Sinéad Gleeson

Thanks Elte, Hetmoet, my brilliant Dutch translator Astrid Huisman & @literatureireland.bsky.social. Next week’s Dutch & Belgian dates:

The Hague 04/12, De Vries Van Stockum
📕Brussels 05/12, Passaporta
📗Ghent, 05/12, Boekhandel Limerick
📙Amsterdam, 06/12, Roode Bioscoop

Info: hetmoet.com/agenda

One woman killed by someone close every ten minutes - UN Every ten minutes last year a woman somewhere in the world was killed by a person close to her, the United Nations has said, as it decried a lack of progress in the battle against femicide.

Every ten minutes last year a woman somewhere in the world was killed by a person close to her, the United Nations has said, as it decried a lack of progress in the battle against femicide

They handed them out in Dublin but I missed them. My friend had a pair and we shared (was advised by a sound engineer to keep swapping them around). I mostly left them out, but it definitely felt like it got incrementally louder. They ended with You Made Me Realise, and it was face-meltingly loud.

Still thinking about last Saturday’s show. Unreal.

Good to hear. Some of best/noisiest gigs were in McGonagles. RIP.

Great to bump into you and M! Hope you regaled the dog with wall of sound anecdotes.

It’s one of the greatest Irish novels.

Horrendous. And the two young hares. He’s a master.

That’s a spot-on description. I was irked all week reading it.

Dustin

Declan Kiberd has written about how long it once was. Serious editing…
In the time since I first read it, I spent a lot of time in Leitrim and many of the landmarks are so familiar (the bridge in Carrick-on-Shannon for one). Have you seen this before? www.rte.ie/media-embed/...

I have to say no. A tyrannical narcissist who couldn’t help himself. Constantly chasing the ghosts of power he once had in his military past. But I can’t remember the last time a book got so physically under my skin when I wasn’t reading it (especially as a re-read).

Re-reading Amongst Women for work and had forgotten how terrifying Moran is. One of the sourest patriarchs in Irish literature. It’s uncomfortable reading; constantly feeling uneasy for the characters, a mark of how masterful McGahern is. Very glad that Ireland is long gone. @faberbooks.bsky.social

Have been to a lot of loud gigs but this wiped the floor with them all. They were handing out earplugs at the door…

Sublime, face-melting brilliance from My Bloody Valentine. Wore out Loveless and the Glider EP in my teenage bedroom, so almost wept on @urchinette.bsky.social’s shoulder when they played ‘Soon’.

Ears in recovery today. Great work @foggynotions.bsky.social.

Please say hello if you do!

So true. If Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone had not gone to Paris to study with André Lhote and (particularly Albert Gleizes), they might not have become the Cubists they did. The influence is so clear.
L: Gleizes’s Composition, c 1932-1935
R: Lhote’s Rugby, 1917

Lizzie Stewart’s graphic novel Alison is one of my favourite books of recent years. Really looking forward to The Wreck, out next April. www.penguin.co.uk/books/463433...

‘We’ve got to release the dead hand of the past’: how Ireland created the world’s best alternative music scene Irish indie acts used to be ignored, even on Irish radio. But songs confronting the Troubles, poverty and oppression are now going global – and changing how Ireland sees itself

‘We’ve got to release the dead hand of the past’: how Ireland created the world’s best alternative music scene

He's a great photographer. You'll recognise lots of his shots of musicians for music magazines... www.pyke-eye.com/Music/1/capt...

Beautiful work in Holding Space by Sara Baume and Mollie Douthit - on at Molesworth Gallery until November 30th. molesworthgallery.com/exhibitions/...

Congrats to D, especially after the year he's had. Gutted to be away for the Dublin screening!

We read a LOT of books for the Nero Book Awards Fiction category and it was hard to whittle it down to four.

Recommended reading:

* What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
* Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
* Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
* The Two Roberts by @damianbarr.bsky.social

#NeroBookAwards

Edna looks regal...

A fluke of a find in a vintage shop!

Many in High Places Are Not Well

Could it be the excellent, but overlooked US band HIM? open.spotify.com/album/0G2K4Y...

And Glenn Patterson's purple suit!

Ana Mendieta, #BOTD in 1948 in Cuba. An extraordinary artist who used the body and landscape in an elemental way. I keep going back to her work (she’s in my first book, and the next one). This piece includes a link to a radio essay for RTÉ this year. momentsofrecognition.substack.com/p/on-touchst...

The wild old wicked gang: great Irish writers – in pictures Edna O’Brien on her sofa, Joseph O’Connor in his garden, Seamus Heaney surrounded by books … British photographer Steve Pyke on capturing the greats of Irish literature

Steve Pyke's pictures of Irish writers in @theguardian.com, featuring @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social, Edna O'Brien, me, @lucycaldwell.bsky.social, Glenn Patterson, Joseph O'Connor, @felispeaks.bsky.social, Colin Barrett, @jancarsonwrites.bsky.social & Iris Murdoch. www.theguardian.com/books/galler...

It tries to make the former point but also draws on the latter. As for this for an opening line... "Novels of female interiority have dominated literary fiction for nearly a decade."

And no mention of the fact that Atwood and Evaristo had to share the prize (something that I suspect would not happen to two men).