors jumped on the issue, swinging their fists of Jesus-loving freedom-hating justice and denouncing the publication as "filth" that was "encouraging devil worship." These noble knights of God and Love and Light then voted to withhold an agreed funding allocation of £3,300 until the newspaper apologised.

The Vacuum responded by holding a tongue-in-cheek, city-wide 'Sorry Day' last December.Not content to fight back with mere sarcasm, however, Richard West, one of the paper's editors, is challenging the Council's demand for an apology in the High Court as a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. If West succeeds, this will be the first time since the Human Rights Act was established in 1998 that a local authority will be held to be in breach of an individual's or organisation's freedom of expression as protected under the legislation. The lawsuit is also a potential milestone as it comes at a time when debate over the UK's new Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill is still raging.The case is due to take place on Tuesday 13 September 2005.

Mary Garboden

source - http://www.recirca.com/artnews/441.shtml

Magazine's legal bid adjourned

No judge is available to hear case.

SUPPORTERS of a satirical magazine were at the High Court in Belfast today (13 September 2005) , ahead of a key freedom of expression battle, which was adjourned at the last minute. The judicial review case, between The Vacuum and Belfast City Council, was this morning postponed until next month because there was no judge available to hear it.

The row started in the summer of 2004, when editions on the theme of Satan and God featured material which some critics labelled blasphemous. The council agreed that a £3,500 grant to the magazine should only be released if The Vacuum apologised in writing. The magazine held a prank 'Sorry Day' in December but refused to recant.

The Vacuum maintains that it has suffered censorship, and the legal action is believed to be the first time a local authority has been challenged in relation to freedom of expression. Lawyers for The Vacuum are arguing that the decision to withhold funding was illegal and a breach of the authors' human rights in relation to Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights, covering freedom of thought, conscience and religion. They also believe that the council decision breaches Article 10, covering freedom of expression.

Speaking outside the court this morning, Richard West, a co-founder of the magazine, said: "We have had a lot of people come down today. There is a growing interest in the case, and there will be even more so next month because of the delayed expectation."

A spokesman for Belfast City Council said it would not comment on the case until the action was over.

Ben Lowry

source - http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=661425

writing about Norn Iron

GERMAN PAPERS
Belfast Finger Pointing
Violence has returned to Northern Ireland, and German editorialists say there is plenty of blame to go around for Belfast's Protestants, Catholics, and even Tony Blair.

- > http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,374484,00.html

Rioting continues for third night in BelfastCrowds of Protestants blocked key roads in Belfast and rioted for the third straight night on Monday in what analysts called a long-building explosion of frustration at Northern Ireland's peace process.

- > http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20050913100217356C122987

‘N. Ireland Protestants face choice betweeen law and chaos’; 50 policemen, 10 civilians injured

BELFAST: Northern Ireland’s Protestants face a “moment of choice” between law and gangsterism, Britain warned Monday after rioters hurling pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and paving slabs injured at least 50 police and 10 civilians.“This is a moment of choice for everybody, for politicians and for people right the way down through every part of the community,” said Peter Hain, Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland affairs, as he studied steps to take after a second night of rioting.

- > http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=5864&cat=a

Tensions linger after riots in BelfastBelfast ground to a halt yesterday evening after Protestant demonstrators blocked roads and commuters, fearing a resumption of the weekend's rioting, scrambled to leave the city early.Earlier, Belfast residents struggled to work through streets littered with burnt-out cars and broken glass after two days of rioting by Protestants frustrated at what community leaders call government failure to deal with their security fears.

- > http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=199086

Northern Ireland's largest outlawed Protestant group appealed Tuesday for an end to three nights of mayhem on the streets of Belfast involving gun and grenade attacks on police, car hijackings and mob intimidation. The Ulster Defense Association, an anti-Catholic paramilitary group with an estimated 3,000 members, said the violence was destroying "our own communities." "We are instructing our own membership to avoid any confrontation on the streets and steer away from any acts of violence," the group said.

