More Paddywhackery from McDonagh: The Banshees of Inisherin

We all know of course that it’s nearly impossible for an Irish-made film to get bad reviews in the Irish press. Even our back-slapping book-reviewing establishment will admit to the odd stinker, but not our film critics. I do recall Neil Jordan’s High Spirits (an appalling farrago) getting treated as reverently as the latest Antonioni by a certain well-loved and now departed critic – who certainly knew better. So I went to see The Banshees of Inisherin recently with only mild expectations – heightened a degree by a mostly positive review by Peter Bradshaw (not an easy lay) in the Guardian. Readers - it left me cold and unimpressed. Now there were elements within it that I thoroughly enjoyed: the epic scenery around the Aran Islands and Achill; the soulful dog, the soulful cow, the soulful horse, the playful miniature goat and the virtuouso performance of Kerry Condon as Siobhan – sister of the afflicted Colin Farrell character. But the story line and the cast of cliched caricatures left me beyond indifferent. I didn’t believe a word of it. Now the McDonagh brothers have form in dishing up Paddywhackery – especially the older sibling. It’s perhaps a second-generation Irish thing where the smart London boys are inclined to exaggerate the priest-ridden, feckless Paddy tropes. But Martin is as guilty of that sin in this film as his brother John Michael was in the deplorable Calvary. No Irish-based film of theirs is complete without the brutal corrupt Garda or the compromised priest. The film is set in rural Ireland in 1923 so we’re not expecting latte-drinking islanders reading the New Yorker. Also, it’s a black comedy with Grand Guignol elements so we’re not expecting naturalistic characters and realistic situations. But even in comedy there has to be a reasonable foundation on which to build the story. And I couldn’t take seriously the basic premise. I just can’t believe a fiddle player would deliberately cut off his fingers – no matter how depressed he was. Neither can I believe that a priest would repeat local gossip in the confession. Or the naked Garda masturbating in his living room. And what was all this routine drinking at 2 pm? I’ve lived on isolated Irish islands with pubs and there was never such a practice – except on Sundays. The only place I encountered serious lunch-time drinking was amongst office staff in London in the Seventies. And the cliched characters: the snoopy post-mistress, the arrogant priest, the brutal Garda. Some positives of course: the surreal extension of the pigs in the kitchen trope was mildly amusing – especially that gorgeous cow. And the prosthetics were excellent – Brendan Gleeson’s fingerless hand was very convincing.  But overall a poor show Martin. The Tourist Board however won’t mind.

RDS Visual Arts Awards 2022

An edited version of this piece appeared in the Winter edition of the Irish Arts Review.

Aideen Barry, the curator of the RDS Visual Arts Awards tell us that “What you're seeing is a cutting edge snapshot of what the future of Irish art is going to be.” A bold statement which could perhaps do without the “cutting edge”. It’s a snapshot –  time will judge whether it’s old hat, emperor’s new clothes, or the real deal . Barry is a fine artist herself with an interest in the Gothic and the “uncanny”. Her work incorporates drawing, sculpture, and film and the show that she and her fellow judges have assembled provides a rich and entertaining blend of these media. 

Inside the entrance of the RDS Concert Hall you encounter Sadhbh Mowlds’ startlingly life-like Eve (see image above). I had to move very close to ensure it wasn’t a person so well-wrought was the illusion. Duane Hansen could hardly have done better and I wager he never used his own hair to give the legs a little authentic hirsuteness. This striking, award-winning work sets the tone for a show that aside from one dull and gratuitously esoteric work (accompanied by an earnestly worthy blurb) is full of colour and technical verve. Orla Comerford’s prize-winning Oidhreacht is an innovative video depiction of her father, a woodworker, building a boat. The film is projected on to three large curved screens and the images move from abstract to figurative depending how far you stand from the screen. This provides the viewer with a taste of Comerford’s own visual impairment. It’s a technical tour-de-force, an aesthetically-pleasing encounter, and a meaningful expression of the artist’s psyche. Another arresting piece of video was Aisling Phelan’s Dual Reality. A triptych of screens delivered a well-scripted meditation on the gulf between our identity and our digital identity. The long-list of candidates for the awards, and indeed the awards themselves, were inclusive in terms of colour and our LGBGTQ community. However, there was a noticeable shortage of male contenders on both the long list and the short-list. It possibly reflects the dwindling number of men taking fine art as a subject – with a touch of the zeitgeist thrown in. (A recent Graphic Studio Dublin show featured 16 female members and nary a male one. When I queried this with the curator she replied “I’d say you weren’t a bit worried when the art world was dominated by males for centuries”. A comment that suggests her selection process may have tainted by an element of revenge for the sins of our fathers.) It was good to see that one of this beleaguered gender at least made it to the final 13 – he also represented the art of painting, somewhat neglected in our art colleges. Syzmon Minias’s small self-portraits in oil were full of character with echoes of Vuillard and Eugène Leroy. Michelle Malone’s striking tapestries of the Artane Industrial School, accompanied by video and interviews with those whose lives were touched by the abuse in these places was another moving work and a fine record of hard times.The main award, the RDS Taylor Art Award, went to Venus Patel for her film Eggshells. As a queer person of colour she has experienced abuse, including ‘egging’. The film employed the offending object in a series of colourful vignettes where the artist danced her troubles away. I was however concerned by the number of innocent eggs that were harmed in this exercise. I was entertained by being allowed sit on Sinead McCormick’s very serviceable raft Adrift and getting that islanded experience. And Myfanwy Frost-Jones alarming film that dealt with pollution in Kenmare Bay combined grim facts with distractingly gorgeous views of the South-West. The show, notwithstanding the many substantial issues it addressed, was highly entertaining and professionally presented so it’s a shame it didn’t enjoy a longer run.

 

 

 

 

 

Male Printmakers Banished from the Garden

A visit to the Arts Council web site informs you that: “Diversity is a core organisational value in the Arts Council’s 10-year strategy to 2025”. This aspiration tells us that if you are an organisation that hopes to receive Arts Council funding you should make sure that your activities are inclusive. This embraces gender balance, the inclusion of racial minorities and those with physical handicaps amongst other criteria. A recent exhibition by members of Graphic Studio Dublin (GSD) caught my eye in this regard. I was a board member of GSD for many years and so continue to take an interest in its activities. The exhibition that got my attention was Geomancy – The Printmakers Garden curated by Aoife Scott at the University of West England (UWE) in Bristol from the 21^st to the 25^th September 2022. My issue wasn’t the missing apostrophe in the sub-title, although I admit that pained me, it was the fact that an exhibition that was a showcase for GSD featured 16 women and nary a man. Now I realise that there are far more women than men in GSD (the proportion is roughly 75-25%) but unless the show was confined to women (and it didn’t seem to be) you’d expect two or three men at least. Also, amongst the surviving males in GSD are four of the major print makers in the country: Robert Russell, Niall Naessens, Stephen Lawlor, and James McCreary.

