Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy

I am sorry to hear today of the death at the age of 72 of writer Maeve Binchy. I often met her in the 80’s upstairs in Frank Lavery’s The Fleet Bar in Dublin opposite the back door to the Irish Times where she worked. Whilst a staff writer on The Irish Times her career as a writer was taking off after her first novel in 1982, Light a Penny Candle.

Maeve was totally without pretension or airs and graces and was always the centre of the company in The Fleet. She never lost her journalistic craft whether it was observing people in a launderette or a Central Line train. She split her time between London when she married the children’s author Gordon Snell and a little kingdom south of Dublin called Dalkey.

She went onto have worldwide success with Circle of Friends which was made into an excellent movie starring Minnie Driver and much of it shot in one of Ireland’s undiscovered gems the area of South Kilkenny along the Nore River around Thomastown and Inistioge.

A journalist, short story writer and best-selling novelist, Maeve was born in Dalkey in Co Dublin and studied at UCD. She initially worked as a teacher before becoming a journalist, columnist and later women's editor at the Irish Times. She then moved to London where she continued to work for the paper. Her early short story collections were based in London and Dublin and featured sharp, funny and often poignant observations of residents of those cities. 

Her finally observed domestic literature sold well and Minding Frankie achieved critical acclaim. In her books as in life she wore her heart on her sleeve. Sometimes unfairly reviewed her books were always well crafted and her characters finely observed, she was the Godmother of Chick-Lit and generous with her time in helping others. She sold more than 40 million books worldwide.

 She was a larger than life character in every way who relished people and the hustle and bustle of existence. The world will be less colourful and slightly less jolly without her.
 

Kader Asmal - Freedom’s friend

With the passing of Kader Asmal who has died of a heart attack at the age of 76, in a Constantia hospital in Cape Town freedom has lost a great friend, the Rule of Law a great advocate and both his beloved native South Africa and his adopted home of Ireland have lost somebody who enriched them immeasurably. It was my great privilege to know Kader and I am both saddened by his passing but also grateful to have known somebody who reeked of integrity and made such a difference in life.

For Kader, an always polite and enthusiastic Law Professor much given to smiling and laughter has left a large footprint on this earth. He had led the campaign in Ireland against apartheid and went on to hold two ministerial posts in South Africa. Asmal left Ireland in the early 1990s, returning to South Africa, where he was a senior figure in the African National Congress. Although he served as a minister in the Mandela government from 1994 to 2004, he regularly returned to Dublin.



After leaving his native South Africa in 1959, he helped found the anti-apartheid movement in London, before moving to Dublin. He lectured in Trinity College for 27 years. Kader Asmal came to Ireland in 1963, a South African exile and member of the African National Congress, fresh from a degree at the London School of Economics.

As a founder of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) with former President Mary Robinson,(one of his former students) he championed the rights of workers in Dunne’s Stores when they refused to handle South African oranges. In Trinity College, he specialised in human rights, labour and international law and from 1980 to 1986 he was dean of the faculty of arts. He met his wife Louise Parkinson in Dublin. They had two sons and two grandchildren.


Kader with his former student Mary Robinson, later President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Kader was the best type of lawyer, one who truly believed in the Rule of Law as the glue which binds a civilised society, who led by example and who influenced a whole generation of lawyers, judges and legislators in Ireland before returning to South Africa. He said;

“The state is not the enemy, it’s the abuse of power” that is the enemy, he says. In order to fight such abuses – and he stresses that the abuse of power can come from private as much as, or more than, public interests – a strong state is vital. “One thing I’ve learned, don’t always counter pose the state as the enemy.” He cited economic globalisation and US imperialism as further evidence of the need for a strong state, able to assert its sovereignty.



Kader grew up in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal and while still a school-boy he met Chief Albert Luthuli who inspired him towards human rights. In 1959, Kader qualified as a teacher, moved to London where he enrolled at the London School of Economics and Political Science.



While in London he started the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and when he joined the Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland as a teacher of human rights, labour and international law, he started the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. Kader qualified as a barrister in both the London and Dublin Bars and received degrees from both the London School of Economics (LL.M. (Lond.)) and Trinity College, Dublin (M.A. (Dubl.)). He was a law professor at Trinity College for 27 years, specialising in human rights, labour, and international law. In 1983, he was awarded the Prix UNESCO for his involvement in the international inquiries into human rights violations. Kader served on the African National Congress' constitutional committee from 1986.


Trinity College, Dublin

In 1990, Asmal returned to South Africa and shortly afterwards was elected to the African National Congress' National Executive Committee. In 1993, he served as a member of the negotiating team of the African National Congress at the Multiparty Negotiating Forum. In May 1994, he was elected to the National Assembly, and joined the cabinet as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry.

In 1996, the World Wide Fund for Nature-South Africa awarded Asmal their Gold Medal for his conservation work. During his tenure he supported the Global Water Partnership (GWP). As Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry he spearheaded the recognition of the concept of "the environment as a prime water user." While serving as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, he also served as the chairman of the World Commission on Dams (1997–2001).



In 1999, after the South African general elections, he became Minister of Education. Among his initiatives as Minister of Education was the launching in 2001 of the South African History Project "to promote and enhance the conditions and status of the learning and teaching of history in the South African schooling system, with the goal of restoring its material position and intellectual purchase in the classroom". Asmal emphasised that children should not be measured by outcomes only, “but measured by the successes achieved getting to an outcome”.

He was a professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape, chairman of the council of the University of the North and vice-president of the African Association of International Law.