- > http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1122105&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

a new page turner

I've read all your books.I couldnt leave them down once I started reading them. Just finished reading A Matter Of Trust.Fantastic book,is there going to be a sequel? Please keep on writing.Roll on September..........
Debbie Doherty : Ballymoney,Co Antrim

source - http://www.marylarkin.co.uk/

FORMER mill girl turned bestselling author Mary Larkin will be back in her native Belfast, signing copies of her new book in Easons of Donegall Place. It's called Sworn to Secrecy and once again is based on the writer's experiences growing up in Northern Ireland.
"I used to moan every time I came home about how much things are changing," recalled Mary, who now lives in Darlington. "I kept saying someone should write a book about the good old days and then decided to do the job myself."
Mary, who didn't start writing until she was in her 50s, left school at 14 to work in the mill. "I could hardly write a letter, never mind a book in those days," she said. "I got my inspiration from real life. I write about my memories of people and places and happy nights in dance halls like the Floral at Bellevue."
"Larkin the writer has become a cult figure among women readers in the city," said Trevor Proctor, the books manager at the Easons shop. "We are expecting a big turn-out for her new page turner and her autograph."
Mary is taking time off from her next Belfast-based novel to come home on this visit - to see family and friends and to sign Sworn to Secrecy for all her fans."I'll just love wandering up Royal Avenue once again," she says, "even though it has changed so much from my schooldays."

Eddie McIlwaine

source - http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=658710

I have just finished my latest book....................

It is named SWORN TO SECRECY and, by the way, it is the sequel to BEST LAID PLANS. I hope you get as much enjoyment reading it as I got writing it...............

Blurb...........
1971. With the troubles in Belfast at their height a happy domestic life is something that Tess Maguire yearns for. Yet the political and social unrest are sending ripples of uncertainty through every aspect of her life - and the lives of her family, friends and colleagues.Even Tess’s business seems suddenly under threat. While her partnership with her friend Theresa Cunningham in a dressmaking firm is successful, it’s beginning to affect her romantic interests. Theresa’s boyfriend, Bob, always seems to be near Tess. Near enough, one night, to declare his feelings for her. Tess, in confusion, has to confront her own mixed up emotions concerning Bob. And to address her feelings for her own ever-faithful boyfriend Tony. Especially when he asks her to marry him...
Another marriage seems, at first, to herald some stability into their lives. Tess’s widowed mother Alice is finally to wed Dan, her long-standing partner. Free at last of his troublesome wife Anne, he can spend the rest of his years with Alice and his beloved grandson Jackie. Jackie is almost an orphan: his father Jack died in a motorcycle accident. His mother Colette may as well be dead- she decamped to Canada shortly after his birth. And then, when Colette suddenly shows up to reclaim her son, the cracks in every relationship start to widen. Colette’s arrival in Belfast opens old wounds, triggers a bitter custody battle- and unearths secrets that will change everyone’s lives for ever.

Mary A. Larkin was born Mary Angelus McAnulty on the 11th April 1935 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was the oldest of three daughters, her sisters being Sue and Margaret, to Thomas and Molly Mc Anulty and lived all of her early life (until the of age 25) in the family home in Spinner Street on the Falls Road.

At the age of 4 and half years she started to attend the convent school St. Vincent's Primary where she underwent a transformation. There was already a girl called May McNulty at the school which caused a great deal of confusion among nuns, teachers and pupils alike. She was asked her confirmation name, which was Philomena, so for the rest of her school life she lived with the alias Phil McNulty. Many school friends will have been unaware that Mary A Larkin is in fact Phil McNulty from their childhood and teenage years.

After ten years she left St. Vincent's at the age of fourteen and went straight into the famous Blackstaff weaving shop, where she was soon weaving linen sheets, glass cloths and heavy duck material for tents.

When not at work Mary spent a lot of time in church and, in fact, even considered joining the nunnery before a friend persuaded her to dip her toe into the fast spreading world of ballroom dancing.Luckily, after a few dancing lessons she decided to bypass the nunnery.Every Friday night she took the short bus ride, with a friend, to Sammy Leckey's on the corner of North Street and on Wednesday night they would travel to Tommy McCarthy's on Royal Avenue in the centre of town.Before long they felt confident enough to take the plunge and start visiting popular "dance halls" of the time, her favourites being 'The Club Orchid' and 'The Fiesta'. It was at one such dance hall 'The Floral Hall' while dancing to the famous Victor Sylvester and his orchestra, that Mary met her husband-to-be Con Larkin whom she was to marry eighteen months later at the age of 25.

Mary and Con had three sons in 1961, 1963 and 1971 and in 1974, due to Con's work, decided to move to Darlington in England where they still live today, though they are frequent visitors to their home town. It was during one of these visits in 1990, while walking in the city centre with her sister Sue that she remarked how the city was changing so fast and becoming almost unrecognisable from their youth. They both discussed the subject for a while and came to the agreement that no-one had written any novels about the city around the era when they were growing up and the fact that any written works from Belfast invariably centred on the "troubles".