 

I was curious about the reasons for this omission so I contacted Aoife Scott, a member of GSD (and a recent board member) via Instagram.  She responded that “the male artists just choose (sic) not to respond or be in the exhibition.” Passing strange, I felt, that any Irish artist would pass up on an opportunity to show in England. I contacted, through a mutual friend, the four male GSD artists I mentioned earlier and none of them had been contacted. It’s perfectly possible that she contacted other male artists that suited her vision (ignoring what could be considered the cream of the current crop) who all eschewed the opportunity. But here’s the nub of the matter: realising that she was going to have an all-female lineup she should have made an effort to find alternative male representation. Especially as she was a board member and so someone who should be aware of the responsibilities of her organisation. The four I had contacted said they would have jumped at the opportunity to show there. A curator is entitled to select the artists she feels best suit her project, but when a specific studio is involved, with male and female members, she should ensure that representation is inclusive. Otherwise declare the exhibition a women only event. The other option of course is to claim that all the men are shite artists and that they were rejected on aesthetic grounds.

 

Being the nuisance that I am I contacted Aoife Scott again and this time didn’t get a polite response but rather an outburst of childish invective. I quote:

 

            “Are you threatened by female artists exhibiting together and supporting each other John? Is it that you are worried that the arts are being taken over by women…I’d say you weren’t a bit worried when the art world was dominated by males for centuries.” 

 

We’ll pass over the inference that I am centuries old in this cheeky response but here, naked and unadorned is our curator’s rationale for male exclusion. She is seemingly intent, through her choices, in redressing the balance after centuries of imbalance - of visiting the sins of their fathers on the current crop of male artists. In doing so she is of course repeating historical injustices. More significantly she is using an Arts Council funded organisation to carry out a political agenda that goes very much against the Arts Council’s advocacy of inclusion.

 

However, she is just one individual with a palpable agenda. Where was the GSD board when all this happened. For that matter, where were all the male members? I had occasion at a recent funeral to quote Dante on those who remain silent in the face of wrong-doing:

 

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

 

This is hardly a great moral conflict, but it should be addressed by those charged with running GSD and by its members. It was noticeable in the recent RDS Visual Awards exhibition for art student graduates how few male artists there were. I was told that this reflected the diminishing number of men attending art college. We should be encouraging more male engagement with the arts rather than ostracising men for the sins of their fathers.

 

  

Elvis the Movie at the Stella Rathmines

 

Rathmines is a long way from Dalkey so I hadn’t been at the new-dangled Stella since its refurbishment. My local was the much lamented Forum Glasthule with its perennially sticky floor.  I have to report the Stella is mighty fine. It’s comfortable (we had a couch) the service is great, and you can enjoy a drink in an actual glass while watching the film.. However, they need to get rid of those godawful chi-chi lamps. 

 

Elvis the Movie was disappointing. I first heard Elvis when I was standing outside a record hop at the Collins Tennis Club in 1958. The record was I Got Stung – the last record he released as a 78. The classic One Night was on the A-side – but I was struck by the pure energy of the B-side. He disappointed our rebel aspirations by entering the army and doing all those appalling films but his early records and occasional emerging into the light (especially the Memphis Sessions – check out After Loving You, Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto) secured his place in my affections. The heritage was safe and solid despite the tawdry later years in Las Vegas.

 

The definitive biography of Elvis is Peter Guralnick’s highly readable two-volume classic:  Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. Reading them you realise that despite the extra-terrestrial glamour, the gorgeous voice and the universal adulation, Elvis was a simple country-boy with a fatal lack of moral courage. His biggest sin was to allow himself to be separated from his musical peers (such as Scotty Moore and Bill Black) and became the thing of a fairground hustler - Colonel Tom Parker. Cheesy merchandise a speciality. No colonel, no Tom and not even a Parker. The movie touches on this aspect of his life but it fails absolutely at giving us a more complete and complex account – it was all flash, bang, wallop accompanied by some serious ham from Tom Hanks. And even then we never got to hear one full song – one demonstration of Elvis at his prime. The corny use of Suspicious Minds to hammer home the message that Elvis was been hustled by Parker and Las Vegas villains was trite in the extreme. The guy playing Elvis gave an excellent imitation of the man and look out for a wonderful Little Richard cameo. Elvis the Movie is a mildly entertaining show-biz confection but didn’t come close to capturing the tragic trajectory of the man’s life. Nor did it want to do so.

 

 

My Times at the Sunday Times – A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

I was saddened but not surprised to hear of the recent cull at the Times and Sunday Times Ireland. Say what you like about Rupert Murdoch (and there’s much to say), the Sunday Times was the only serious English newspaper with an Irish edition that gave extensive coverage to Irish news, sport and culture. Pick up the Observer, for example, and there’s nary a word about us unless the DUP are acting up again. 

 

I was very happy to have been offered an opportunity by associate editor John Burns to air my views on art, literature, and even my personal dramas (that root-canal treatment, those TB days) for nearly 12 years. This purge seems to be getting rid of some of its most-talented writers, leaving it much diminished. In addition to John Burns (an award-winning writer on culture), I rated Denis Walsh as one of the best sports journalists in the country and Justine McCarthy supplied an acerbic and articulate left-of-centre perspective on politics. Maybe a tad too left for Rupert’s taste. Mark Tighe, author of that brilliant and painstaking exposure of John Delaney’s machinations at the FAI, had already left. All it needs now is to let Liam Fay go and there will be no incentive to buy it ever again.

 

Irish art gets scant coverage in print and the Sunday Times Culture magazine was one of the few places where artists’ work was regularly reviewed. Let’s hope it continues to employ the services of the estimable Cristín Leach in this area – a stern judge who has ruffled a few feathers in her day. While journalism doesn’t pay handsomely, especially arts journalism, it is hugely rewarding in other ways. I cherish many delightful memories of my stint there. I travelled around the country interviewing such luminaries as Basil Blackshaw, Sean MacSweeny, and that great Cork maverick Maurice Desmond. My favourite encounter was with Gilbert & George in the Mac Belfast. Sporting their new Donegal Tweed suits (they had eschewed Harris Tweed because of Brexit), they were by turns hilarious and outrageous. Despite being gay, they strongly disapproved of gay marriage – maintaining that it was bourgeois and that gay men should be sexual adventurers (quoting John Rechy). While all my art writing was received with nothing but gratitude, my book reviewing frequently exposed me to tirades of Twitter abuse. One female writer of light-weight fiction unleashed an army of her trolls (male and female) on me for deviating, minutely, from rigorous wokeness. At least the late, and much lamented, Eileen Battersby had the grace, albeit via her agent, to write a letter to the paper challenging my views on the clearly autobiographical character in her novel. The Speakeasy section of the Sunday Times (long discontinued) allowed writers to indulge in personal stories so I was able to horrify my Cork-based siblings with revelations about child-hood episodes such as my incarceration for a year in a sanatorium in Foynes and an episode in the Dental Hospital in Cork that far outdid Laurence Olivier’s dental antics in the film Marathon Man. 