On 5 October 2007, he severely criticised Robert Mugabe for the situation in Zimbabwe, lamenting that he had not spoken previously, at the launch of a book Through the Darkness — A Life in Zimbabwe, by Judith Todd, daughter of former Southern Rhodesia prime minister Garfield Todd, an opponent of white minority rule under Ian Smith.



Asmal resigned from parliament in 2008, in protest against the ANC's disbanding of the elite Scorpions anti-crime unit. He felt it was a poor decision, and that it was improper that politicians who had been investigated and found to be engaged in corruption by the Scorpions then took part in the vote to disband the organisation. Just six days before his death, Asmal called for the controversial Information Bill (also known as the "Secrecy Bill") to be scrapped.

I first met Kader in 1974 when I was Secretary of the Student’s Union in Bolton Street. One of the few redeeming features in this utilitarian 3rd Level Educational institution was a small payment from the college for guest speakers. Kader came along to state the case for fighting Apartheid. What struck me then and since was his own personal experience of Apartheid, its pervasiveness and how every aspect of your life was controlled by your official designation as white, coloured or Bantu, as black people were called under the system. The whole nonsense of separate development which led to the creation 10 Bantustan which led to three and half million black South Africans being deprived of South African citizenship and being forcibly relocated to these nonsense puppet states. The detail Kader outlined was shocking but this was no bitter ranting exile. On the contrary with his ready smile and laughter he was an optimist that human goodness would prevail no matter how grim the present reality seemed. It was inspirational and it inspired me to join the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement (IAAM).

For more about Bolton Street see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/bob-geldof-and-me.html


Dunnes's Stores, Henry Street, Dublin

This in fact was run from Kader and Louise’s family home at Beechpark Road, Foxrock but as a campaigning organisation it always punched above its weight with many high profile protests, for instance when the Springboks Rugby Team toured Ireland. But its high point came when a Dublin shop girl refused to sell two Outspan oranges to a customer in a major supermarket chain.



In July 1984 a 21-year old cashier Mary Manning was suspended by management at the Henry Street branch of Dunnes's Stores where she worked. Two days earlier, Mary and her worker colleagues received a directive from their union IDATU (Irish Distributive and Administrative Trade Union) not to handle any products that originated from South Africa. This was as a consequence of a motion adopted at the IDATU annual delegate conference that said that because of the apartheid system, union members were to refuse to handle South African goods. This lead to a strike and campaign lasting 2 years nine months during which the Dunnes’s Stores strikers stood firm with public support against management and Garda intimidation and in the latter case sometimes violence. It took a heavy toll on the principled strikers, some of whom ended up losing their homes, but in the end Ireland passed a law forbidding the import of South African produce which stayed in force until the end of Apartheid.

In 2008 a plaque was embedded in front of Dunnes's store on Henry Street to commemorate the strike and the workers who participated in it. Speaking at the ceremony, Kader Asmal who had been Chairperson of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement during the strike and who went on to become a Minister in post Apartheid South Africa delivered a message on behalf of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

According to Mandela “young workers who refused to handle the fruits of apartheid 21 years ago in Dublin provided inspiration to millions of South Africans that ordinary people far away from the crucible of apartheid cared for our freedom".


Kader at the unveiling of the plaque outside Dunnes's Stores, Henry Street, Dublin in 2008

I, like many others in Ireland, have warm memories of Kader, the bustling academic lawyer, whose love of liberty stemmed first and foremost from his love of life and people. I never remember a trace of bitterness in his being even when he was telling me in the dark days of isolation about his ANC contemporaries in South Africa who had been killed or were rotting in prison. Louise was vice-chair and very much his equal partner in his campaign and when he left Ireland she went with him to South Africa, a country whose freedom she had spent many years campaigning for but which she had never been to. Their son Rafiq was a student and part time club promoter in Dublin and used to rent a basement night club in Dublin’s Grafton Street where he ran a club called “Risqué” on a Saturday night. He was astonished around 12.30 one Saturday night when this part time club was graced by David Bowie, his Band and entourage who crashed in after performing in 1987 to 50,000 at Slane Castle earlier. He wasn’t the only one who was astounded as so was I being there that night and I ended up chatting to David whose management asked for the doors to be closed but very kindly insisted on picking up a bar tab until four in the morning by way of thanks!


Kader and Louise Asmal

Kader too was avuncular, enjoying company, a “jar” and unfortunately chain smoking which no doubt contributed to his ill health in recent years. I had left Ireland before he went back to South Africa but I remember afterwards reading an interview with him where he regretted that he had gone back at the age of 55 and not 45 when he was in his prime. Be that as may be and though our thoughts are with Louise, Adam and Rafiq in Rosebank, Cape Town we cannot feel sad after a life which has accomplished so much and has served as an example of the importance of Human Rights and the Rule of Law and how with courage and determination these values will prevail. But there is another reason why we must not be sad for that was not Kader’s way. Whilst he gave a great deal to Ireland he also felt wanted there and took from the country as a little story illustrates.

At a formal dinner of the SA Brandy Foundation, in 1999, Kader told the guests: "This is an occasion when I should declare my interest in relation to brandy versus whisky, without further ado. For, as you know, it is incumbent on parliamentarians and ministers to declare their interests, and we are here to salute brandy and its responsible consumption.

"So I must declare that, if I do have the odd diverting dram, it is whiskey, spelt with an 'e', the Irish way. In fact, it is generally totally misspelled, the more correct being P A D D Y," he said. "I mention this in case any of tonight's esteemed audience passes through Heathrow duty-free and is heretical enough to purchase some Paddy on my behalf."

Farewell to Kader who showed us the way, a true friend of Freedom.