A void needed to be filled and Sue threw down the challenge to Mary, saying that if anyone could do it, she could. They had lunch in the city centre and before long they both forgot the conversation completely, but on returning to Darlington, Mary couldn't shake the idea from her mind and started jotting down notes and ideas on a writing pad. One pad turned into twelve pads and Mary realised she had the makings of a good sized book.While jotting down on these pads she never gave any thought to the fact that a publisher would have to read them at some point so she invested in an Amstrad wordprocessor and started to teach herself to type. The result of this was "The Wasted Years". As any writer will tell you, that isn't the end of the story. Next she had to find a publisher that liked the book enough to offer her a contract. Nervous, but undaunted by stories of new authors taking years before finding a publisher, if at all, she reminded herself of how many times The Beatles were turned down before they got that elusive deal.

As it turned out, she needn't have worried, after only a couple of attempts she was taken on by Judy Piatkus at Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd., and 'The Wasted Years' was published in 1992. 'Ties of Love and Hate', For Better for Worse', 'Full Circle' and 'A Matter of Trust' all followed successfully before moving to Little Brown who released 'Playing with Fire' and 'Best Laid Plans'. Each of these titles reached No.1 in the bestseller lists for Northern Ireland serving to establish Mary as a household name in the region.

source - http://www.marylarkin.co.uk/

Thank you, Mr McNicholl

Damian McNicholl
I'm from Northern Ireland, attended law school in Cardiff, Wales, worked in London, and came to the US in the nineties where I slaved as an underpaid attorney while teaching myself to write fiction on the commute to Long Island and then NYC. After a lot of approaches to agents, followed by a crop of alternately florid, stupid or deliciously encouraging passes from publishers, my first novel A Son Called Gabriel was taken, got a great cover slapped on its hardback, and beat a path to the bookshelves. And then it rose to the occasion by getting chosen as an ABA Book Sense Pick and becoming a finalist in a couple of literary awards including the lammies. I'm now working on another novel called Unusual Steps--a dark comedy set in London involving a young Irishman, a top drawer Brit lesbian who's an immigration officer at Heathrow and their cantankerous widowed neighbor--from the depths of bucolic Pennsylvania, though took care to ensure my abode is within easy reach of principal cities and airports because I like distractions.

Why I write

As an author, I hope that my writings will educate as well as entertain, that they will reach and move people in ways that perhaps even I cannot anticipate. Of course, I realize that not all of my future novels will meet this kind of self-imposed 'test' if you will, but nevertheless, this is something I am conscious of when I write certain books. For example, my next novel which will soon go out on submission to publishers and whose working title is Unusual Steps is really a dark comedy, and was written with no particular lesson or objective in mind. In other words, it's goal is to entertain.
Not so with A Son Called Gabriel. With this novel, I was as determined to educate readers about what it's like for a young boy who discovers to his horror that he's growing up gay in a very conservative culture as I was to entertain them with humor and wit. Some lofty-minded authors will undoubtedly scoff and say the author should have no such goal in mind, that he or she should care only about the goal of creating high art. That, too, is also fine, a worthy objective. But, frankly, I don't give a damn if they think this is the only goal in writing quality fiction. I care passionately only that my work is accessible to people who love to read, that they can relate to the story, and where possible, that they can learn something no matter how small in the process of reading it.
I am very happy to report that I appear to have been successful in this mission with 'Gabriel.' Many people have said at readings or they've emailed to say how glad they are that I have written about this complex subject within the context of a novel. Such conversations and emails brighten my day, make me so very joyful that this was my first novel to get published.
Recently, I received an email from a woman who wrote to express her feelings after she'd read 'Gabriel.' I was very moved by her words and wish to share them with you. After I'd read the email, I closed my eyes and said to myself, "This is why I wrote this book."
Here it is:
Hello.
My name is Rita-Anne. I just finished reading "A Son Called Gabriel". I purchased the book, only having read the inside page and being drawn to it because it is set in Northern Ireland.
By about pages 8/9, I realized that he was gay. That's when I read the reviews on the back cover!
While I have many friends who are either gay, lesbian or transgendered, I found this book gave me a greater understanding of the internal turmoil they experienced as children/young adults.
Having been to Northern Ireland too many times to count (my best friend lives in Belfast), I completely understood the social elements, the familial conflicts and the time frame in which the book is set. And while I laughed a number of times throughout the book, I must confess I cried shamelessly when Gabriel hits his breaking point.
That said, I am sorry the book is finished because I now feel a sense of loss. In addition, I am sorry I didn't get a chance to meet you while you did the signings in the North Wales and Philadelphia areas last month.
Thank you, Mr McNicholl, for writing such a tender, wonderful and insightful novel.
All the best,Rita-Anne Provenzano -----

It's me who thanks you, Rita-Anne.