 

What fun it all was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sporting Sketches - July 2022

What a weekend for those who, in a world that’s falling apart, cherish the engaging distractions of sport. That epic in New Zealand, the sad sight of Rory McIlroy not collapsing, but failing to rise to the occasion. And not least the skill and passion of Limerick and Kilkenny at Croke Park. 

 

I watched the Ireland-New Zealand match on my own in a house in Bayswater while my hospitable nephew followed his Saturday routine of sleeping in after a hard week at the helm of a financial institution. It didn’t stop me shouting and roaring while texting my rugby Signal group the while. I have been watching rugby since Jack Kyle played out-half for Ireland, served at scrum-half by John O’Meara and then  Andy Mulligan. (Kyle told me many years later, when I asked him which he preferred playing with, that Andy took the pressure off him by making the breaks himself, while the length of John’s pass meant he had more space.)  I’ve seen Ollie Campbell’s inspired Triple Crown performance against Scotland and Michael Kiernan’s late drop goal against England. I watched in horror as Ireland threw away a World-Cup quarter final against Australia at Landsdowne Road – hang down down your head Rob Saunders, hang down your head Jack Clarke. And I listened in from a roof-top in Havana as Ronan O’Gara dropped that goal that gave us our first Grand Slam since Jack Kyle’s day in 1949. However, the match last Saturday was surely Irish rugby’s finest hour. Every man jack of them contrived to have the game of his life - even the occasionally flakey (especially defensively) James Lowe. His left boot proved a lethal weapon in our arsenal. While pundits focus on the way we obliterated New Zealand in the first half, I’d prefer to point to the character the team showed by not panicking when they were pulled back to a three-point difference. There they showed the grace under extreme pressure that was often lacking in the past. What a climax for that great old war horse O’Mahoney, and what a resurrection for Tadgh Beirne after his dismal early career. And what a show from the seemingly ageless Sexton. We have never seen the All-Blacks so put down.

 

Rory, oh Rory what have you done. Four clear of the field (apart from the quickly fading Hovland) on a benign day at St. Andrew’s – the stage was set for you to finally end your major drought. You hardly missed a drive all day and you produced some magnificent iron shots – albeit never quite getting them into easy birdie territory. However, it was your old Achilles Heel let you down – your putting. You didn’t sink a single long putt in the entire round. Nor did you miss any short ones mind you. But to be a champion you need to produce the odd piece of magic – as Woods, or Nicklaus or Ballesteros did in their prime. You plodded around conservatively, like a latter day Nick Faldo, and unlike Faldo your conservatism was punished by an astonishing display of virtuoso putting by the relative rookie Cameron Smith. You didn’t lose it, you hardly made a mistake, but Smith won it by performing best when the occasion demanded. That will hurt – even unto your death bed.

 

I have a problem with Kilkenny – I do confess it. And especially with Cody’s round-head regime. I hated their hard-chaw physicality and their cynicism, allied it must be said to the sublime skills of the peerless Henry Sheflin. That master of the dark arts Tommy Walsh (the judicious push in the back a speciality) epitomised their approach to the game. Their glory days overlapped with one of the better Tipperary teams of the last 50 years, and it was only towards the latter stages of the decade that the Tipp cavaliers learned their lesson – giving them two good hammerings in 2016 and 2019 to make up a little for the two they left behind earlier in the decade. There was a time when Cork were our bete noir but for the past 15 years they have been more to be pitied than feared. So I was by no means neutral watching the final last Sunday. While still being ambivalent about the tax-dodger subsidised Limerick, I assuredly wanted them to win. Cody cannot be beaten too often or too hard for my liking. Bitter moi? Anyway it was an outstanding final, fast-flowing, sporting and astonishingly skilful. And of course great drama too. T.J. Reid is no mean Sheflin stand-in and the Kilkenny team stood shoulder to shoulder with this outstanding Limerick side. Cody has renounced his brute pragmatism and joined the cavaliers. Now please retire.

The Basic Income for the Arts Scheme

 A few acid drops on this scheme - published in Phoenix last month.

Michael Hartnett by Edward McGuire

When doing my quarterly art at auction preview for the Irish Arts Review, I wasn’t aware (because of deadlines) of Edward McGuire’s portrait of Michael Hartnett on offer at Adam’s June 1st auction. This is an outstanding work by an artist who has been described (by Brian Fallon) as Ireland’s finest portraitist since John Butler Yeats. We all know McGuire’s striking portrait of Seamus Heaney – housed in the Ulster Museum. The portraits have McGuire’s ubiquitous birds in common but they capture very different moods and personalities. We see the young, confident Heaney sitting four-square - eyeing us frank and free. A man going places. The Hartnett portrait captures a very different mood.. We see a diffidence here and the sadness and furtive melancholy of a man whose life was blighted in later years by marital discord and alcoholism. However,  the sensitive, evocative and pointed poetry lives on. Such a fine poet. Such a fine painting.

Hughie O’Donoghue – Original Sins at the National Gallery of Ireland

This is a longer, unedited version of an article published in the Spring 2022 edition of the Irish Arts Review.

The magnificent Shaw Room at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) has been transformed radically. Daniel Maclise’s monumental The Marriage of Aoife and Strongbow has new neighbours. Gone are those stern 18th and 19th portraits of the celebrated and the forgotten. In their place is Original Sins, Hughie O’Donoghue’s intriguing new exhibition. It was commissioned by the NGI as a site-specific show to complement Maclise’s painting. It consists of six works of epic scale (350 x 250 cms) based on historical personages: Saint Deirbhile, the Anglo-Saxon King Wuffa, Aoife MacMurrough, William the Conqueror, Emily Davison the suffragette and Michael Collins. O’Donoghue describes them as “players in history – sometimes overlooked.” The exhibition is part of a series to mark the Decade of Centenaries and its eclectic cast of characters is bound to invite conjecture and create controversy about how they relate to our past. O’Donoghue has stated that “I don’t want the paintings to be thought of as portraits or likenesses”  – his core theme is how we construct our identity and he has selected these characters as players in this process. His aim was to produce  “paintings that ruminate on history and open ups a discourse on the complexity of our origins.”

The sexes are represented equally, the sine qua non of all group shows in our rigorously woke era. It’s a strangely disparate group you might think at first until you explore further and links and associations began to manifest themselves – hunger strikes, Normans, inter-twined lineages, women’s freedom to make decisions, migrant incursions and more. Three of the characters are Irish and three are English, or at least are significant figures in English history. This makes the point that whether we like it or not, our history is inextricably bound up with that of our nearest neighbour. This duality reflects O’Donoghue’s own bifurcated past and present. He was born in Manchester, the son of a Kerry man and a Mayo woman. He currently lives half the year in Greenwich, London and the other half in the remote region of Erris, in Northern Mayo. He is not interested in nationalism or nationalities and likes to describe himself as Manchester Irish. 