Kader Asmal - 8 October 1934 – 22 June 2011

Ireland of the Gombeens

Let us consider the incredible world of the McMahon Tribunal. 10 years and 300 M Euros mostly paid to legal fat cats to find out what we knew already? That Politics (and Law and Banking and …..) and Politicians in Ireland is systemically corrupt. Time to take the Italian approach of throwing them in jail and making the Gombeens prove their innocence?

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html

I have had some personal experience of this corruption but one anecdote will suffice. My friend in Dublin, Architect Jack Keenan was appointed to An Board Plenala, (The Planning Board) by Ray Burke the then Minister of Local Government. Jack I might add was a member of Fianna Fail and architect for developers Brennan and McGowan who benefited greatly from wide scale rezoning of previously low value agricultural land at Kilnamanagh and Swords by Burke. Jack was architect for these developments and also designed Burke’s own house which was built and given to him as a “gift” by Brennan and McGowan. After his term on Board Plenala had ended Jack was walking down Herbert Place near Fianna Fail’s party headquarters when he bumps into Ray Burke who then abuses him in the street for not “looking after our people enough” when he was on the Planning Board.

Ray Burke, being led off to prison

Bear in mind this was a government minister who went on to become Minister of Justice. He was later jailed for six months in 2005 for tax evasion. He was left with a €10.5 million legal bill from his long-running involvement with the planning tribunal. He also made a €1.3m settlement with the Criminal Assets Bureau following its investigation into his financial affairs.

When Bob Geldof was given the Freedom of Dublin in 2005 he was nearly run out of town for his observation that the fabric of modern Dublin could only be explained by a culture of “deep rooted corruption between “developers and politicians.” With the benefit of hindsight, Bob the Gob must be impressed with his previously undetected talent for understatement.

Charles "The Squire" Haughey in front of his home,  Abbeville.  Haughey  sold the property and stud farm in 2003 in order to pay a settlement to the Revenue Commissioners. It was bought by Joe Moran’s Manor Park Homes, who subsequently went into receivership after Bank of Scotland Ireland sought to recover outstanding debts.  

Since then he has blasted Fianna Fail leader and three times Taoiseach Haughey, who died aged 80 in 2006, accusing him of having the blood of innocent Irish people on his hands by helping finance the IRA.

"The man who was prime minister was a sort of Irish Robert Mugabe. His name was Haughey and he was a completely corrupt man - morally, economically, whatever," said Geldof explaining to his audience how he and his Boomtown Rats' bandmate bassist Pete Briquette had come to write the band's 1980 hit Banana Republic. And he made a lot of money doing business deals, criminal business deals with his son. And he took the money and he bought guns and bullets for the IRA to kill other Irish people," added Geldof in a reference to Haughey's implication the Arms Trial of 1970.

For the story of the Boomtown Rats first concert (organised by moi!) see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/bob-geldof-and-me.html

The Boomtown Rats 1980 hit 'Banana Republic' remains a scabrous and prescient indictment of corrupt Ireland in the late 1970s.

Banana republic

Septic isle

Screaming in the suffering sea

It sounds like crying (crying, crying)

Everywhere I go, oh yeah

Everywhere I see

The black and blue uniforms

Police and priests

And I wonder do you wonder

While you're sleeping

with your whore

That sharing beds with history

Is like a-licking running sores

Forty shades of green yeah

Sixty shades of red

Heroes going cheap these days

Price; a bullet in the head

Is this love?

Compared to many over-hyped, over directed and over expensive music videos the 1978 video for Bob Marley and The Wailers “Is this love” is a wonderful paean to honesty and simplicity. The honesty comes from Bob’s obvious rapport with the children (including a seven year old Naomi Campbell) in this converted church near King’s Cross and from the fact that the Keskidee Centre where it was shot was not just the a Black cultural centre, at the time it was the only black cultural centre in the city where Bob and the Wailers spent some of their most productive years. It was close to his first London home in Camden so he would have known the area well. 

34 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden, WC1E, was the first official London address of the star in 1972. He later moved with his fellow band members the Wailers to various other locations in London including Old Church Street, Chelsea, and Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-love.html

Now the church in London where Bob Marley filmed the video for his “Is This Love song” has been destroyed by fire yesterday 8^thMarch 2012. About 40 firefighters tackled the blaze at the Christ Apostolic Church in King's Cross on Thursday night. The three-storey building has been severely damaged and 20 people had to be evacuated from adjacent properties.

The 1978 video was filmed at the building which was home to Keskidee, thought to be the UK's first cultural centre for the black community. The Keskidee Centre was founded in 1971. It became known for its theatre productions and toured Europe, the US and New Zealand. As well as being chosen by Bob Marley to shoot his video - starring a young Naomi Campbell - the centre also laid claim to be the birth place of dub poetry, created by its one-time educational officer Linton Kwesi Johnson.  Speaking in a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the venue in 2009 Linton Kwesi Johnson said: "The Keskidee Centre was unique. As a young person growing up and becoming politically and culturally conscious, it was fantastic. There was nowhere else that you could find that kind of ambience to nurture creativity." For many years, it was the only place to experience black theatre in London.

Unveiling of green plaque to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Keskidee Centre.

The centre closed in 1991 following funding problems and the building was bought by the Christ Apostolic Church. Last April, Islington Council unveiled a green plaque - which honours notable Islington residents and places in the north London borough - on the building to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Keskidee Centre.

The Green Plaque, which honours notable Islington residents and places, was unveiled last year by David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham. He said at the time: “As the son of Guyanese parents and one of only a few black and ethnic minority MPs, I am honoured to see the plaque unveiled. It marks a point in our history. The plaque means that long after we’re gone, children will be able to walk past the building and ask their parents about what it means and learn about the important history of the local community.”