Damian McNicholl

source - http://damianm.blogspot.com/2005/08/why-i-write.html

I've recently finished a remarkable book called A Son Called Gabriel by an Irish-American author named Damian McNicholl. It's newly available in paperback, was a finalist for the Lambda Award, and was a Book Sense Pick of the Year. Touching, tough, and tender, A Son Called Gabriel is a must-read. Young Gabriel Harkin lives in Northern Ireland during the 1960s and 70s, the times known as "The Troubles." As his life moves forward, he realizes he's not like other boys... devastating for him, as he comes from a strict Catholic family. Along with the outer turmoil of The Troubles, the reader follows Gabriel's sexual awakening as he wrestles with the fact that he is gay.From the older boy who seduces him with sex games to the tanned and elegant man he admires on the beach, from the priest who abuses him in the classroom to the stranger that Gabriel himself propositions, our hearts beat and break in tandem with Gabriel's as he comes to terms with his sexuality. How can his family ever accept him? Gabriel wonders. His church?Gabriel tries many times to "change," always unsuccessfully. Will he ever have the courage to tell his family the truth? And what will happen when Gabriel's Uncle Brendan, also a priest, reveals his own deep secret, one that McNicholl holds masterfully until the book's surprising, yet inevitable conclusion? The novel's ending doesn't tie up things neatly, but rather haunts the reader for days afterward.The writing is lyrical and the dialogue is spot-on, with dry humor and wit. Gabriel Harkin's is a universal story, not just a gay story. There's a reason the Irish are known as great storytellers, and McNicholl's debut adds another notch in the belt of Irish writers everywhere.

The author, Damian McNicholl, agreed to answer some interview questions for the site! The interview appears below.

DMCN: First, Martha, thank you for inviting me to your blog to answer your questions.

MO'C: It's my pleasure, Damian. Let's get started, shall we? {{pours two pints of Guinness, hands one to Damian}} First of all, Slainte! to you and your remarkable book. A Son Called Gabriel seems to beg for a sequel. Have you thought about exploring Gabriel's adult life in another novel?

DMCN: I do intend to write a sequel but am not ready to do so yet. I've just finished a second novel entitled UNUSUAL STEPS which is a dark comedy set in London and have now commenced a novel set in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I found I just needed to get away from writing about Ireland for a while. But after I've written this American set novel, I feel sure Gabriel's adult voice will speak to me and I'll start his sequel. That's the beauty of sequels; they don't have to be written consecutively.

MO'C: Ireland has been dealing with issues of identity and oppression for hundreds of years. What do you feel the novel gains by having Gabriel's inner turmoil reflected by the political and social climate of Northern Ireland at the time?

DMCN: Ireland has indeed been dealing with these issues for a long time. I definitely intended the conflicts to be presented in parallel--the inner conflict of a young Irish boy as he grows to maturity and the wider, external conflict taking place in his world both in relation to ubiquitous sectarianism and the social conservatism in his rural Catholic community. I wanted this because I just didn't want to write a coming-of age novel. I wanted the novel to be much wider and felt the parallel conflicts would add depth and richness to the story, and that they would help the reader get a deeper understanding of Gabriel's life and circumstances.

MO'C: Did you have to return to Northern Ireland in order to do research or is much of the atmosphere derived from memory? How do you feel Northern Ireland has changed since Gabriel's time?

DMCN: A combination of both, really. I read voraciously about Northern Ireland for an earlier, unpublished novel I'd written. (That's why I said earlier that I needed to quit writing about Ireland for a while.) And, as my parents and siblings and their families live over there, I travel to Northern Ireland often which allows me to reacquaint myself with the dialect, culture and landscape.It's changed in that the period of violence known as THE TROUBLES--which includes the years covered by the novel--has ended, albeitunofficially, and the political parties representing the various religions and cultures are trying to work together. I was brought up Roman Catholic and my siblings are really hoping politicians from both sides can negotiate and eventually form a stable and lasting government that will rule from Stormont, the seat of the Northern Irish parliament. My siblings are hopeful and anxious to co-exist in peace with their Protestant neighbors (indeed have many Protestant friends) and do not want things to backslide to the days when opportunities for Catholics were negligible. Unfortunately, there is one extremist party on the Protestant side--they're our Christian Right, if you will--that does not want to be in government with Sinn Fein (which is the largest party representing Catholics) and are hell-bent on turning back the clock to the days of ruling the province as their Protestant birthright. But the clock can't be turned back: moderates on both sides are economically better off and recognize how pointless it is to divide the people and country.

