"Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a blog”
I thought you had to be really hard core to read Beckett, even more so to go to one of his plays. Discussion about him always appeared a bit pretentious to me. He was too intellectual by half and in truth I was a little frightened of him, avoided engaging with his work, thought I... Continue Reading →
A day trip north to St. Andrews. A lot of Americans in strange costume carrying clubs. Unknown to me in advance, and by great good fortune there is an Exhibition of the work of Samuel John Peploe running at the St. Andrews municipal museum. One of my all-time favourite artists, Peploe was the leading Scottish... Continue Reading →
He moved amongst the Caesar’s and Napoleon’s of finance and power. He moved with diplomatic immunity, and with reputational immunity, the later conferred by a docile French press unworthy of the trade of journalism. He left a trail of sleaze. He almost became the next socialist President of France. He fell, in Manhattan, in the... Continue Reading →
Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Another day in Edinburgh, another play. The book, by Robert Tressell, had a deep influence upon a whole generation of trade unionists, my generation in fact, for it was published circa 1956. There was hardly a shop steward or full time official in any kind of active capacity who had not read... Continue Reading →
Of all the books on all the shelves in all the world then surely Ulysses would be the very last you would choose to actually perform. With its often impenetrable text and its binge of words. Yet here is young Katie O’Kelly, choosing Ulysses and with an Olympic feat of memory, a crisp Dublin diction... Continue Reading →
When, as a stranger to the Scots tongue, you first encounter Burns then you find a daunting and fairly impenetrable language. It takes more than a few readings to begin to appreciate the wonder of it all and to get your ear into the cadences of the braid Scots. Booking a ticket therefore, for Tam... Continue Reading →
The painting, recently commissioned, is the artists interpretation of the photograph beneath the painting, taken on the Shankill Road in 1970 and referred to in the story at http://wp.me/p259Gc-1i
Believe me, if you stay in Ireland for any period of time, you will grow to hate Dublin Taxis. To begin with there is simply no consistent method of determining whether an approaching or passing cab is free for hire. True they have oblong, rather tatty illuminated signs lashed to their roofs, but most such... Continue Reading →
Do you remember Yosser Hughes? “Gizza job!” Yosser Hughes? Poor bloody man. Couldn’t get a job, desperate for a job, he would have killed for a job. Any job. Any kind of bloody job at all. He was on the edge was Yosser. Right on the edge. “I can do that!” He could not understand... Continue Reading →
She has been gone now for over six years, but still I see her striding through the law library, still hear her infectious raucous laughter, still remember her little, and not so little acts of kindness to new unsure and hesitant barristers making their way in that tough and daunting cauldron of Dublin’s law library.... Continue Reading →
So far as I know there is but one single memento to the role played by the Four Courts during the Easter Rising of 1916. It is a portrait that hangs in the Irish bay of the barrister's Law Library. It is of Charles S. Bevan, the volunteer who helped to relieve the Chancery Place... Continue Reading →
Conscription came in March 1916. By Easter of that year the last of the army's voluntary recruits were coming to the end of their training for the trenches of France. They knew, those young men, of the risks they faced in Flanders; they knew of the casualty lists. But still they volunteered, to fight, be... Continue Reading →
Remarks of John McGuiggan BL at the Launch of Paul O'Brien's new book - Distillery Building - Wed 26th March 2012 What dull and ordinary lives we lead when we measure ourselves against those men and women who fought here, in the fourcourts and the streets and buildings nearby, in April of 1916. This is... Continue Reading →
Let me from the start declare an interest. I am a member of the Irish Labour Party and gave wholehearted support to Michael D. Higgins during his presidential campaign including making financial contributions through the Irish Labour Party Lawyers group. For me, he was the best candidate and I count him a comrade. But Michael... Continue Reading →
Not all the late nineteenth century white men who cut their way into the wealth of untamed Africa were touched by dreams of colonial conquest, territorial gain or massive religious conversion of the native tribes. Sir Roger Casement, it is true, was in deepest Africa, in the Congo, as Consul for Her Majesty's Imperial Government... Continue Reading →
I knew nothing of the artist Lee Guk Hyun. But he struck me straight between the eyes as I wondered, accidently, around the Dublin contemporary art fair. I had no money to buy a painting; I was only there because I had mistakenly thought it was the day for the National food exhibition. But this... Continue Reading →
This is the story of Louis Broady. An unskilled black worker on a Manpower Services Commission employment scheme with Nottingham City Council. Because he was black he was abused. His union took up his fight and together, over a period of two years they stopped the abuse and won justice. It was a victory that... Continue Reading →
The Union Ballot – a poem Prior to the election of Margaret Thatcher Unions were generally free to conduct strike ballots according to their own internal rules and practice. A show of hands, a branch meeting, a national ballot, sometimes secret, sometimes not. It was open to a lot of abuse and meant that a... Continue Reading →
John LAVERY (1856-1941): High Treason 1916. Oil on canvas, 214 x 322 cms . The canvas is huge: ten feet by seven feet and it hangs at the foot of the great marble staircase within the King's Inns,Dublin where it dominates the descent of the Benchers as they process on their way to dine. It... Continue Reading →
Three years of tough and intensive military training. Hard bitten drill sergeants and skilled combat veterans turning boys of 15 and 16 into trained killers, before sending them off into the far- flung outposts of the empire, to wonderful and exotic postings, as honed killers. Yes it was the fag end of the empire, but... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 