Now, sadly, it looks as if another piece of London’s rich multi-cultural history may be lost.

London Marathon 2012 Wk 13: In Dublin's fair city

Recovered quite well last week from the 14 mile run the previous Saturday. Run of this week was a early morning 40 minute jog around Dublin City centre. I was in Dublin to help make a pensions presentation to the NEC of the IBOA (the Irish Finance workers union)  The previous evening their lay officials had taken us out for a few Guinesses (I can vouch that it does taste better across the water).

To my surprise the next morning I did have just a little bit of a hangover. I had been assured by my hosts that the delicious herbal chasers that accompanied the Guiness were purely medicinal and designed to smooth the stomach and clear the head.  They were called Bushmills or something
like that? Very nice.

I firstly jogged around St Stephens Green which is a perfect City centre park full of history. Then under Fusilier's Arch and down Grafton Street.  At bottom is entrance to Trinity College where I did a quick circuit around the lawns.  Along O'Connell Street and across the bridge to the famous General Post Office which was the head quarters of the rebels during the Easter Uprising 1916.  There you can indeed still see what appears to be bullet marks on the outside columns.

Back across the river by a different bridge then to the hotel via side streets only getting lost once or twice.

I am running the London marathon in April 2012 using the official advanced training programme and will be raising funds for Homeless Youth charity "Alone in London". Click here to sponsor me.

My favourite Christmas Carols

Why should somebody who believes Man created God Blog about Christmas Carols? Well, maybe because they are an important cultural artefact in their own right, an important part of our musical tradition and the culture of communities who came together in the dark and hungry nights of mid winter. They are not Folk Songs for they were normally liturgical hymns written in Latin by clergymen. But in times of yore they would have been performed in churches by the same musicians and singers from the local community who performed at festivals so the cross over to / from the folklore tradition was direct.

Folk band at Xmas outside the Marienkirche,Lübeck

Indeed on one of my visits to the wonderful German medieval city of Lübeck for the Xmas Markets I was struck by the traditional folk musicians playing outside the Marienkirche. Inside the resident musician and organist in the 1600’s was one Dieterich Buxtehude. He laid the foundations of Baroque Music and was so renowned that in 1705, Johann Sebastian Bach, then a young man of twenty, walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilometres (250 mi), and stayed nearly three months to hear him play, and, as Bach explained, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art".

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/10/lubeck-and-its-xmas-market.html

The singing of carols is the oldest of Christmas customs. The ancient tradition of carols was revitalised after nearly two centuries of dormancy in the years 1823 to 1848. You might ask, what is a Christmas carol? The question is not as silly as it may at first appear. Singing at festivals is as old as festivals themselves. Ancient Egyptians and even the Druids used music in their sacred rites. And so did the Romans and the Greeks. The earliest Christians sang psalms and hymns during their festivals and the vigils of their saints. Sacred or profane, it is obvious that music and singing was very much a part of celebrations and festivals. Oxford, 18 miles from us, has a rich musical scene and many choirs and the Oxford Book of Carols spearheaded the revival of Carols in England from 1820’s onward.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/xmas-is-coming.html

Xmas Market in front Oxford Castle

The term "carol" originally meant songs intermingled with dancing. As time went along, it was applied to festive songs in general. Since Christmas is the most festive period of the year, carols came to be thought of almost exclusively as Christmas carols. It is not clear whether the word carol derives from the French "carole" or the Latin "carula" meaning a circular dance. In any case the dancing seems to have been abandoned quite early.

One of my favourite carols in the plainsong tradition is Gaudete (“rejoice" in Latin), a sacred Christmas carol, composed sometime in the 16th century. The song was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/12/xmas-in-london.html

Oxford Street, London

The Latin text is a typical medieval song of praise, which follows the standard pattern for the time - a uniform series of four-line stanzas, each preceded by a two-line refrain (in the early English carol this was known as the burden). Carols could be on any subject, but typically they were about the Virgin Mary, the Saints or Christmastide themes. Gaudete is along with Pie Jesu one of only two songs in Latin to be a Top 10 hit in the UK charts.

Gaudete - Latin

Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!

Tempus adest gratiæ Hoc quod optabamus,
Carmina lætitiæ Devote reddamus.

Deus homo factus est Natura mirante,
Mundus renovatus est A Christo regnante.

Ezechielis porta Clausa pertransitur,
Unde lux est orta Salus invenitur.

Ergo nostra contio Psallat iam in lustro;
Benedicat Domino: Salus Regi nostro.


Gaudete - English

Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born Of the Virgin Mary — rejoice!

The time of grace has come—This that we have desired,
Verses of joy Let us devoutly return.
God has become man, To the wonderment of Nature,
The world has been renewed By the reigning Christ.
The closed gate of Ezekiel Is passed through,
Whence the light is born, Salvation is found.

Therefore let our gathering Now sing in brightness
Let it give praise to the Lord: Greeting to our King.




Xmas Tree in front of the GPO, Dublin



Probably the most famous Irish Xmas Carol is The Wexford Carol (Irish: Carúl Loch Garman). This is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from County Wexford, and specifically, Enniscorthy (whence its name), and dating to the 12th century. The subject of the song is that of the nativity of Jesus Christ.



The song is sometimes known by its first verse, "Good people all this Christmas time."

Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His belovèd Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day;
In Bethlehem upon the morn
There was a blest Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass:
From every door repelled, alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble oxen stall.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go”, the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the babe to find,
And as God’s angel has foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by His side the virgin maid
Attending to the Lord of Life,
Who came on earth to end all strife.