MO'C: I know many Irish and Irish-American people because I'm married to the son of Irish immigrants. And the dialogue in A SON CALLED GABRIEL rings uncannily true. There's a whole incredible subtext, in many cases. For instance, a conversation about whether to purchase a new pair of shoes is really about the decades long feud between a pair of cousins and there's a huge discrepancy between what is SAID and what is MEANT. Do you find this to be the case as well and how were you able to pull off such genuine dialogue?

DMCN: Thank you. I think subtext is so important in writing. I hate things that are too overt in novels, don't you? I feel subtext allows the reader to engage more with the story as it unfolds, to really reach into the character's heads, to identify with their actions and thoughts...to become them at times, if you like.With regards to the dialogue, I didn't have to think about that to a huge degree as it came pretty spontaneously. I'm particularly happy with how Gabriel's mother turned out. She's a lioness and quick-tempered and her expressions are so singularly Northern Irish, which is very different to what people associate as being Irish in the States. Here, Irish speech is always identified with the Southern Irish brogue. We, Northerners, tend to get lumped in with the Scottish, but the speech is quite different.Also, I think it was easy because I'm born and schooled in Northern Ireland and still speak with an Ulster accent, although one that's modified because I went to university in Wales. So I remember all the great turns-of-phrase and idioms and stuff. As an aside, my accent had to change when I went off to law school because some of the students from England who were in my tutorial classes used to tease me about it; they couldn't understand a word I was saying...and, more importantly, neither could the lecturers. So I figured it was either change the accent a bit or fail law school.

MO'C: My novel also deals with young people and I found the writing process to be incredibly emotional, as I was reminded of my own past. Did you find writing A SON CALLED GABRIEL pulled up a number of emotions about growing up?

DMCN: Yes, our novels are very similar in that respect. Writing this was very emotional for me both because I am an emotional person and also because I regard the novel as fiction rooted in experience. In other words, some of Gabriel's experiences, I have experienced, and I took these and developed them for the purposes of the plot. On some occasions during the writing, particularly if I hadn't read a section for a while and then reread it, I found myself bawling or laughing, etc. But the process was cathartic and I regarded my emotional outpourings as a very good thing.

MO'C: How long did it take you to write this book?

DMCN: The first draft went very quickly and only took six months. But then, as you know as well I'm sure, come the redrafts and editing which took another year-and-a-half. So all in all it took close to two years before I felt it was polished enough to send to agents.

MO'C: What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

DMCN: Believe in yourself, believe in your writing, write the best book you can, and never give up on your dream of seeing it published once it starts doing the rounds. There are lots of great books that were turned down by publishers before they found the right house.

Thank you so much for spending time on my blog today, Damian! And for my readers, stop by Damian's site or blog if you can, and do try to get your hands on this book. There's also another really intriguing interview with Damian on Scott Esposito's site, Conversational Reading, as well.

I'll leave you with my favorite Irish blessing:

May those who love us, love us.

And those that don't love us,

May God turn their hearts.

And if He doesn't turn their hearts,

May he turn their ankles.

So we'll know them by their limping.

Martha O Connor

source - http://marthaoconnor.blogspot.com/2005/06/slainte-to-damian-mcnicholl.html

from Portstewart to Toronto

Few people are candid about mental health problems

but Carol uses her poetry to cut through the stigmas

that surround them, breaking down barriers.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is helping performance poet Carol Kelly from Portstewart, to travel to Canada in October where she will be hosting two workshops at the Workman’s Theatre, a centre for addiction and mental health in Toronto.

Carol, who describes herself as a survivor of the mental health system, has been writing since she was seventeen. Few people are candid about mental health problems but Carol uses her poetry to cut through the stigmas that surround them, breaking down barriers. She takes an unusual and honest approach to expressing her own circumstances, performing the poems to make a greater impact.

Carol is a member of Portstewart’s ‘Unlimited Survivors,’ a small voluntary support group for users and survivors of the mental health system. As part of her Canadian workshops, she will be presenting a collection of poetry and photography, created by the Portstewart group and based on the demolition of an old style psychiatric facility.“Some of the poems are dark, but many are humorous” she says. “Most people are surprised by just how hilarious these psychiatric hospitals can be at times. It’s not all doom and gloom.”

