From Galway to Graceland

Thu, May 21, 2020

IT WAS on the streets of Galway that an Englishman and an American woman met, quite by chance, one day in 2016, and discovering a shared love of folk music led them to form the folk duo, A Different Thread.

'Getting to Know...'

Thu, May 21, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Warm weather in the summer and the sound of hurling on the radio. Cold dry weather in the winter and the smell of a wood fire.

‘In times of isolation, music still provides a way of coming together’

Thu, May 14, 2020

IT IS frustrating for a band like Dream Wife, who thrive on live performance, and who can rip up the stage with their potent combination of indie-punk music and Feminist politics, that Covid-19 means no touring is possible.

Getting To Know...

Thu, May 14, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Content children.

'Every day I send off an album, it's a win'

Thu, May 07, 2020

WHEN ULTAN Conlon emerged from the recording studio in Burbank, California, on the final day of sessions for what would become his fourth album, he could have had no idea of the world into which it would be released.

Galway artists and life under Lockdown

Thu, May 07, 2020

'I try to accept the darkness and remind myself a new day is around the corner'

‘I walked down High Street and there was no one about’

Thu, Apr 30, 2020

WHEN DAVID Bowie entered the studio to record what would become Station To Station he had no songs written and little idea what he wanted to do.

Getting To Know...

Thu, Apr 16, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being surrounded by family and friends which seems a distant memory now!

The (radio) show must go on

Thu, Apr 09, 2020

COVID-19 HAS restricted our movements, created the necessity of social distancing, self-isolation, and cocooning, and resulted in economic hardship for many due to loss of employment of falling revenue.

'Getting To Know...'

Thu, Apr 09, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Waking up slowly, without the sound of an alarm.

‘This book is very much of the moment’

Thu, Apr 02, 2020

NEAR THE start of Sara Baume’s wonderful new book, handiwork, there is a quote from The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett.

Getting To Know...

Thu, Apr 02, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being surrounded by a tight-knit group of friends.

‘Doing these Open Mic live streams, I don’t feel like I'm in isolation'

Thu, Mar 26, 2020

IT WAS the first Sunday of the coronavirus restrictions. Pubs and venues were closed. Shops were shut. Streets were deserted. Galway was, to quote The Specials, “coming like a ghost town”.

Getting to know...

Thu, Mar 26, 2020

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Getting a good cup of tea when you’re out somewhere.

‘The great and the good of Irish writing'

Thu, Mar 12, 2020

THE FIRST year of the new decade sees a new director at the helm of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature – Sahsa de Buyl. “If you were to look at a theme for this years’s event,” she says, “it would be the great and the good of Irish writing.”

'Writing is always mysterious, contradictory, revelatory‘

Thu, Mar 05, 2020

LAURA CASSIDY has ambition – she is determined to do whatever it takes to become a movie star – but not only ambitions dhe believes stardom is her birthright. Yet something inside her continually thwarts her meeting her destiny.

‘She’s not just a push up bra and stilettos’

Thu, Feb 27, 2020

“TUMBLE OUTTA bed and I stumble to the kitchen/Pour myself a cup of ambition/Yawn and stretch and try to come to life/Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'/Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin'/With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5."

‘There is an element of fantastical fairytale energy’

Thu, Feb 20, 2020

A FAMILY in crisis is put into emergency accommodation, finding themselves in a run-down hotel in a seedy part of town. From one danger, they, and particularly their children, have stumbled into another.

‘Stiff was an attitude against the major record companies’

Thu, Feb 13, 2020

IT WAS the lable which released the first punk single. It released the debut album by Elvis Costello, and Madness, Graham Parker, and Ian Dury & The Blockheads were all signed to it.

Why the 1798 Rebellion is the 'pivotal point' in Irish history

Thu, Feb 13, 2020

IN 1798 three major ideas erupted into Irish politics and thought – Irish Protestants created Irish Republicanism and asserted that Irish people had the right to self-determination; and that Irishness itself could – should – be a broad and inclusive identity.

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.