My favourite version is the 1991 album by the Irish folk group the Chieftains with Nanci Griffith - "Bells of Dublin". This album is named after the Dublin tradition of welcoming in the New Year by gathering at the centre of the Old Viking City at Christchurch Cathedral to hear the bells at midnight. The twelve bells of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, date back to 1738, and are rung twice every Sunday and also peal on special occasions such as the inauguration of the President. As a tradition the people of Dublin City gather in Christchurch Place to hear the bells ‘ring-in’ the New Year. The bells of Dublin are part of the fabric of life in Dublin, as are their 'voice' sounds and patterns, and this has been incorporated into the opening piece on the album and made into an underlying theme for the proceedings.


Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin

There is however another substantial Dublin Xmas musical connection as Handel's Messiah (HWV 56) was first performed in the "Antient Musik Hall" in Fishamble Street, Dublin in a gala in aid of the Foundling Hospital. This is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto by Charles Jennens. Composed in the summer of 1741 and premiered in Dublin on the 13 April 1742, Messiah is Handel's most famous creation and is among the most popular works in Western choral literature. The very well-known "Hallelujah" chorus is part of Handel's Messiah. What is also notable about the billboard for the Dublin premiere was that, due to space restrictions "Ladies are requested not to wear hoops and Gentlemen are requested not to wear swords." Even today there is always a performance of "Messiah" in Dublin before Xmas, normally for a weekly season in the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar Street, where in addition to the paying audience one St. Valentine listens from his resting place below the high altar.

St. Valentine in Dublin
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/02/st-valentine-in-dublin.html

Dublin's Fair City
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/dublins-fair-city.html



Site of "Antient Musik Hall" Fishamble Street, Dublin


George Frideric Handel

Rihanna and O’Donoghue’s new opera

RiRi @ O'Donoghue's Dublin

The Bajan popster known to her neighbours in the Parish of St. Michael, Barbados, as Robyn Fenty and to the rest of the world by her middle name of Rihanna has added to the fame of one of my favourite Dublin Pubs, O’Donoghue’s. Famed for its traditional Irish music sessions and being the pub where the Dubliner’s started out it is so famous that it is the setting for a movie “O’Donoghue’s Opera.”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/odonoghues-opera.html

Well its fame has increased as according to a report in the “Irish Independent” Rihanna mania hit Dublin last night as the superstar singer decided to host a dinner for 100 guests ahead of her concert tonight. The singer is in the city as part of her Loud Tour and is performing at the 02 in Dublin. She has been on the road for a long time and decided to give her band a Thanksgiving meal at O'Donoghue's, the old Dubliners' haunt which is also beloved by tourists in search of a music session.


RiRi fans outside O'Donoghue's

But it wasn't O’Donoghue’s traditional toasted sandwiches she was after - she had food delivered from top French restaurant Hugo’s, just across the road. She handpicked the menu, which included clam chowder soup followed by a traditional turkey dinner with mashed spuds, vegetables and cranberry sauce. Sweet potato mash, marshmallow sauce and macaroni and cheese were also on the tables.


O2 Dublin

As word spread that the megastar was inside the pub, fans began to arrive. Jamie Kelly (22) from Rathfarnham said he was waiting outside the pub after seeing Rihanna going in earlier. He said that she told him that she would come out afterwards to say hello. "I met her before two years ago," he said. She's lovely, really nice."

The reception she got in Dublin was like that of royalty compared to the day in September when she met farmer Alan Grahan (61), who pulled up beside her in his tractor in Bangor, Co Down - and told her to cover up.


RiRi being loud

While I say O’Donoghue’s is one of my fav. Dublin Pubs the last time I arranged to meet friends there it was full to the door and we had to decamp to Foleys across the road where we enjoyed some very happy hours. I don’t know what that other great O’Donoghue’s institution Con the Barman thought of RiRi and her entourage but as Con is very trend aware I’d imagine it would be ”Yo man! That girl iz well slack!”

See also; Dublin Rambles

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/09/dublin-rambles.html

Dublin Rambles

Mansion House Dublin, residence of The Lord Mayor

Over to Ireland recently to my hometown of the Fair City of Dublin for some special times with some special people. The Fair City has taken an economic battering as the Celtic Tiger turned into a scabby moggy and it shows; Hotels closed down, retail difficult and banks becoming mausoleums to broken dreams.


Powerscourt House, South William Street

However inspiration can still be found for Ireland knows about adversity and reinvention. So around my old “parish” of the South William St. Rag Trade area there is a very definite fight back with Project 51 Fashion Co-Operative and clever businesses such as Clement & Pekoe opening up. We gathered, including an old friend I hadn’t seen in over 30 years, to welcome Jessie on the Friday to take in the atmosphere of O'Donoghue's and Foleys in Merrion Row and enjoy the Craic, caint, rince, amhránaí agus ceol - Conversation, dance, song and music.


The one, the only, the unique Jessie Noble Cowan singing “Caledonia” ably backed by the dynamic duo of The Harrington’s. Is maith an cailín!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/odonoghues-opera.html

One of New York’s finest who was intimately involved in the events of 9/11 and afterwards ten years ago we were honoured she had chosen to be us at this time. There was time also to catch up with folks and other friends and travel down to Edenderry for the first time in four years. All this and a Ryanair flight that got back early to the UK before scraggy end of Hurricane Katia hit. Special places, special people, special times to remember and share.



