Death of Christa Wolf

Dr Jenny Farrell is a lecturer who lives in Galway but was born in Germany and lived in East Berlin for many years. In this obituary she pays tribute to the writer Christa Wolf who has just died: One of the most important 20th century German women writers, Christa...

‘Recueillement’

Have started ‘Soul Mountain’ by Nobel Literature Laureate Gao Xingjian who is also an established painter. The illustration here is from one of his ink paintings, ‘Recueillement’, roughly translated as ‘meditation’. ‘Soul Mountain’ has been patiently sitting on my...

Venice – Escaping

We went to Venice for a city break. I had been there two years ago speaking at a conference. This time I had more free time to explore the city. We went to the Guggenheim Museum of modern art, which contains fairly incomprehensible art from the first half of the...

The Way We Were

Am taking part in a panel discussion this Friday night in St Mary’s Grammar School, Glen Road, Belfast, which I attended in 1969/1970. Other speakers include my then contemporaries, the historian Dr Eamon Phoenix, and the solicitor and broadcaster, Tony Caher. The...

1916 – Tan War

Feature I wrote for the Irish Times, partly in response to journalist Peter Murtagh’s remarks a week earlier, but covering the wider issue of the hypocrisy and double-standards prevalent in the mainstream parties in the South was published. 1st October. Publicly...