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The west of Ireland’s annual Architecture at the Edge festival will include recognition of a high-profile Galway city architect who passed away suddenly in 2021.

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One of the hallmarks of the work of 19th-century author Charles Dickens is his oddball characters and their fanciful names: Uriah Heep, Martin Chuzzlewit, Lady Honorie Dedlock, Pip Pirrip, Abel Magwich, Miss LaCreevy, and Bardle the Beedle, to name a few. Perhaps Dickens’ best-known character is Ebenezer Scrooge, from A Christmas Carol -who, it turns out, was inspired by a real person and whose name has become a byword for miserly and mean.

William Joyce recorded his final broadcast on April 30 1945 as the last great battle of the war raged. Russian troops, after a desperate struggle, finally wrenched Berlin from the grip of the Nazis. The once great city was then little more than streets of rubble. In an iconic World War II photograph Soviet troops fly the Soviet flag over the Reichstag May 2 1945.

The late Billy Naughton, College Road, said he spluttered into his cup of tea, when he instantly recognised the upper-class, nasal drawl, of William Joyce reporting continuous Nazi victories on Radio Hamburg, Reichsrundfunk, during its English-language broadcast in October 1939. He was ridiculed as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ and was the butt of Musical Hall jokes, yet he was listened to and despised for his clever mix of fact and lies.

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three online poetry workshops, all facilitated by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet.

A special ceremony took place outside Tigh Neachtain last Friday, July 22, to mark the 200th anniversary of the world’s first piece of legislation concerning animal welfare.

Gregory stayed at the Algonquin Hotel, on 44th Street, a few blocks from the Maxine Elliott Theatre where JM Synge’s play The Playboy of the Western World, opened on Monday November 27 1911. This was the Abbey Theatre’s first tour of America, and it was much anticipated. But its opening night was brought to a standstill by riotous and disruptive behaviour by a yahoo Irish element, who objected to its depiction of Irish womanhood. The play continued only after the police dragged off the worst offenders to jail.

Week III. It took two years since Col Richard Martin’s wife Eliza eloped with John Petrie, a merchant, before the long process of divorce in the 18th century could begin. It promised to be a sensational case given the status of Martin, a larger than life character, one of the largest landowners in Ireland, his reputation as duellist, and his enormous popularity for his gift of mimicry and acting.

Holidaying in Connemara just after the Millennium, I read one of those small grey boxes in the Rough Guide they use to give additional information about a specific location; in my case Ballynahinch Castle where I was having lunch. The description of a previous owner – Richard ‘Humanity Dick’ Martin - was intriguing.