So I thought I’d pick out some of my favourite spots in Dublin and give you an insight into the some of the new ventures which are part of Ireland’s fightback against economic adversity. South William Street is the centre of the interesting area between the affluence of Dublin’s Grafton Street and the somewhat down at heel South Great George’s Street. It includes Powerscourt Townhouse Centre and the South City Markets. This has always been an interesting area keeping much of its Georgian and Victorian buildings despite a few ill advised intrusions.


Castle Market



In truth what preserved it was the poverty of Dublin in the 20th Century and the colour was lent to it by it becoming the hub of the “Rag Trade” a business activity known for its colourful and entrepreneurial characters. Indeed when I was around Dublin businesses used to start and fold but strangely the same people always seemed to be around. In those days Provincial buyers and used to come up to Dublin to order their next season’s stock and they would walk around the “block” of Sth. William Street and Drury Street to call on the rag trade showrooms and agents.


Busyfeet and Coco

That type of business is largely gone but the old showrooms, warehouses and Georgian buildings are now attracting a new generation into the Café Quarter. One such place is a bustling café owned by my buddy Emma which resplends in the title of Busyfeet and Coco and occupies the busy corner between Chatham and South William Streets @ 41/42 South William St. Dublin 2. One of a (thankfully) growing number of places where you can go after work without drinking alcohol or ordering an expensive meal, Busyfeet and Coco is a pretty compact little place - normally, this would mean you could either talk quietly or about things you don't mind the whole world knowing, but the dark and atmospheric lighting makes it safe to gossip in during the evening. Staffs are invariably friendly and it was one of Dublin’s first Fairtrade café’s. The menu is straightforward but the food here is good - tasty sandwiches, wraps and soups are ideal for informal eating. Some evening, especially at weekends, there are lively music sessions and there are outdoor tables for serious people watching.


Project 51

It was Dublin Fashion week when I was there and further up the street Eoin McDonnell (owner of www.Precious.ie – diamond and wedding ring specialists) was launching a new Irish Designer Collective store, Project 51 located at 51 South William St Dublin 2. There are 15 Irish designers involved in the new concept which is devoted to providing its customers the very best from high end luxury Irish goods. Housed in a 19th Century Georgian building Project 51 - Irish Design Collective – is a High End NYC Soho style luxury boutique filled with the Best of Irish fashion, jewellery, millinery, accessories and furniture. Project 51 offers the ultimate shopping experience in a relaxed friendly atmosphere. Customers can choose from an amazing selection of luxury goods, from engagement rings to bridal wear, jewellery, evening wear, tailoring, millinery and luxury leather bags.





Project 51 is bringing an international concept to Ireland: establishing a creative-fashion-design hub to showcase Irish design and provide the designers with the opportunity to offer unique designs to the public. There is the other factor in these straitened times that by purchasing in an Irish owned boutique you can contribute significantly to the Irish economy! For every 100 spent in a multinational store only 14 goes back into the local economy versus 45 through an Irish owned shop (figures courtesy www.DCBA.ie )



According to Jennifer Rothwell one of Ireland’s top designers involved in the store, “South William Street was always filled with the business end of the Rag Trade and now it is being reclaimed. It’s time for the rebirth of South William St once again as the Fashion Centre of Dublin!” The designers involved also intend to make an international impact, to increase the profile of Irish design internationally with an emphasis on high quality and innovative design. Their aim is to achieve the same level of international recognition as the “Antwerp Six”, a group of influential avant garde fashion designers who graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980-1981. The fashion collective presented a distinct, radical vision for fashion during the 1980s that established Antwerp as a notable location for fashion design. It is lovely to see the pride with which No. 51 has been converted into a fashion showcase with a workshop and beautiful display areas including one mocked up as an avant garde dining room.

http://www.project51.ie/

Next door at No. 50 I bumped into Simon Cummins putting the finishing touches to the new showroom and Coffee House for his company specialising in really fine teas and coffees, Clement and Pekoe. The Clement in the name is of course Pope Clement VIII! Coffee aficionados often claim that the spread of its popularity is due to Pope Clement VIII's influence. Being pressured by his advisers to declare coffee the "bitter invention of Satan" because of its popularity among Muslims and it being a sort of antithesis or substitute for wine (which was used in the Eucharist), upon tasting it he instead declared that, "This devil's drink is so delicious...we should cheat the devil by baptising it." The year often cited is 1600. It is not clear whether this is a true story or not, but it may have been found amusing at the time.




Clement and Pekoe

Clement & Pekoe are passionate about loose leaf Tea & freshly roasted Coffee and they have a wonderful selection. They source the finest pickings from all over the world and their luxury gift boxes are an ideal gift for Christmas, Birthdays and other celebrations which you can personalise & they can deliver directly to them. Their website is a mine of information on black, white and green teas and coffee varieties and now that their South William Street premises are open you can sample these exotic oriental beverages and raise a sober toast to Clement VIII, the habit of toasting Popes having fallen into disuse in modern Ireland!

http://www.clementandpekoe.com

Strolling onwards to the top of South William Street you cross Dublin’s wide Dame Street by the piazza surrounding architect Sam Stephenson’s outstanding Central Bank Building and my old studio master Eamonn O’Doherty’s “Tree of Gold” on the Central Bank Plaza.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/08/eamonn-odoherty.html

Now Sam Stephenson had many faults but he was hugely talented and energetic designer and along with Arthur Gibney ran Ireland’s most successful architectural practice. What he did here at least was a work of some brilliance; hanging the great bulk of the Central Bank offices like as suspension bridge from wires suspended from a steel umbrella leaving wide and open plaza underneath brilliantly creating a new public space and circulation route into Temple Bar and across the Halfpenny Bridge on the River Liffey where none existed before. He further accentuated the contrast between old and new by reconstructing the landmark 18th C Ouzel Galley building, which used to face onto Dame Street, so that it faced onto the plaza to act as a foil to the unabashed modernity of the radical Central Bank. How depressing today it is to see Sam’s architectural vision and the openness of this space being damaged by the Central Bank being surrounded by truly hideous and inept repro Georgian railings.


