Archive for Ireland

Biting (Sex?) Appeal

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 20 April 2012 by delclem

 

20 April 1912 was not only the 23rd birthday of an unknown wanna-be named Hitler; it was also the day when Bram Stoker, author of the immortal Dracula novel, died. > GERMAN TEXT VERSION

“This is the textbook of vampirism, but the journalist Bram Stoker has turned it into a typewriter ad,” wrote the Austrian Alfred Kubin, himself a master of uncanny art, in a letter full of contempt in 1915. He has not been the only critic since trying to desecrate the tomb of the Anglo-Irish author. However, this has done little damage to the undead popularity of the literary work in question: Dracula (1897), apart from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) probably the most successful undead monster of world literature; a novel that has never been out of print in its more than 110 years on the book market.

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St Colmán in Austria

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on 29 March 2012 by delclem

“WE ALL think ourselves martyrs to the Irish language, just because we were held hostage for a few years by Peig Sayers, or suffered mild torture at the hands of the modh coinniollach. But spare a thought for St Koloman (or Colmán of Austria), who may be history’s only recorded case of someone who did die – violently – for the cúpla focal.”
> text by Frank McNally (c) IRISH TIMES, 2012

Samuel Beckett’s love for Germany

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 7 December 2011 by delclem

The Irish playwright held a long affection for Germany – one that began early and eventually led to his role in the French resistance during World War II, as detailed in a collection of his letters.

Article by (c) Deutsche Welle, 2011

Brian Ó Nualláin aka. Flann O’Brien

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on 5 October 2011 by delclem

Quite a lot of good articles on the playful writer & columnist
who was born 100 years ago – he’s probably one of the
most “Central European” Irish authors after Joyce…

(c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2011

“The Door Ajar”: Artaud in Ireland

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on 22 September 2011 by delclem

“On August 14th 1937 the French poet & theatre theorist Antonin Artaud arrived in Ireland. He had with him a walking stick he claimed to be St Patrick’s staff. His declared intention was to return this item to its rightful keepers.

Six weeks later he was arrested while trying to gain entrance to a religious house. No other records of his journey remain except for an unpaid lodgings bill and some postcards sent from Galway.”

Patrick Jolley´s film The Door Ajar (2011) uses an assembly of Artaud’s writings as the structure of a possible account of that lost time; currently on display
@ Dublin Contemporary (until 31 October 2011).

Also see > Jolley´s website (with stills & a clip taken from this fantastic film)

Sisi in Maynooth

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 9 May 2011 by delclem

Quoting Denis Feahy – “An Irishman’s Diary”
From: The Irish Times 20 April, 2010

“Monday, February 24th, 1879, began as a routine day for the 500 or so students at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. They rose at 6.30am, went to the chapel for meditation and Mass, studied for an hour, ate breakfast at 8.30am and settled into a well established schedule of lectures, study, recreation and meal breaks. They could have no expectation that it would become one of the best-remembered days in the college’s history.

In Ashbourne, the members of the Ward Union Stag Hunting Club knew that the same Monday would be a special day. For the first time, they would be riding with Her Imperial Highness, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, Sisi to her friends and the sporting empress to her admirers, a lady whose equestrian skills were known throughout Europe.

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Nazis in Ireland, 1940-47

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on 5 May 2011 by delclem

A true story
like from a B-movie,
with some elements of Realsatire

(from today’s Irish Times)

Mario Vargas Llosa on (Sir) Roger Casement

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 18 October 2010 by delclem

In his novel El sueño del celta (“The Dream of the Celt”), the Peruvian Nobel winner Vargas Llosa finds perfect protagonist in the gay British consul and later Irish rebel, the agent and later crown witness of Belgian & British colonialism.

Article (c) The Guardian, 2010