These are not portraits. In any case an essay in creating portraits would have been highly speculative  - there is only a substantial photographic record of one of the characters, Michael Collins. The few images of Emily Davison are dominated by a series of pugnacious hats. Instead of attempting to achieve or imagine “likenesses”, O’Donoghue uses members of his own family as surrogates. Thus his son Vincent plays Michael Collins and his daughter Katy is Emily. The only photographic images are of Michael Collins as a swash-buckling military man, and of Anmer, the King’s horse that Emily Davison upended, with its unfortunate jockey Herbert Jones. The paintings aim to represent the complex nature of history where “definite truths are elusive.” The works do however have a strong sense of place. There is a horizontal swathe of landscape at the top of each painting that anchors the subject to a significant location. With St. Deirbhile it’s Blacksod Bay in Mayo, with Wuffa it’s the North Sea, and with Aoife the woods of Leinster. The paintings also contain elements that suggest how these individuals might be portrayed by the contents left in their tombs – a suffragette badge perhaps or a crucifix. O’Donoghue has always been interested in buried evidence of our past – from the bog people of Ireland to the ongoing excavations at Sutton Hoo – where there is speculation of a link with King Wuffa. O’Donoghue has said that all of the six “are significant because they are remembered and contribute in varying degrees to how we see ourselves.” His efforts to convey the slippery truths of history extend to the industrial tarpaulin on which the paintings are created. The tarpaulin had originally been folded and an irregular grid is still visible, referencing their own history as objects: ghostly intimations of their original shape. The paintings are adorned with symbols such as a portcullis from the suffragette’s badge, the harp for Ireland and the raven Fiachra of the West – an oracular bird. These symbolic addition were inspired by a set of Courtly Household Cards from the 15th century, replete with symbols, that O’Donoghue came across at an exhibition (The World in Play, Luxury Cards). in the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2016. Connoisseurs of playfulness will be delighted to note that the dimensions of O’Donoghues paintings are in the exact same scale as a conventional playing card (3.5  by 2.5 inches). 

In keeping with the size of the paintings, the scale of the endeavour is broad. Two of the figures, Saint Deirbhile and King Wuffa come from the Dark Ages where myth and truth mingle freely. Two come for the Medieval Period, Aoife MacMurrough and William the Conqueror, where tangible data starts to emerge. William appears as a character on the Bayeux Tapestry – and now reappears in these large tapestry-like works. The 20th Century is represented by Emily Davison and Michael Collins, both of whom died for their causes. Davison’s sacrifices also included her hunger strikes which severely weakened her before her death. A resonance with the tactic much favoured by Irish Republicans up to the present time. 

The personal is never far away in Hughie O’Donoghue’s work. His earlier paintings featured glimpses of his father’s World War II activities and he has done a whole series on his mother’s birth place in Famine-haunted Erris. Even his recent show at the Marlborough Gallery in London, with those towering images of the rusting hulk of the MV Plassy, are based on childhood trips to Inis Oirr with his father. The inclusion of Saint Deirbhile again points to his ancestors in North Mayo. Saint Deirbhile is one of the lesser-known Irish saints – information about her is primarily contained in the Annals of the Four Masters - but she is revered in the Blacksod, Erris region. St. Deirbhile’s Church and St. Deirbhile’s Well near Belmullet attract regular pilgrims. She represents the monastic tradition that’s part of the fabric of our culture. Her origins are even more shadowy and speculative than St. Patrick’s. The story goes that she rejected an unwanted suitor who had admired her eyes by plucking out said eyes, thus sending the poor man on his way. She then went to a nearby well and bathed her presumably empty sockets and her sight was restored miraculously. She subsequently devoted her life to prayer and solitude in the Wild West of Ireland. The painting, A Solitude in the Ocean: Deirbhile, shows a strapping young woman with golden hair on the left. In the middle section we see a saintly figure in white, holding a large crucifix, her features only barely visible beneath an enveloping shawl. On a the right a sinister raven, symbol of the West of Ireland stands atop a pole. This bird could represent the ostensible evil from which she escaped and also, these birds been partial to eyeballs, the hurt she inflicted upon herself. 

The Michael Collins painting, Boreen: Mícheál, is the most direct in its narrative.  The painting is divided into three vertical sections, the folds of the tarpaulin facilitating the triptych effect. On the right a photograph of a more callow Collins, standing by a piece of luggage. The young buck heading to London and a job in the Post Office, or perhaps Collins dressed as a civilian for the Treaty Negotiations. On the left is the famous image of the masterful military man, pistol hanging from right hip and a definite swagger in evidence. In between the two versions of Collins sits a golden harp, emblem of the nationhood for which he fought and died. A heroic figure cut down in his prime – our very own JFK. The Boreen of the title, depicted in the horizontal section at the top of the painting, is a pointer to Collins rural West Cork origins and a sinister suggestion of the landscape where he was ambushed. Incidentally, and yet another example of O’Donoghue’s taste for keeping it personal, Michael Collins was best man at his second cousin Paddy O’Donoghue’s wedding, which took place in Stephen’s Green in 1919 when Collins was on the run.

While the activities of Michael Collins led to Irish freedom, those of Emily Davison and the suffragette movement led to the first substantial step in the liberation of women: In 1918 Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act 1918 Which  granted the vote to women over the age of 30. While Collins appears swashbuckling, Davison is depicted not as a virago in a funny hat but rather as a beautiful, bare-headed, saintly vision in virginal white. Her frequent imprisonment, her hunger-strikes, her horrific force-feeding and her untimely death make her the primary martyr of the Women’s movement. The painting , The Kings Arrows and the Kings Horse: Emily, emphasises her imprisonment with both the barred window and the threatening portcullis. The  King’s horse Anmer and its  jockey dominate the left side of the work. Perhaps worth our sympathy, but also standing as a potent metaphor for an uncaring British establishment riding rough-shod over basic human rights. Davison’s use of the hunger strike tactic and her willingness to die for her cause all resonate with our own 20th century freedom fighters.

The exhibition is entitled Original Sins and when you consider our history of occupation and subjugation it’s hard not to lay a lot of the blame on Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster and his beautiful daughter Aoife. In an attempt to regain power in a country riven with rival rulers and ongoing wars and skirmishes, he decided to enlist some serious military firepower in the form of the Normans. He bartered his daughter Aoife’s hand in marriage to seal the alliance. The Norman invasion was sanctioned by King Henry II. It was led by the Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow). His forces wasted no time in turning a foothold into outright possession and thus began the 800 years of oppression, dispossession, and servitude that is only now beginning to end. It could be said that MacMurrough was the Judas of Irish history, who sold out his country for personal gain. Like Juan he didn’t live long enough to enjoy the spoils – dying shortly after Strongbow’s invasion. However, his daughter went on to initiate a royal lineage that included all the kings of England since Henry IV and of Scotland since Robert 1 – and much European royalty besides. A secondary consequence of this Norman invasion was that it established the Catholic Church in a country where the liberal Brehon laws still obtained. Ironically it was these laws that allowed MacMurrough to take the second wife who was to become Aoife’s mother. 