The timeless surroundings of upstairs in Neary's Bar, Chatham Street


Beweley's Oriental Cafe Grafton Street with its Egyptian Revival facade

Ignore this travesty and behind the Central Bank you will find Cope Street and down a mysterious archway one of Dublin’s most interesting retail outlets with its continuously changing displays The Graphic Studio Gallery. Opened in 1988 and now based in Temple Bar this impressive gallery space is used for the sale and exhibition of fine art prints. The staff are happy to give visitors information on the art of print making, or to offer advice on selecting a work of art whether buying for investment or purely for pleasure. With over 3,000 works to choose from, with work by leading Irish and international artists, you can begin your own art collection for as little as €90!




The Graphic Studio Gallery

The gallery in Temple Bar is one arm of Graphic Studio Dublin, which also includes a studio off the North Circular Road. Together they form a non-profit organisation supporting artists and promoting the medium of fine art printmaking. Graphic Studio Gallery is the oldest gallery in Dublin dealing exclusively in original contemporary fine art prints. The gallery's stock includes etchings, lithographs, woodblocks, screenprints, monoprints and carborundum prints by over 200 Irish and international artists. Artists who have exhibited here include: Hugh O’Donoghue, Martin Gale, Seán Mc Sweeney, Richard Gorman, Tony O'Malley, Michael Cullen, Charlie Cullen, Elizabeth Blackadder, William Crozier, Felim Egan, Gwen O'Dowd and Stephen Lawlor. When I was there it was showcasing an exhibition by renowned printmaker and watercolourist, Pamela Leonard with a selection of her works spanning 20 years to date. A graduate of NCAD Leonard is especially renowned for her landscapes. Her works explore light and dark and focuses on capturing these elements in forests and glades.

The Graphic Studio has been a valuable support and catalyst for many Dublin artists who I knew in its early days. I knew the Gallery from its very inception when the irrepressible and talented Mary Farl Powers was the driving force – sadly Mary died way too young in 1992 at the age of 43. It gives me great pleasure today to see it being run with such élan by my great buddy Catherine ably and knowledgably assisted by Paula. If you want to invest in great value Irish Art and support emerging Irish Artists avoid the commercial galleries and make a bee line for here.

http://www.graphicstudiodublin.com/gsg/exhibitions/index.html

Beyond the Gallery lies Temple Bar well known to visitors and one of the reasons why Dublin is one of the most popular City Break destinations in Europe. It is promoted as "Dublin's cultural quarter" and has a lively nightlife that is popular with tourists. Unlike the areas surrounding it, Temple Bar has preserved its medieval street pattern, with many narrow cobbled streets. During the 19th century, the area slowly declined in popularity, and in the 20th century, it suffered from urban decay, with many derelict buildings. Its unfashionability probably saved it from Dublin's property developers, who destroyed much of the city's historic architecture during the 1960s. So today you will find remnants of pre-Georgian buildings built by Huguenots in the “Dutch Billy” style with Dutch gables, central fire-breasts acting as structural supports, panelled interiors and box sash windows.




Temple Bar and a genuine Leprechaun, really, really........

http://archiseek.com/2011/dublins-dutch-billys-the-conference/

The area is bounded by the Liffey to the north, Dame Street to the south, Westmoreland Street to the east and Fishamble Street to the west. It probably got its name from the Temple family, who lived in the area in the 17th century; Sir William Temple, provost of Trinity College Dublin in 1609, had his house and gardens here. However it got its name, the earliest historical reference to the name Temple Bar is on a 1673 map.


Bad Ass Cafe, Crown Alley

Fishamble Street in Temple Bar was the location of the first performance of Handel's Messiah on 13 April 1742. An annual performance of the Messiah is held on the same date at the same location. The republican revolutionary group, the Society of the United Irishmen, was formed at a meeting in a tavern in Eustace Street in 1791.

See;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/xmas-is-coming-to-dublin.html

However returning to this area today with its bustling cafes, bars, restaurants, night clubs and funky shops I find myself like the Irish Alcoholic drowning in a vat of Guinness; I have mixed feelings. First up the trite Disneyesque vision of Dublin presented to visitors is a turnoff, Leprechaun “characters” grubbing for the tourist pound by offering photo-ops and “Whiskey in the jar” being belted out at three in the afternoon from “traditional” pubs has something of the theme park about it. No matter what overpriced slop is served up in these establishments their scrotum burgers and cheeps are invariably labelled “Irish home cooking.” It can’t have been a very good home and I won’t be unfair to Disney; they would have done it far better.




Central Bank Building from Crown Alley

The other more significant reason for my unease is I remember many friends and acquaintances who started up great new businesses in the area and were invariably pushed out when it was redeveloped by Temple Bar Properties with public funds and gradually gentrified. In the 1980s, the state-owned transport company Córas Iompair Éireann proposed to buy-up and demolish property in the area and build a bus terminus in its place. In the best traditions of waste by Irish public bodies this “Transport Solution” was never designed, approved or, heavens forbid, actually budgeted for!


