The same week that Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars opened at the Abbey Theatre in February 1926, the Free State government was setting up a “Committee on Evil Literature”. Comprising three laymen and two clergy – Catholic and Protestant – it met f... See more
“Forty years before the Deluge, Ceasair came to Ireland with 50 girls and three men; Bith, Ladhra and Fintain, their names.” (Annals of the Four Masters) “He slew the serpent of Loch Sileann that brought a treacherous deluge on our host, and the two serpe... See more
Former TD Conor Lenihan was out walking near Dublin’s Lansdowne Road one night a while back when his attention was drawn to a flock of what looked like seagulls overhead. But the funny thing, he told me, is that they seemed to be lit from beneath, as if b... See more
When I wrote here last autumn about an afternoon spent scavenging in a skip full of books in Drumcondra – the contents of a former bibliophile’s house that was being cleaned out – a reader regretted the collection had not gone to a charity shop. “What a s... See more
Writing last week (Diary, January 29th) about the trouble that accompanied the opening run of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars in February 1926, I suggested it mirrored the 1916 Rising itself: a case of history repeating as farce. But among the act... See more