Carol holds an MA in Peace and Human Conflict Studies from the University of Ulster, Coleraine and in recent years has given many lectures on mental health to enhance the skills of professionals and students in the psychology, social work, nursing, and occupational therapy fields.“My personal testimony, purely from a survivor’s experience, sends out a very powerful message and has affected a great many of these people deeply. I have received letters from professionals telling me that they have found my work quite profound and very useful.”

Carol is excited about this opportunity to take her innovative work across the Atlantic. “It gives me the chance to perform in front of an international audience. The Canadians love the Irish. Just to speak in that country is enough but to speak in the company of poets is something else! My presence will provide support for fellow mental health survivors and other performance poets.”

Arts & Disability Officer at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Chris Ledger stated, “Carol gets panic attacks whilst travelling, so her trip to Canada is very courageous indeed. For this reason we are funding Coleraine Theatre Studies Graduate Abby Oliveira to accompany Carol on the trip and give support when it is needed.”Carol is just one of the individual artists who is benefiting from the Arts Council’s ‘Arts and Disability Networking Abroad’ scheme, set up to enhance the International profile and reputation of disabled artists and to develop the networking potential of the Arts and Disability sector.“The trip will allow Carol to network on an international level and help build her profile as an artist, which in turn will lead to opportunities for further performances and workshops and bring outside influences back to Northern Ireland – that’s what these grants are all about.” said Chris.“The trip will not only benefit Carol, it will be a positive move for the ‘Unlimited Survivors’ group in Portstewart. Given that isolation is one of the problems for individuals with mental health needs, the knowledge that people in Canada appreciate their work will give everyone involved a great boost.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is delighted to be funding this endeavour.”

source - http://www.artscouncil-ni.org/news/2005/new05092005b.htm

"controversial man of letters"

FRED JOHNSTON - POET, NOVELIST, CRITIC, MUSICIAN
I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1951 and educated there and St Thomas Aquinas', Toronto, Canada.
I am a novelist, reviewer, poet and playwright, and founder of Galway city's annual literature festival Cúirt; more recently, I founded The Western Writers Centre (writersgalway@eircom.net -091.533595).Our Centre is always grateful for funding and sponsorship.

PLAYS:'Actors';'Wednesday'; 'No Earthly Pole.'
NOVELS: 'Picture of a Girl in a SpanishHat';'Atalanta';'Mapping God/Le Tracé de Dieu.'
STORIES:'Keeping The Night Watch'.
POETRY: 'Life and Death in the Midlands;' 'A Scarce Light';'Browne';'Measuring Angles'; 'True North'; 'Song at The Edge of the World';'Paris Without Maps;'Being Anywhere - New & Selected Poems.'Recipient of a Hennessy Literary Award in 1972 and of numerous bursaries, including the 'Prix de l'Ambassade(2000)'to translate a French poet.

source - http://uk.geocities.com/folksongman/FredJohnston.index.html


Martin Mooney interviewed Fred Johnston shortly after his return from a month-long stint as writer in residence to the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. This is an edited version of their conversation.

You were born in Belfast, but you’ve been Galway based for many years now. How did you come to settle there? Do you consider yourself an exile?
I lived first in Dublin, working in journalism and PR there. It may seem odd now, but many of us, by the mid-70s, considered Dublin to be over, everything that could be achieved had been achieved; the Project Arts Centre was up and running, myself and Neil Jordan with Peter Sheridan had set up the Irish Writers’ Co-operative – artists and writers of all types wanted something fresh. There was much youthful pub-talk of ‘going West’ to set up arts centres and the like, commune-based; not the Arts Council-directed empty spaces you have now, run by an arts’ civil service. I got an Arts Council bursary to attend a series of literary workshops under Anthony Cronin at Galway university. They’ve discontinued these, God knows why. My father and I had come to Galway, like all good northerners, for our annual holidays for years, of course. I met someone, I settled here. I have a daughter, Saoirse, she’s almost 27, lives abroad. Galway was a village then – still is, in many ways. Galway Arts Festival was a university event. Kenny’s Bookshop was there. Nothing else. Galway was never a culture-based town, traditionally it was commercially-based, centred round the docks, which are useless now. Frank Harris, Padraic O Conaire, Walter Macken all came from there, but it was never a literary place. And yes I am an exile and feel it even more now. There’s a set, a parochial social order in Galway and this template naturally applies, with all its middle-class affectation at the root, to the arts. A small group of essentially the same people, only the faces change, runs the arts here. I’ve a reputation for being ‘difficult’. I question things. That’s considered to be impudently disruptive.

