Arts & Culture

AS HIS book The King of the Swingers climbs the best selling Irish books chart this Christmas the veteran musician Paddy Cole has revealed that he put the finishing touches to it in Lahinch, where he has a holiday home for years. The acclaimed saxophonist also penned a poem, during lockdown, about his love of the Banner County. The memoir was written, during lockdown, with Galway author Tom Gilmore. With both of them cocooning on different sides of the country, most of the interviews were done via Skype. “However, when the first lockdown was lifted, Tom and myself met in Lahinch over a weekend and the finishing touches were put to the book at Lahinch Golf Club,” Paddy said. Known to music fans as ‘The King of the Swingers,’ Paddy has been an international star for almost 70 years and his book lifts the lid on his showbiz exploits at home and abroad. The autobiography reveals the secrets of his …

Tuamgraney-born author Edna O’Brien celebrated her 90th birthday this week to huge plaudits from the global literary world. President Michael D Higgins described the novelist as one of the finest chroniclers of Irish life. Widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest living writer, Ms O’Brien marked her birthday with the delivery of the TS Eliot lecture on Eliot and James Joyce for The Abbey Theatre. The piece was recorded at the Irish Embassy in London and broadcast on Tuesday evening (December 15). Ms O’Brien’s debut novel The County Girls convulsed 1960s Ireland with its honest representation of female sexuality and small town communities. Despite the reaction, Ms O’Brien in an interview in 1970 with RTÉ expressed warm feelings fro the county. “I would not want to have come from anywhere else despite certain inconveniences which I haven’t omitted to remember,” she said. In more recent years, The Country Girls trilogy has taken its rightful place in the canon of 20th century Irish …

CREATIVITY, and an eye for a gap in the market, has inspired a Bunratty woman to ‘Jump Over the Gate,’ by developing a line of children’s books. Interior designer Edel Moloney has branched into children’s publishing, alongside a creative team featuring writer Róisín Meaney and illustrator Louisa Condon. The new company, called Jump Over the Gate, has created what Edel describes as “Ireland’s coolest puffin, Puffin Paulie, who resides in his burrow at the Cliffs of Moher”. “We’re three women with complementary skills,” notes Edel. “We’re very excited about the potential of this project.” Puffin Paulie Goes West is the first of two planned books, which will be accompanied by merchandise including a soft toy and T-shirts. The book, which is available, fittingly, at the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre, features Paulie on the back of his motorbike whizzing along the west coast, playing tunes, surfing the waves, cleaning some beaches and having lots of fun. his wonderful and entertaining …

IMAGINE a typical rural shopkeeper in the Ireland of yesteryear. “I picture him wearing a brown shop coat with ballpoint pens in his top pocket,” says actor and journalist, Jim O’Brien of Ogonnelloe. “He lives over the shop, and the shop is his life.” Now imagine that his merchandise is of a very specialised variety. This shopkeeper’s trade is not in groceries or other domestic essentials. His customers come from far and wide to purchase accoutrements of every kind, from small nuclear weapons to solar-powered chainsaws. All of them are tailored to the client’s exact needs. The only thing that links them is the fact they are all ‘plot unblocking devices’. This is the kind of shop – or rather ‘emporium’ – that is at the heart of an award-winning radio play recently produced and aired on Scariff Bay Community Radio. Its writer Tara Sparling devised the fantastical plot in a post on her popular blog (Tarasparling.com) and was encouraged …

COLOURISED images of key moments in Clare’s revolutionary history have been included in a new book on the period between the East Rising and the foundation of the State. Among the pictures that author Michael Barry has included in An Illustrated History of the Irish Revolution (1916-1923) is a photograph of Eamon De Valera at Ennis Courthouse after the by-election of 1917. Other shots include scenes of tanks in Clare and an armoured car at the RIC barracks in Ennis. There is also a picture of De Valera’s arrest in 1923 at a Sinn Féin gathering. The latter appeared in the Illustrated London News just after the outbreak of the Civil War.   There’s also a photo of De Valera in America in the period 1919-1920. During a visit to the Chippewa Reservation Reserve in Wisconsin, he was famously made honorary chief of a Chippewa tribe, and the colourised image shows him wearing a Native American ceremonial headdress. “I specially …

KILNAMONA’s Doireann Ní Ghríofa has taken the prestigious An Post Book of the Year 2020 award. A Ghost in the Throat her first prose work, was described as “a strikingly original combination of essay and auto-fiction”. Poet Doireann was unveiled as the winner during part of a special television show aired on RTÉ One, hosted by Miriam O’Callaghan, last night (December 10). The award winning book has received widespread acclaim for weaving together two complementary stories, that of the narrator and the life of eighteenth-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Read our full profile with Doireann here. Doireann is a native of Galway. She was raised in Kilnamona and now lives in Cork.

COROFIN-based artists and book binder, Éilís Murphy continues to fly the flag for an age-old and fascinating craft, with her latest handcrafted book Words about Words. The beautifully handmade, limited-edition work of art is a kind of illustrated dictionary of rare words, many of which have fallen out of use. It explores the language of lexicography, using 26 collages to bring to life esoteric terms, from ‘abecedarian’ to ‘zeugma’. “I love resurrecting obscure words, giving them a new life through illustration,” Éilís said, describing Words about Words as “an ABC picture book for adults”. Earlier this year, Éilís’s expertise and creativity were rewarded with a €10,000 RDS Craft Awards bursary. She was one of five emerging Irish craftspeople awarded a bursary for the development of their craft. “Each book is unique by virtue of hand-painted paste paper, which gives the cover the chalky texture of a painted canvas. This paper decoration technique has been used by bookbinders since the middle …

A TALENTED Lahinch-based film-maker has scooped a top national award from the Irish Professional Photographers and Videographers Association (IPPVA). Gavin Gallagher, from Barefield, and the founder of Dreamcatcher Films, had the honour of taking the title of Wedding Videographer of the Year, fighting off stiff competition from all over the country. “We won the award for a six-minute film and another for a 60-second Instagram edit,” Gavin told The Champion. “We have an amazing team here and we just can’t believe it, we’re delighted with the win.” The honours are all the sweeter because they come at the end of a very difficult year for everyone who provides wedding services. “We lost 70 weddings this year,” Gavin said. “It has been a crazy year and the award means so much with everything that’s happened. It’s really rejuvenated us and we’re looking forward to 2021. Couples who had have to defer their weddings and cope with so much uncertainty have been …