Of the six characters featured in the ehibition, King Wuffa is probably the one least familiar to an Irish audience. Students of Anglo-Saxon literature would know him as the first king of East Anglia in the 6th Century. This attribution was made by the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People and it is disputed by later scholars who see him as more a representative, composite figure for the Wuffingas dynasty. It is also claimed that in the ongoing Anglo-Saxo excavations at Sutton Hoo are connected to rulers from this dynasty. These people originated in Jutland and went on to become the dominant force in Britain until late in the 8th Century. So what’s Wuffa doing in an exhibition that forms part of our centenary celebrations? There is of course the link with the Vikings who also swept into Ireland so we share a common set of ancestor-invaders. There is also the inference that our people, like our neighbours, are descended from migrants and all of us are the product of diverse origins.

Although William the Conqueror never set foot in Ireland he has had an immense influence  on our history. He created the template in England and Wales for those Norman armies who swept into Ireland after Dermot MacMurrough opened the door. Faced with scattered and divided local armies they quickly mopped up the opposition and changed the course of our history. O’Donoghue sees William as a more significant figure than Strongbow in our history – the latter was merely an agent of Norman expansion. Unlike the subsequent invasions, the Elizabethan wars and Cromwell’s brutal campaigns, the Normans settled here and were absorbed into Irish society. They built keeps, castles and churches and could be said to have brought with them a European sensibility. They also brought the Catholic Church unfortunately.  William was the first Norman king of England and during his reign, following the Battle of Hastings, the old Anglo -Saxon aristocracy (Wuffa’s descendants) were replaced by a Norman one. William is represented on the Bayeux tapestry and O’Donoghue’s giant tarpaulin works approach the condition of tapestry. According to O’Donoghue:  “My idea was that it should feel like an enormous tapestry, something that took me in the direction of William of Normandy.” William is represented in the Bayeux tapestry carrying a cudgel – a potent symbol of his brutal tactics.

The overall colour of the six paintings is gold which works sympathetically with the dark blue wall of the Shaw Room. The gold also creates a tension between the opulence of that rich colour and the industrial feel of the silver ground on the tarpaulin. This silver ground was chosen to reflect light as the paintings are situated opposite windows in the Shaw Room. Aside from William the Conqueror there are further references to the Bayeux Tapestry in symbols, words, and pointing fingers. The horizontal strip at the top of the paintings and the opaque, white vertical panel in the centre on which the figures are depicted suggest a hammer. This hammer form, according to the artist, point to the relentlessness of history, the anvil where meaning is forged. The epic scale of this work suggests Anslem Kiefer (an artist much admired by O’Donoghue) and his magnificent paintings that bring us back to the monstrous evil that was Nazi Germany.

It’s hard to think of another Irish artist who could create an exhibition of such scale and ambition. The word “epic” is thrown around carelessly these days but this work is assuredly worthy of this designation. In the Winter 2016 edition of the Irish Arts Review, its late editor John Mulcahy delivered a swingeing critique of the exhibition Creating History at the NGI curated by Brendan Rooney. He chided the NGI for not commissioning  new work by contemporary artists: “Would this not have been a worthy challenge for the likes of Hughie O’Donoghue?”, Mulcahy asked. Whether or not NGI director Sean Rainbird read Mulcahy’s words, he and curator Brendan Rooney have come up trumps this time (to extend the playing card metaphor) and thanks to the bold O’Donoghue have a given us a spectacular and thought-provoking show that must not be missed. And it’s free.

John P. O’Sullivan

Dalkey

January 2022.

Cheltenham Day 4: From Woe to Weal and after out of Joy

After Third Wind’s win in the Pertemps Final on Day 3 I was always going to have a profitable Cheltenham. Day 4 was all about how profitable. My main focus was the Gold Cup (A Plus Tard and Minella Indo see above) and the final race, the Martin Pipe Hurdle where I strongly fancied Langer Dan who had targeted this race since he was second last year. To titillate my jaded palate I did a series of doubles and a treble on the favourites in the first three races. The first two won, Vauban at 6-4 and State Man at 5-2. Consequently there was a considerable amount riding on the third leg, Ginto, who I had backed at 3-1. He cruised into contention (writing about sport demands the odd cliché) between the last two flights and was clearly going to win easily. However, before he reached the last hurdle he broke down horribly on the flat and it was obvious he had fractured a leg. It cast a pall over the rest of the day – and I don’t just mean financially (I’m used to losing on horses that should have won).

Next up was the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I backed the two horses I had backed last year again this year. Last year Minella Indo outstayed A Plus Tard in a tight finish. This year, Rachel Blackmore, riding the latter, timed her challenge better and she won easily. The pace was not as strong as last year and so the speed of the winner trumped the stamina of the runner-up. In addition to my individual bets on the two horses I bagged a very lucrative forecast (it paid just over 22-1). So my financial discomfiture over the untimely demise of Ginto was somewhat eased as I headed towards the last race where I was confident that Langer Dan would augment my winnings. 

Need I tell you dear reader that in horse racing pride truly comes before a fall. There were 23 runners in the Martin Pipe hurdle which makes for a great deal of traffic issues as they head helter skelter for the first few hurdles. I had laid off a few bob on the De Bromhead horse Grand Jury in the same race as insurance – he was a generous 22-1. At the second flight the useless lump fell and in so doing brought down Langer Dan who was playing his usual waiting game at the back of the field. 

For fuck’s sake. The icing was summarily removed from my cake. But you know something, aside from the unfortunate Ginto, it was a most enjoyable and reasonably profitable four days. The Olympics of jump racing with less drugs. Ok, Journey for Me fell at the last hurdle in the Ballymore on Day 2 and Indefatigable, at a fancy price, also departed late when challenging in the Mare’s Hurdle on the same day. But coulda, shoulda is all part of the fun. 

Cheltenham 2022 – Post-Mortem on Day 3 and Day 4 Preview

 

Back in the black after a good Day 3. The highlight was Third Wind’s success in the Pertemps at 25-1 supplemented by Mill Green’s third place at 33-1 in the same race. I also enjoyed some freakish good luck when backing Ahorsewithnoname at 80-1 in the Mare’s Novice’s Hurdle. I picked him purely on the grounds that his price was way to high for a Nicky Henderson hurdler in a mediocre race. He was in contention coming to the last but just got outstayed up the hill and finished second. A nice bonus.

 

Day 4 is mostly about the Gold Cup although I have a strong fancy in the last race as well. You could make cases for at least four horses in the Gold Cup: Gavin, Minella Indo, A Plus Tard and Al Boum Photo. Galvin is the popular choice mainly because of his defeat of both A Plus Tard and Minella Indo (see image above) in separate Irish races this season. He also has the requisite Cheltenham course form. However, I wonder does he lack just a little the speed and class we usually associate with a Gold Cup winner – his strength is his stamina. The same could be said of Al Boum Photo however who won the race twice. The latter is now eleven and will surely not do it again. That leaves me with Minella Indo and A Plus Tard who were first and second last year. I backed them both then and will probably do so again this year. I marginally prefer A Plus Tard on this year’s form but Minella Indo could come alive again at his favourite track. Course form continues every year to be a crucial factor. Rachel Blackmore may regret her choice of ride once again.