Regent Hairdressers, Temple Bar

While this was in the planning stages, the purchased buildings were let out at low rents, which attracted small shops, artists and galleries to the area. Protests by An Taisce, residents and traders led to the cancellation of the bus station project, and the then Taoiseach Charles Haughey was responsible for securing funding and, in 1991, the government set up a not-for-profit company called Temple Bar Properties to oversee the regeneration of the area as Dublin's cultural quarter.


Brindley Printhouse, Temple Bar now the Ark Children's Cultural Centre

Today the area is the location of many Irish cultural institutions, including the Irish Photography Centre (incorporating the Dublin Institute of Photography, the National Photographic Archives and the Gallery of Photography), the Ark Children's Cultural Centre, the Irish Film Institute, incorporating the Irish Film Archive, the Temple Bar Music Centre, the Arthouse Multimedia Centre, Temple Bar Gallery and Studio, the Project Arts Centre, the Gaiety School of Acting, IBaT College (City Centre), as well as the Irish Stock Exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland.



The Oliver St John Gogarty Pub in Temple BarAfter dark, the area is a major centre for nightlife, with many tourist-focused nightclubs, restaurants and bars. Pubs in the area include The Porterhouse, the Oliver St. John Gogarty, the Turk's Head, the Temple Bar, Czech Inn (in the former Isolde's Tower), the Quays Bar, the Foggy Dew, Eamonn Doran's and the Purty Kitchen (formerly Bad Bobs and before that the really excellent Granary, run by the Byrne family).




Dublin Bikes

Two squares have been renovated in recent years — Meetinghouse Square and the central Temple Bar Square. The Temple Bar Book Market is held on Saturdays and Sundays in Temple Bar Square. Meetinghouse Square, which takes its name from the nearby Quaker Meeting House, is used for outdoor film screenings in the summer months. Since summer 2004, Meetinghouse Square is also home to the Speaker's Square project (an area of Public speaking) and to the Temple Bar Food Market every Saturday.





As for Dublin itself Ireland’s financial woes have hit hard. Job opportunities are scarce and emigration is a factor once again and as always it is the young, enterprising and able who are in the vanguard of this pernicious but traditional Irish export. Property prices have crashed as they head towards reality. A striking example when I was there was one of Dublin’s landmark pubs, John Doyle’s at Doyle’s Corner. It sold in 2006 for €4.2 M, today it is back on the market “asking” €850,000 – 20% of its value a mere 5 years ago. It is almost inevitable that due to the bravado and economic incontinence which led to the Irish Government guaranteeing ALL of the Irish Bank’s debt that Ireland will default on its unsustainable bailout – the guarantee made bank debt sovereign debt – not v. Clever.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrible-default-is-born.html

The extent of the banking collapse was brought home to me when I went into the National Irish Bank on College Green, opposite where Barrack Obama had made his stirring speech some months earlier.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/05/there-is-none-as-irish-as-barry-obama.html

It is the bank’s head branch and before that was the headquarters of The Hibernian Bank whose initials are still carved in the elaborate ceiling of its cavernous banking hall with its high Victorian marble pillars and 150 foot mahogany banking counter. I had an account here many years ago and you would have over 30 staff busy on the banking floor serving customers. I wandered in looking for an ATM and just clocked the notice that “National Irish Bank” was now a subsidiary of Danske Bank and this was now a “cashless branch”, not a concept I’ve come across but I presumed it meant there were automated ATM, deposit machines and such like. I presumed wrongly for the contrast with the bank I was last in 20 years ago was incredible. Not an ATM in sight and indeed in this huge space not one staff member behind the impressive counter. Instead in the cavernous but empty public space in front of the counter was a cheap desk and behind it serving a queue of six people were two really young staff members processing “cashless” transactions with not a computer in sight. It was the strangest bank branch I’ve been in a long time, a sort of Mausoleum to the Ghost of Banking past.


Ceiling - National Irish Bank with the Hibernian Banks monogram in the plaster

But around Dublin there is an air of unreality which echoes Brendan Behan’s comment that “The Irish are very popular with themselves!” Buoyed up by Unemployment Benefit of €184 per week, twice the rate it is in a poor country like Germany, the posing classes of Dublin slurp a slow Beaujolais outside the Bailey, buy Manuka Honey at €15 a jar in Fallon & Byrne and spend €6.50 on a pint to dull the pain. Every idle person is involved in a project which consists of some contrived reworking of public subsidy whilst working on their “first novel.” Dublin must have the highest ratio of unpublished first novels per inhabitant in the world. Reading the papers they have lost none of their appetite for self important pontificating reinforcing Behan’s other observation that “they are a nation of master debaters.” The visits by the Queen and Barrack Obama have obscured a certain reality – Ireland you are economically insignificant and the rest of the World truly does not want to bail you out of the mess created by your own Gombeenism.


Terminal 2 @ Dublin Airport, a snip at €1.2 Billion

The cost base is still far too high caused by the ludicrous levels of social support which disincentivise employment and effort and the stranglehold of state owned monopolies in energy and healthcare which are expensive conspiracies against the users. The third “Insurance Levy” in 23 continuous years of stupidity has now been imposed on insurance premiums to pay for stupidity and lack of regulation and all the major banks are effectively state owned, as an alternative to going bankrupt. At Dublin Airport the final bitter monument to Celtic Hubris, an overblown €1.2 Bn White Elephant of Terminal 2. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair who campaigned against it has offered €320m for it but I suspect he may be nervous that he is overpaying.

In a country where people such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness who were embedded so deeply in the murderous crypto-fascism of the Provisional IRA can pose as the answer you have to ask “what the hell is the question?” I fear for the future of my Hometown and Country.


Roundroom and Long Room of Dublin's Mansion House