Irish films win acclaim at Sundance Film Festival

By Jennifer Smith
January 29, 2016
Jennifer Smith

A scene from the film Sing Street. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institue.A scene from the film Sing Street. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institue.

Among the dozens of foreign films screened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Irish features offered some of the strongest and strangest showings. The Emerald Isle consistently churns out a mix of charming quirk and compelling narrative at the festival in snowy Park City, Utah each year, and its unusually high number of offerings this year have been met with positive buzz and clamorous applause.

There are many things that will make 2016 an interesting year

By Joe Leary
January 29, 2016
Joe Leary

With all the trauma caused by the recent erratic turns of the world’s stock markets, investment executives and those responsible for Ireland’s economic well being have become very nervous about 2016.

While Wall Street experts keep saying don’t panic, stay the course, even the smallest of investors have lost $5,000 and $10,000 and more.

Quinnipiac’s Great Hunger Museum gets $16,800 grant for new exhibit

By BIR News Room
January 29, 2016

Grace Brady, left, executive director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, the artist Brian Tolle, and Curator Niamh O’Sullivan were among attendees at last month’s opening for the new exhibition, “In the Lion’s Den: Daniel Macdonald, Ireland and Empire.”Grace Brady, left, executive director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, the artist Brian Tolle, and Curator Niamh O’Sullivan were among attendees at last month’s opening for the new exhibition, “In the Lion’s Den: Daniel Macdonald, Ireland and Empire.”
Hamden, Conn. – A $16,867 grant from Connecticut Humanities will help Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University present a new exhibition, “In the Lion’s Den: Daniel Macdonald, Ireland and Empire,” this year from Jan. 20 to April 17.

This exhibition, the first of its kind in the United States and the most comprehensive ever mounted, will reevaluate the undeservedly forgotten 19th-century Irish artist, Daniel Macdonald (1820-1853).

“Macdonald holds the distinction of having produced the only known painting of the Great Hunger,” said Grace Brady, executive director of the museum. “We anticipate a great response from visitors both here and abroad.”

The centerpiece of the exhibition, Macdonald’s “An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store” (1847), is crossing the Atlantic for the first time, according to Niamh O’Sullivan, the museum’s curator.

Kieran Jordan steps smartly into world of multi-video

By Sean Smith
January 29, 2016
Sean Smith

Kieran Jordan in a scene from her new instructional DVD, with musicians Armand Aromin (left) and Benedict Gagliardi.Kieran Jordan in a scene from her new instructional DVD, with musicians Armand Aromin (left) and Benedict Gagliardi.In a perfect world – or perhaps the “old” world – Irish dancing is taught by an instructor face-to-face and toe-to-toe with the student. But the world’s not like that anymore, which is why Boston-area dancer Kieran Jordan has become proficient in creating instructional videos that are available not only on DVDs but also via streaming or download via the Internet.

Jordan recently released “Musical Feet! Volume 2: The Next Step,” the second in a series of tutorials for the sean-nos (“old style”), the “low-to-the-ground” improvisational type of Irish dance of which she is an acknowledged master. In both volumes, she breaks down and demonstrates specific steps – from basic to more intricate – that can be used in dancing to Irish music; where Volume 1 focused on steps for reels, Volume 2 looks at jigs.

This is the third video overall Jordan has produced: In 2008, she released “Secrets of the Sole,” a documentary in which she interviewed and performed with two dancers she regards as major influences, Kevin Doyle and Aidan Vaughan.

Jordan is by no means the only Irish dance teacher who has turned to video as an instructional tool. But her experience serves to illuminate the continuing post-“Riverdance” popularity of Irish dance, and the role of technology in sustaining it in an era where distance-learning is becoming all the rage.

Taoiseach asks voters to let him keep his program on track in 2016

By BIR News Room
January 29, 2016

On Jan. 21, CNBC reporters Julia Chatterley and Geoff Cutmore caught up with Enda Kenny, Ireland’s prime minister, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A question and answer session followed in which the taoiseach looked down the road, mostly on economic matters. Following are excerpts from the transcript of that session:

Q. You’re being called the Celtic Phoenix here, in terms of the economy. Is the economy’s rebound and recovery going to win you this election? Because that’s what the polls are saying.

Promising ‘home rule’ legislation gives way politically to a world war

By Peter F. Stevens
January 29, 2016
Peter F. Stevens


Second in a four-part series.

In early 1916, Ireland seethed on the verge of rebellion against Britain. The debate over “Home Rule,” which would give Ireland a constricted version of independence from the Parliament in London, had been argued for decades, and at the turn of the 20th century had appeared a likely eventuality. Many historians contend that the measure could have passed in 1914. But the eruption of World War I in August of that year shattered any realistic hopes for the quasi-independence the proposal offered.

I’m not sheepish talking about what I love in Ireland

By BostonIrish.com... (not verified)
December 30, 2015

By Judy Enright
Special to the BIR

A Co. Mayo ram is a handsome specimen of his breed.A Co. Mayo ram is a handsome specimen of his breed.
Well, why so many sheep photos with this month’s column you might wonder?

When I am asked what I like best about Ireland, I have to admit that I love the West Coast, and especially the sheep you find there. And, if you ask where I do my best sheep viewing, I’d say Co. Mayo and Co. Galway, although there certainly are sheep everywhere in Ireland – all too often in the middle of the road.

Pages

Subscribe to Boston Irish RSS