 

The Skeltons have been gearing their horses towards the big late seasons prizes and I especially like their Langer Dan in the Martin Pipe – the last race. He was a clear second last year to Galopin de Champ who we now know was in a different class to mere handicappers. He’s got much the same weight this year and has been prepared especially for this race. There are 24 runners so luck in running is going to be a factor. The Skeletons also have Doctor Parnassus in the 1.30 (the Triumph Hurdle) at a fancy 22-1 – his form is in modest races but he looks promising. The next two races should go to Mullins and Elliott:  State Man in the 2.10 and Ginto in the Alfred Bartlett at 2.50. They’re both short prices (2 or 3-1).

 

 

Cheltenham 2022 – Post-Mortem on Days 1 and 2 and Day 3 Preview

 

 Well Day 1 and Day 2 were disappointing, verging on disastrous for me. Kilcruit got placed in the Supremem as predicted but my major fancy Dysart Dynamo fell – though he was never going to beat Constitution Hill.  Teahupo ran a stinker in the Champion Hurdle, finishing last – trainer blamed the going. The biggest disappointments were Indefatigable, challenging and going well when he fell two out in the Mare’s Hurdle. I’d backed him at 40-1. A bitter pill that. Worse was to follow in the Ballymore next day. I had a series of chunky each way bets on Journey with Me who fell at the last when certain to be placed – but not going to win. I recovered a few bob on Plan of Attack ew at 25-1 in Tiger Roll’s race and got out with a win on the very generously priced Facile Vega in the last. I thought he’d start at odds on but drifted out to 15-8.

 

I’m only going to bet on two races on day three – both staying hurdles. Sire du Berlais (see image above) has been laid out for the Pertemps final at 2.10 and though carrying top weight he has an amateur jockey claiming seven pounds and should be placed at least. I also like Third Wind at 18-1 in this although his form this year is less than convincing. I’m relying on his previous course form to work the oracle and he’s lightly raced this year.

 

The Stayers Hurdle looks very open and I’m not convinced Floating Porter is a good thing as generally predicted. Klassical Dream could easily come back after his hugely disappointing last run and I will have a saver on him. However I think the best trail was run by Royal Kahala who loves the ground, beat Klassical Dream easily last time out in the Galmoy at Gowran, and gets the seven pounds mare’s allowance. She should surely be placed at least. My only worry is that the great Tom Segal (Pricewise) has tipped her also and so her price will be shorter than I anticipated. She’s around 6-1 at present.

 

Cheltenham 2022 – Day 1 and Day 2 Preview

 DAY 1

 

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle:

Day 1 is, as always, my favourite day with the Supreme to start with and the Champion Hurdle later. Normally I’d have my mind made up weeks ago on the Supreme but this year I’m still pondering it – and the defection of Sir Gerhard has only marginally improved things.  I think Dysart Dynamo’s outstanding performance at Punchestown was the best trial but will a front-runner like him be able to hold on in a race like this? The Brits are very keen on Nicky Hnederson’s Constitution Hill who could arrive late and do the business. But I’m not sure he beat much in his races and Henderson’s stable is in stinking form. Both of these are around 5-2 and so not betting propositions for me anyway. I’ve backed Kilcruit each way at 13-2. He has impressive course form (always a major factor) unlike almost all of the others but it’s disturbing that he was beaten at odds on in his first two hurdling ventures. He finally won his maiden by a street and I think it’s unlikely he’ll be outside the first three. Given all Willie Mullins’ options it’s significant that he runs at all. So I’m thinking a Mullins one two to start the Festival. 

The Arkle Novices’ Chase

 

The Brits are  hot for Edwardstown in this and he’s certainly run a few impressive trials. Blue Lord looks the best of Mullins’ runners but he’s hardly a world beater and he and Elliott’s Rivere D’Etel are closely matched. I’m looking for value elsewhere and so will try a few bob each way on Henry De Bromhead’s Magic Daze – currently 14-1.

 

The Ultima Chase

 

I usually give these handicap chases a miss but I like the course form of Kim Bailey’s Does he Know and so may be tempted when the lure of being involved overcomes my good sense. 

  

The Champion Hurdle

 

Of course we all want Honeysuckle to win and it seems likely that she will. The opposition seems sub-standard this year with only Appreciate looking dangerous. He’s not for me at 7-2 without a previous run this year so I’m looking elsewhere. All Gordon Elliott’s horse will be well primed and I fancy Teahupoo at 10-1 should be placed at least. He’s a young up and comer and he hammered Cheltenham winner Quilixios in the Red Mills at Gowran last month.

 

The Mare’s Hurdle

 

I think this is one of the trickiest races on the first day and could make cases for four or five. I won on Telemesomething Girl last year in the Mare’s Novice’s but won’t be tempted by the current 7-2. An outsider like Paul Hennessy’s Heaven Help Us (12-1) or my old favourite Indefatigable (25-1) seem better options.

 

Boodles Juvenile

 

They tell me Gaelic Warrior is a certainty but who knows with a bunch of 4-y-o handicap hurdlers. 

It’s way too complex a puzzle. 

 

 

National Hunt Challenge Cup 

 

No interest except I’d like to see Rebecca Curtis back amongst the winners with Pats Fancy but I suspect Mullins or Elliott may prevail.

 

DAY 2

 

Ballymore Novice’s Hurdle

 

With all the hype over Sir Gerhard (4/6) you’d imagine this is a foregone conclusion. He’s pretty much the same horse as Kilcruit who was beaten easily by Journey with Me (see image above) at Leopardstown in December. I’d much prefer to back Journey with Me each way at 7-1.

 

 

Brown Advisory Novice’s Chase 

 

I didn’t get where I am today backing horses in novice chases. Let’s move on.

 

 

Coral Cup

 

Conversely I do love a handicap hurdle with lots of place offers and open betting. Paul Nichols’ McFabulous is a class above most of these and so carries more weight also. At 16-1 he’s a smashing each way bet unless he gets caught in traffic. Nicky Henderson’s Call Me Lord at 33-1 is dangerously well handicapped and I’ll have a few bob on him also. What a nice dual forecast that would be.

 

Queen Mother Champion Chase 

 

One to watch. Shishkin and Energumene had a thrilling encounter last time out which may affect them. One’s eye strays to the fallen hero Envoi Allen at 25-1. Surely not?

 

Glenfarclas Chase

 

It’s all about Tiger Roll.  I’ll just watch – Delta Work may make it a one two for Elliott.

 

No interest in the last two races – a handicap chase and the bumper which is usually won by Willie Mullins.

 

 

 

Irish Art at Auction in 2021

An edited version of this piece appears on the Irish Arts Review Website.

 Twenty Twenty-one was a very good year for Irish art at auction both here and in the UK as buyers emerged from the their Covid cocoons. The easing of restrictions on physical viewing, the pent-up demand and most significantly the high volume of available funds through lack of spending opportunities all payed a part. A significant number of artists, both living and dead, achieved record prices. 

