I took this portrait of Brian Friel in the study of his Moville home in July 2010, shortly before he would be honoured with a season of his plays at that year’s prestigiously World Famous, Edinburgh Festival. It was a singular honour, traditionally afforded to writers such
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Age gradually corrupts our sense of time and environment. Asked to recall my memories of Craobh Sheáin Uí Dhubhlain, I have struggled to re-assemble the people and the place, some sixty years or so later. In mentioning names here, I risk omitting some and unintentionally causing offence
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Yesterday, I had lunch in a little cafe in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh; it was clean, hospitable and offered an affordable menu. I had vegetable soup and bread with a coffee; it was delicious; without asking, I was brought a little jug of water, laced with a mint leaf by the waitress; I finished with a coffee and some excellent carrot cake. As I paid, the owners, a very pleasant couple, engaged in friendly conversation and I learned that they were from Turkey and enjoyed living in Edinburgh.
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The movie might be a metaphor for Ireland’s history of pointless violence from the Civil War era to the recent shooting of journalist, Lyra McKee.
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With the casual sweep of an arm, weather forecasters frequently dismiss Scotland’s Northern Isles as wet and windy. Shetland deserves much more than that and last night we learned some of the reasons from Dylan Nardini, Scotland’s Landscape Photographer of the Year, when he was hosted by
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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it – nothing more true in politics, especially today. Scotland’s history of radicalism is peppered by the influence and memory of brave characters who went to the grave for their beliefs. From workers driven to oppose injustice,
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Challenging family relationships are too frequently a rite of passage in the process of growing up. In his first novel, ‘Miles Away’, NJ Edmunds adds stultifying dreams, mutilated corpses, suicide, occasional football games and finding a girlfriend, to the mix. The small town boy, Dacre, eases through
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I went to see ‘Red Ellen’, at the Lyceum yesterday; it told some of the story of Ellen Wilkinson, working class MP for Jarrow and main organiser of ‘The March for Jobs’, the North East Crusade for Work. Wilkinson operated on many fronts, trying to liberate
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My grandfather was the most important male influence on my early childhood; he was a cooper and my recall of him working in his shed remains vivid. My memories of Derry at the time are of walks by the Faughan where he fished and visits from his
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However, Lord Saville was selective in his apportioning of responsibility; he evaded pointing a finger at the UK’s highest military officer, despite the evidence of his involvement in the cover-up; he did not cite those who had discussed and planned the security arrangements for the event at the highest levels of Government but rather he blamed the massacre exclusively on those who had fired the fatal shots, the squaddies, the lower orders, the deplorables.
It was both a class and a political decision.