You’ve been investigating your Northern Irish roots in poems for some time now. Can you say a bit about your family background?
My Belfast side of the family were Methodists, trade unionists and unionists, and none of that’s a contradiction. My father was a quiet man, interested in everything. My uncle ran on the Labour ticket for the old Stormont. My mother’s side came from Dublin, were strong Collins-ites, adored the Queen, were ebullient and rowdy. My father’s father was secretary of the East Belfast Constitutional Workingman’s Club. It’s still there. I carry a bit of both into my own dealings with people, a straightforward pragmatism, I suppose, with a short fuse for the schoolboy arrogance of privileged adult children who’ve never known a wet day in their lives. I have a detestation of moral cowardice, and I’ve met plenty of it in the arts world. My father would have a bottle of stout and sing a song and go to bed. My mother, however, wanted the party to last forever. She’d been in the chorus-line on Belfast’s Empire Theatre during the War and people still stopped her in Belfast in the street when I was a kid: ‘Aren’t you Blondie?’, using her stage-name. That set her up for the day. She tried to get me to continue the dream by putting me on stage when I learned first to play the guitar; I did halls all over the province, and in Belfast. That’s a book in itself. In middle-age I realised I’d abandoned my northern family. I began a painful reassessment of a whole set of values. I realised I was, in the end, a northerner, and would always be one. Yes, that immediately set me apart in the Republic. So I set out to find where it all originated, this ‘northernness’. I was glad I’d found it. It made sense. It made a whole. The poems became detective stories.

You’ve often said that Irish poets can be complacent or insular, and have argued for more engagement in the social life of our communities and countries. Is there a difference between how writers from North and South align themselves to the social or political world?
Irish poets in the Republic have not in the main shown a readiness to confront social issues, either in their work or by letters or articles for publication. Throughout the revelations, tribunals, political scandals, there has been a bothersome silence here. It takes a different social and ethical background to create a notion of public responsibility, of a greater good, of doing the honourable thing, the British had it, for all their faults, and so too did Ulster people, imbued with a Presbyterian or Dissenter righteousness. It seems to me that in the north of Ireland, the Troubles insured that writers were not fooled by the misuse of political language, of language in general, and they produced a body of work, not all of which is brilliant or timeless, but which nonetheless confronted head-on, and often bravely, the frequently debauched language of politics. This was important to them because they dealt in language and the results of misuse of language – of un-language – was visible all around them in violence, prejudice and murder. They produced a corrective, if you like. A tension between the writer as individual and the writer as someone-who-might-be-killed-today-like-anyone-else-or-knows-someone-who-has-been, to exaggerate a little, produced a literary reaction, a voice. And this was supported by, again, a very Presbyterian refusal to be shut-up. Northern Catholics, being as different in outlook from their southern counterparts as can be imagined, reacted by unconsciously echoing ‘Ulster says No!’ when it came to being quiet and timid in the face of political outrage.

One way of bringing poetry closer to public life is through events and institutions – you might call it infrastructure. You founded Galway city's annual literature festival Cúirt, and more recently, the Western Writers Centre. Yet you often come across as sceptical of established institutions in the arts. Do you feel a conflict between your work as a poet and your work in or with institutions?
My contribution in the way you mean to the arts in Galway has always been fraught with opposition; no sooner was the first Cúirt a success than efforts were made to dump me, and this eventually was done. That affected me deeply, it was, and not only in my view, a shameful act. The Writers’ Centre too has met with silent or anonymous opposition. Generally, I am very sceptical about arts institutions, particularly those that do not have artists working for them. There are careers to be made which have nothing to do with the practise of or welfare of art. I’ve seen that. Yet once I take an Arts Council grant, am I damned anyway? Once I apply on behalf of an organisation for a grant, am I similarly compromised? The short answer is yes, I am. No artist can work with a state arts’ body for long and not come away sceptical, even a little damaged, in the end. One witnesses the constant bastardising of one’s art. There’s nothing transcendent, nothing spiritual. Little enough is judged on merit anyway; there’s more lobbying than any artist has the energy for. Every artist should strive to be as independent from applying for grants and that sort of thing as he or she can be. The actual act of writing or creating is so far removed from the head-space it takes to be an administrator that it’s unreal. Artists don’t need administrators. Arts councils can’t appreciate that.