 

The dominant figures again in terms of hammer prices were Paul Henry and Jack B. Yeats, with William Orpen, Sean Scully and John Lavery also prominent. In the UK auction houses, Barry Flanagan achieved a series of spectacular results with Thinker on Rock topping them (£780,000 at Christie’s) . William Scott had a quieter year than usual due perhaps to the paucity of major works consigned. His pears however proved popular with his two best results being for Five Pears (£150,000 at Bonham’s) and Pear Study (£130,000 at Christie’s).

 

The highest price for an Irish work of art at auction in 2021 was the €1,400,000 paid at Whyte’s in November for Shouting, a late period Jack B. Yeats’ painting. It features three figures who appear to be drunkenly carousing – perhaps after a night of revelry. At 101.6 x 152.4 cms it is one of the largest paintings completed by the artist. While various publications claimed this as a world record for Yeats, this is not quite true. It equals the world record for the painter at an Irish auction house. The artist’s Reverie sold for exactly the same price (at Whyte’s in association with Christie’s) in 2019. And, due to the vagaries of the exchange rate between Sterling and the Euro, the £1,120,000 (€1,700,000) hammer price for The Wild Ones at Sotheby’s in 1999 remains the record price for a Yeats. In an auspicious year for the artist (the 150^th centenary of his birth) he supplied six of the top ten best-selling works sold at Irish auction houses in 2021.

 

A surprising addition to the very select list of Irish artists who have exceeded €500,000 at auction was the little known John Fergus O’Hea. To say that he is a rare figure at auction is to overstate his presence. He has been non-existent up to July of this year when Christie’s sold the Barney Eastwood collection. Amidst works by Alfred Munnings and Jack B. Yeats lurked Punchestown Races, a rare oil painting by the Cork-born political cartoonist. Despite being condemned as “an out and out nationalist” by the British press, O’Hea made a living from his cartoon work in both Ireland and England. This painting  is a fine historical record of the colourful crowd attending the racecourse in 1868. It was estimated at £100,000 to £150,000 but finally went under the hammer at £560,000. One suspects that some very deep pockets associated with the Irish racing scene may have been competing. 

 

Amongst those achieving record prices for their work in 2021 was Grace Henry - long and unfairly seen as a satellite around her erstwhile husband Paul Henry, with whom she spent a mere 20 of her 85 years. Grace was a considerable talent in her own right with a style more infused with European influences than Paul. Her painting The Fortune Teller on offer with a modest estimate of €5,000 to €7,000 sold at Whyte’s for a handsome €37,000. Another female artist, Katherine MacCausland, who has also largely travelled under the radar, equalled her record price of €30,000 at Adam’s in March. MacCausland was born in Dublin but spent the bulk of her artistic career in France where she moved in circles that included Gauguin and Roderic O’Conor. Although much influenced by Impressionism, this work was painted in the Realist style. Another record-breaker was Harry Clarke whose exquisite stained-glass work Bluebeard’s Last Wife sold for €165,000 at Adam’s in March. This was double the best price previously achieved by Clarke.

 

 

After the Yeats painting the next highest price at auction was for John Lavery’s The Terrace, Cap d’Ail. This study of gracious living on the Cote D’Azur also came from the Barney Eastwood collection at Christie’s in July. It sold for £950,000 after guiding at £400,000 to £600,000.

 

The results for Dan O’Neill in 2021 continued to disappoint. His best price was the €40,000 paid at Adam’s for Looking West. Apart from the €125,000 paid for Summer at Morgan O’Driscoll in 2020 he has never recaptured the heady days from 2005 to 2008 where he regularly commanded substantial six-figure sums.

 

There were striking results for two of our contemporary artists. Cian McLoughlin was invited to consign a work by Sotheby’s for its Irish Art auction in November. He submitted Eruption, one of his crowd paintings, full of energy and colour. It guided at £12,000 to £18,000 and sold for £42,000 – by some way his best price at auction. John Shinnors’ Scarecrow Heads attracted a lot of attention at De Veres’ June auction. The work consisted of 18 individual canvases, each measuring 91 x 91 cms. Although many felt that each individual piece could stand on its own, the artist insisted that they be sold as a unit and not broken up. To this end the wily Limerick man had only signed the last  of the 18 pieces. For those of a speculative nature the €70,000 to €100,000 estimate must have been tempting. In the end the lot went for €125,000, comfortably surpassing his previous best of €70,000. Donald Teskey continued to be much in demand, and his recurring crashing waves over rocks motif proved especially popular. His highest prices were the €40,000 paid for Coastal Report III at De Veres in November and €38,000 for The Tempest at Morgan O’Driscoll.

 

The most startling rise at auction in recent years amongst living Irish artists has been that of Genieve Figgis. However, her works are largely confined to auction houses in New York and Hong Kong.  Born in Dublin in 1972, she attended Gorey School of Art in 2006 as a mature student. She first emerged on the auction scene in 2019 when her Birth of Venus sold at Philip’s in Hong Kong for an extraordinary €220,000 (HKD 1,900,000). She continued to achieve spectacular six-figure results in 2021 for her highly-coloured, Ensoresque paintings. Her best result was $190,000 for Victoria and Albert (The Royal Family) at Christie’s in New York. On this side of the world she achieved £48,000 for Family Portrait at Bonham’s in April.

 

Auction coup of the year has to go to the individual who purchased William Orpen’s  After the Ball at Cobb’s Auctioneers in New Hampshire for $60,000 (€51,000) in August 2021. New Hampshire is a state where I suspect those conversant with the Irish art market are thin on the ground. The purchaser wasted no time in consigning the piece to De Veres where it sold for €310,000 in its Outstanding Irish Art auction in November. On the subject of Orpen I noticed that his Still Life of Mushrooms Falling from a Basket sold at Gardiner Houlgate in Corsham, a town near Bath, for €1,880. This seems an extraordinarily low price for an oil (40 x 60 cms) by one of our most celebrated artists. Shop around folks.

 

 

Cultural Manoeuvres In Trieste

On the road again. Myself and three friends took off for Treviso last week on a half-full Ryanair flight. Our plan was to spend a night in Venice and then head for Trieste by train to embark on a Joycean pilgrimage – visiting as many of the locations he touched as was feasible in three days. The team was well balanced: two could speak Italian, three were reasonably conversant with Joyce’s life and works, and one of us had gone to a lot of trouble to plan an itinerary. 

 

The stop off in Venice was a good idea. We stayed in a fancy hotel (Hotel Papadopoli Venezia)

 in the Santa Croce area by the Tolentini Canal – close to the train station for Trieste. The city was almost deserted so after a belt-busting dinner (plus aperitifs, digestifs etc.) we enjoyed an idyllic moonlit stroll around the quiet streets and waterways. And so to bed. The two-and-a-half-hour train journey to Trieste next morning was scenically uninteresting (passing through fertile fruit-growing land and the Prosecco region) until you hit the Adriatic Coast about 30 minutes out from Trieste. The train station was a twenty-minute hike from our hotel (Savoia Ecelsior Palace) but as we all travelled lightly it allowed us to stretch our legs and enjoy the walk along the seafront. 

