Former Avenue United soccer player, Ennis native and leukaemia survivor Eric McNevin, is organising a benefit gig in aid of the Bone Marrow for Leukaemia Trust in St James’ Hospital, Dublin where he was a patient for six months and continues to be an outpatient.Eric says he received fantastic care in the hospital and wanted to give something back for saving his life.The event will take place in Charlie Stewarts Bar, Parnell Street, this Thursday night from 9pm with music by Forget Monday, Sinjin, Damien Gormley and members of the Kilfenora Céilí Band. The Bone Marrow for Leukaemia Trust is a charity specifically dedicated to supporting people around the country who have leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma and have had or may need a stem cell transplant. The charity provides direct support for patients and their relatives – especially recognising the support needed for those travelling to St James Hospital from outside Dublin. For more information see www.bonemarrowtrust.ie.A draw will also …

THE Secret Chord is an album with a difference – an amalgamation of poetry and music by the Durack brothers, Mike and Austin Durack. In making this album, they are renewing a collaboration dating back to the late ’60s, when they teamed up in a folk group named The Prodigal Sons.The album features 12 poems by Mike, who resides in Ballina, and a string of instrumental originals by Austin, who lives in O’Briensbridge, with numerous verbal and musical nods to popular music classics and traditional tunes.There is also a poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado set to music by Austin and performed in Spanish with a voiceover English translation.The landscape of the poems ranges from Tipperary to Mississippi, from the Curragh of Kildare to Moscow and from the Banner County to the land of the Star Spangled Banner. There are poems about love and marriage, assassination, travel, musical and poetic inspiration, as well as an ironic Valentine and a whimsical …

A Good Day To Die HardDIRECTED BY: John MooreSTARRING: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yuliya SnigirCERT: 15A A Good Day To Die Hard will look great on a lot of CVs, mostly those of the stunt and technical crews, the lads who put together a wagonload of very impressive action scenes throughout the film.Neither will it do any harm to the career of Jai Courtney, a decent young actor with the makings of a fine action star. If nobody paid him too much attention in TV’s Spartacus or the recent Tom Cruise turkey, Jack Reacher, they’ll be taking notice now.These things aside, the movie is basically useless.Getting word that his estranged, wayward son is in a spot of bother, veteran tough nut John McClane (Willis) goes all misty-eyed before catching a lift to the airport and departing for Russia with a lovingly stern warning from his daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) not to go causing more trouble. An early reminder …

If you ever wondered about how you might cope in prison, RTÉ’s Life On The Inside is an eye-opener. With over 4,000 men and women banged up in the country, this two-part documentary explores the Irish prison system through the eyes of inmates and prison officers. Filmed over the course of a year, producers got full access to the closed, medium security prison at Wheatfield and open prison Shelton Abbey, with the idea of showing what life is like on the inside.Six prisoners convicted for offences like drugs, robbery and murder shared their stories on prison conditions and how it affects them and their families by being in there. The one thing that struck me as they mused their way through how it was that there were in there is that they all seemed to see themselves as victims. It made me wonder how the victims of their crimes might feel about matters.Situated behind Liffey Valley in Clondalkin, up to …

James dies at the start.As Bond beginnings go, it is a fairly original tack to take but, after the critical mauling Quantum of Solace received – an overly-maligned flick – Sam Mendes was under a lot of pressure to make sure Skyfall, the 23rd in the spy series released 50 years after Dr No did not suck.In fact, it had to do quite a bit more than that just to earn a modicum of approval and by jove it did.Not only does he resurrect the martini-swilling lothario, ably played by Daniel Craig, Mendes provides a Bond that is both action-packed in the style of the previous two (thank you Mr Bourne) and witty, tipping its cap at the rich tradition the films have built up over their 50 years without ever drifting into parody of overt comedy.While the story starts in a suitably Bond-y place – a stolen disc threatens to reveal the identities of MI6 deep cover agents – …

Kildare 3-16   Clare 2-6 A comprehensive 13-point defeat wasn’t the return that Clare supporters, who handed over their €8 entrance fee to county board treasurer James Lafferty, had banked on. Kildare were superior in every aspect of the game, which was played in bitterly cold, windy conditions in Miltown on Sunday. Their support play and retention of the ball was excellent. They ran at Clare all through the game, which largely negated the vehement cross-field breeze. Clare’s support play was virtually non-existent, while they were completely outfought when competing for breaking ball around the middle third of the field. Another example of Clare’s lack of a game plan was their inability to retain possession from their own kick-outs. A Clare half-back or midfielder rarely looked for a short kick-out from Emma O’Driscoll, who made at least two terrific saves and dealt capably with any ball that dropped short. However Clare had no discernible approach to retaining their own kick-out, when …

Dungarvan CBS 1-22  St Joseph’s, Tulla 1-15(after extra time) A margin of seven points is not an accurate reflection of how closely matched the teams were in what was a most entertaining final of the Munster Colleges Senior B Hurling Championship (Corn Phadraig) at Golden in Tipperary on Saturday afternoon.

CRATLOE senior football manager Colm Collins has urged Clare GAA clubs to tear up the 2013 master fixture championship proposals and play round one of the senior hurling and football championships in May. Clubs are due to meet this Thursday night to mandate or reject the masters fixtures schedule, which was presented to clubs last week.