To change tack: you have a second career as a musician, with a solo album, Get You, and two traditional music albums with the group, Parsons Hat. Is this something that goes back to your early life in the north? Was yours a musical family?
Yes and no. I’ve mentioned my mother’s angle and her ambitions for her only son. Thankfully, they were thwarted! The whole 60s thing was for me a mixture of buying Woody Guthrie albums in Smithfield, usually somewhere like McBurney’s, listening to Dylan, feeling the world could be changed from the fretboard up. My uncle Bob gave me my first five-string banjo. I had a guitar since age 13 and I went to a grandiosely-titled attic Sunday folk-club called the Ulster Folk Music Society, with John Morton and people like that, and John Moulden, leading it. I heard Wee Willy Winkie playing wonderful traditional airs in there one night, he used to play the saw opposite City Hall in Belfast for years. I heard all sorts of songs, playing, styles. I did some appearances on Ulster TV and Billy McBurney’s Outlet and Inset record labels brought out a couple of records of mine, ‘The Shores of Amerikay’ and the like, I was fifteen or sixteen; then I recorded an LP, The Flags Are Out for Celtic, a collection of ‘rebel’ and football songs under the name Hughie Gallagher, who used to play for Celtic. I then played every cabaret lounge in Belfast and went to The Pound Club in the Markets on Saturdays. Great times to be that age, to play a guitar, to be rebellious; and then the Peoples’ Democracy came about, and the Ulster world changed and the songs were there at the marches, the whole thing had a particular atmosphere. In the south I came into contact with more traditional Irish material, though I still play Blues and have Blues songs on an album I’m finishing off, a second solo work, at present. I couldn’t not play. And for me the links between poetry in the community and folk song are obvious. Though some of the new songs being penned still in the country pubs, ribald, Gaelic-rhythmed, impious, will never be high-fallutin’ enough for the Oxford Book of Irish Verse.

You recently spent time as writer-in-residence with the Princess Grace Irish Library in the Principality of Monaco. How was that?
That was exciting and refreshing because everyone needs a change, you can’t sup at the same soup-pot forever. I was installed in my very own office, en suite, treated exceptionally well, worked on a novel set in Paris, then went out and contacted Monégasque writers, tried to touch the community a little. It took time, but eventually I have translated some local Monégasque poetry from French cribs. I read a good deal and discovered beyond doubt that Yeats’ body is not buried in Sligo. I had hopes to install something more direct, a cultural literary link there which might also become an exchange, but it isn’t going to happen, it appears. That’s a pity. Meanwhile, myself and Sylvia, my partner, are back in Monaco to play officially on St Patrick’s Day. I was there long enough to observe new things and write new poems, flavoured with morning coffee and bitty with croissant. I gave a paper. By and large I could work to my own demands. In Nice I saw drunks on the sidewalks, on benches; in Vauban a man drowned himself. Just because it’s the Cote d’Azur doesn’t mean there’s a ready-made paradise there. There’s a community of Irish ex-pats, though. I wish often, frankly, that I was one of them. Ireland is getting me down.

You’re editor of the Cork Literary Review in the year that the city’s European City of Culture. Many of us in Belfast were very sceptical of our city fathers’ bid, thought it had very little to do with any real engagement between the arts and public life. How’s Cork coping?
I think Cork’s initial excitement seems to have worn off and the press are becoming more critical. Galway bid too, but had relied too much on her own hype as to cultural worth, and the appropriate committee deemed the city hadn’t sufficient ‘infrastructure’ which meant in English that there wasn’t enough going on. She’s learned nothing from this, of course. I work the editing of the Review from Galway. I’ve made a few no doubt exasperating errors but hopefully I can correct them, and improve. There has not been the level of communication I would’ve wished between myself and the Cork end of the Review. I’ve tried, on the other hand, to make the new issue as varied and far-ranging as possible. I think Belfast has more energy than Cork or Galway and has the required creative daftness to take risks. Belfast should have taken the title. But it is interesting to see, as I’ve said, how some of the Republic’s press are becoming ever so gradually critical of Cork’s events. On the literary side of things, there is great work in translating going on there, a whole translating project, if I recall rightly. Recently a well-known poet, sick to retirement of the politics of the arts world, remarked to me that he didn’t read much in Ireland, ‘But I read a lot abroad’. So we’re still emigrating. Now we emigrate with our hearts and souls as much as we once did with our feet. Now we go away in secret. Now we write in the hope of being translated into a language that welcomes our imagination. Isn’t it strange? Neither Irish, nor English, not Hiberno-English, will suffice any more. Their vocabularies aren’t wide enough.

source - http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/