 

We had timed our trip to coincide with the centenary of the publication of Ulysses but we encountered little evidence of this event being celebrated, or indeed of the fact that Joyce had lived for a considerable period in the city. There were plenty of posters however for a Monet exhibition. The first, and only obvious, indication of Joyce’s presence was a bronze statue by the Trieste-born sculptor Nino Spagnoli on the bridge at Via Roma in the centre of the city. It’s a mediocre work and a poor likeness. It depicts a life-size Joyce looking across the bridge to the building in which the Berlioz School where he first worked was located. A photo opportunity at best. 

 

Our efforts to follow Joyce’s trail on the first day were somewhat compromised by my travelling companions insistence on having a big fat lunch – involving three bottles of wine. After lunch we were good for little except some desultory wandering about (the modest Roman forum caught the eye), followed by a brief snooze. And then on to aperitifs (Negronis of course) and dinner.  (

 

On Saturday we got down to the serious business – starting with breakfast in Joyce’s favourite Pirona café, virtually untouched since his time. We had freshly squeezed orange juice (hand-cranked as we watched), croissants filled with pistachio cream and delicious coffee – followed by some kind of Italian gur cake, heavy on the figs. Every fixture, fitting, and item of food is visual perfection in this establishment – right down to tiles at the entrance. It’s a must from any visitor to Trieste – Joycean or no. 

 

After breakfast we headed to the Joyce Museum. This is not easy to find (on Via Madonna del Mare) – there seems to be no signage to guide you and it involves steep hills and patience. You may be rewarded by the sight of the Arch of Richard, a 1^st Century Roman monument on the way. The museum is a beautifully maintained couple of rooms on the first floor of an old prison. One room is dedicated to Joyce’s old buddy Svevo and the other to Joyce. In truth there’s not much to see – a life-size cardboard cut out of the young Joyce (another photo opportunity) and lots of books on shelves behind glass doors. There’s a 15-minute video on Joyce and Svevo that the rather weird and I suspect unwell attendant (tall, stooped, nervous) kept insisting we watch (we didn’t) and an Italian edition of Ulysses in a glass case that looked as if it had been defaced by the local Dadaist. 

Then, thanks to our Joyce planner, we had arranged a guided visit around the Anglican Cemetery where Stanislaus Joyce was buried – in a plot that also contained members of the wealthy Lichtensteiger family into which he married. He had contacted the Joyce Museum who put us in touch with a Dr. Giuliano Nadrah. He managed the cemetery and kindly agreed to meet us there. A tall, elderly figure dressed in a stylish dark coat with a smart fedora atop. He was the most amiable and helpful of gentlemen and proved an enthusiastic guide to his beautifully-maintained domain. He was attended by two of his workers who stood in the background and rather creepily shadowed us as we walked around. They had apparently cleaned up the grave pending our visit – a nice touch. One of them it turned out was a transplanted Glaswegian who came to Italy 20 years ago and stayed to work there. His English seemed to have been eroded by time – but the Glasgow accent still lingered. A story there I suspect. Aside from the Joycean relevance, the cemetery with its hill-top location, impressive tombs and multitude of striking cypress trees is worth a visit. Two of our team brought flowers and laid them on the grave - our homage to the man that carried his brother financially for so many years and enabled him to indulge his genius. A convenient bus stop nearby took us back to the centre.

 

For lunch we headed to the Stella Polare Café (yes we did a lot of eating) where Joyce used to come with his fellow workers from the Berliz school. This spot is more suited to lounging about for a while than the smaller Pirona – which has only outdoor seating.  We settled for modest fare here – delicious sandwiches and sundry savoury stuff.  Joyce maintained that the cafés in Rome were much inferior to those in Trieste and the Pirona and the Stella Polare prove his point. 

 

After lunch we planned to watch the Ireland/Wales match in some suitable bar but found to our chagrin that nowhere was showing it. This was surprising when you consider that nearby Treviso is one of the main rugby-playing areas in Italy. Sadly, and anti-climactically, we had to return to our hotel and watch it in an empty lobby on our largest laptop. We ordered beer and had good fun anyway - seeing Wales getting hammered at rugby outranks most cultural experiences.

 

On the final day (a Sunday) we emulated Joyce by attending a 10 o’clock service at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Nicholas on the seafront. This was a rare treat. The church was unusual for me in that it had a wall, richly decorated in gold and silver, with two entrances separating the nave from the altar (the technical term for this is an iconostasis and is apparently common in Eastern churches). There were candles everywhere and much toing and froing with them throughout the ceremony  – lighting them, passing them to the celebrants, quenching them and generally carrying on with them non-stop. There was an impressive live choir on the go throughout and the priest who interacted with them had a great voice for the job. And he had an array of gorgeous costumes – including a change of head-dress for the finale. He came and went theatrically between the nave and  his position at the altar behind the wall. He’d emerge, strut his stuff, and then go back in to conduct some hidden rite. The congregation of about a 100 mostly stood – or wandered about lighting candles. There was a huge amount of bowing and making the sign of the cross – almost non-stop. And of course much play with incense – the priest shaking it about with gay abandon. Why can’t our church services be such fun? I’d certainly make a comeback if they went for this model. The plate was passed around much to my cashless embarrassment and at the end kids went up to take sweets from a plate held by one of the satellite celebrants. Great stuff.

 

Trieste is a pleasant and uncluttered city to walk around – with handsome buildings and wide squares part of its Austro-Hungarian heritage.  It has a comfortable bourgeois feel to it – no begging or overt signs of poverty. Apparently its economy is no longer based on its deep-sea port but rather on its reputation as a major research location with an inordinate number of international organisations based there. I saw no evidence of any tourists apart from ourselves – not even a fellow-Joycean. We were blessed with mild weather the whole time we were there and only a brief spit or two of rain. There were any number of good-quality, modestly priced restaurants – mostly Italian food but we also found a couple of German-style places with bench seats and hearty plates of meat and sausage – accompanied by that godawful sauerkraut. The best of the many restaurants we sampled was the modestly-priced Restaurant Giustina Gianfranco on the Via Felice Venezian. It was run by a young couple who had spent time in Dublin and spoke excellent English. At night the populace, or at least the younger element, took to the streets. There was modest drinking and much chatting and moving around. I didn’t see a single drunk or ever feel unsafe even in the narrow back streets. The people were unfailingly friendly and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who fancies a break away from the frenzy of Venice. Especially when summer comes and you can swim in the very accessible Adriatic.

If we wanted a more wide-ranging literary pilgrimage we should not have missed a trip to see Duino Castle nearby where Rilke wrote his Elegies and where Dante is alleged to have written some lines for his Divine Comedy. We also skipped the spectacular Miramar Castle which so impressed Ibsen. 

I should mention that I put on 2.5  kilos in four days.