Previous Day
Iraq through the eyes of a poet
Brian Turner's graphic collection of poems in 'Here, Bullet'
chart his terrifying experiences as a soldier on the frontline in
Iraq with sympathy, not rhetoric. p
The Arts Actor at an interesting stage in life
Ingrid Craigie didn't come from a theatre family, but, 30 years
into her career, she has no regrets, and remains refreshingly
unaffected by the trappings of showbiz p
Skeins of colour threaded with expansive emotion
Timothy Hawkesworth renders landscapes according to instinctive experience rather than detached intellect, write Aidan Dunne . p
Arts
Genealogy is about people, not profits
CULTURE SHOCK: State money is being poured into two genealogy projects with very different roots and starkly contrasting results, writes Fintan O'Toole . pOn being asked to write 1,500 words to celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In a new essay, NEIL JORDAN responds to Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a continuing series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration pPouring Hall and Soul into love letters
ARTSCAPE: IT'S A PLAY that doesn't require the actors to ambulate, memorise lines or even act in the traditional sense. This makes AR Gurney's Love Letters ideal for a couple of big names who want to breeze in to town and - with little rehearsal - pack in the audiences. p
Spied on by the neighbours
It's taken 60 years to discover the extent to which Britain spied on Ireland during the second World War, but new material offers a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the British and their headstrong prime minister towards its neutral neighbour, writes EUNAN O'HALPIN , the author of a new book on the subject pThe Burren - a man-made wonder of the world
ANOTHER LIFE: The first of the Burren's spring gentians should be well out by now, lighting up the rocky ground from the bare limestone summits to the sea. For a fix of that special, singing blue, go to www.burrenbeo.com and find the gentian in the flora gallery. Join me, too, in hoping that this winter's frosts reached across to Clare: the gentian's seeds need it to germinate. pEye on Nature
Michael Viney responds to queries and observations on nature. pEcoWeb
www.change.ie : The new Department of Environment website, which encourages people to change their behaviour at home, at work and in the community in order to help tackle global warming. pHorizons
There's no show like an expo: A large-scale public environmental awareness exhibition goes ahead next weekend in the RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin. National Greener Ireland Expo 2008 will host up to 100 stands from energy agencies, eco-businesses, environmental non-governmental organisations and renewable technology companies. p
Shia leader, American nightmare
CURRENT AFFAIRS: Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq By Patrick Cockburn Faber and Faber, 289pp. £16.99 Examining the emergence of the most important figure in Iraq since the US invasion, Shia Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr pThe ghosts of English words
CRITICISM: Collected Critical Writings By Geoffrey Hill. Edited by Kenneth Haynes. Oxford University Press, 816pp. £25 A fascinating portrait of the intellectual life and civic concerns of one of England's leading poets, which has the first World War as its key pDissolving into an everyday world behind the headlines and beyond the barricades
FICTION Let it be Morning By Sayed Kashua, translated by Miriam Shlesinger Black Cat, 270pp. $13. A MAN RETURNS to the bedroom he once shared with his two brothers in his childhood home. pThe inadequate substitute
SECOND READING: Washington Square By Henry James . BEAUTY WITHOUT wealth is difficult, but to be rich and unattractive may prove far more testing. Catherine Sloper is the daughter of a successful physician. Dr Austin Sloper, however, is not sympathetic to his daughter, whose existence he considers a disappointment. pWriting to the occasion
POETRY Selected Poems By John Jordan The Dedalus Press, 138pp. €20. FIRST OF ALL let me say it's good to have John Jordan's poems available again, and very handsomely, too, in this Selected Poems from Pat Boran's Dedalus Press. pThe divisive new religion
SPORT: Foul Play: What's Wrong with Sport By Joe Humphreys Icon Books, 271pp. £8.99 A book that takes modern sport and fandom to task should generate arguments that last well beyond half time pFamily histories throw up a few skeletons
LOCAL HISTORY: NOT EVERY family deems itself worthy of an individual history nor, for that matter, is every family happy to have a history written about it. There is always the danger of an odd shinbone or other scrap of a skeleton falling out of the cupboard. With the Family History of the O'Gradys of Clare and Limerick , by Gerard Madden, this is admittedly the case - there were a few notorious members of the clan as well as many family individuals. pDuality in the era of neutrality
FICTION: South of the Border By James Ryan, Lilliput Press, 233pp. €15 A novel that contrives remarkably to interweave the charged sensitivities of neutral Ireland into a compelling narrative. pLoose Leaves
Poem for a silenced Afghan voice: One of the events that attracted most participants in last weekend's DLR Poetry Now festival in Dún Laoghaire was the Sunday reading of work by poets "whose voices have been silenced by persecution, exile and imprisonment around the world". pThe sexual politics of a Democrat family
FICTION The Senator's Wife By Sue Miller Bloomsbury 306pp, £10.99. WITH POLITICAL marriages, and in particular the wives of former politicians, very much the hot topic of late, Sue Miller's new novel, The Senator's Wife, feels timely indeed - almost self-consciously so as most of it is set back in the early 1990s, at the dawning of the Clinton era. pPaperbacks
The latest paperbacks reviewed. p
Growing up in public
TV REVIEW: BODYSHOCK IS back in town. Hooray! Get ready to tug the bearded lady's goatee and poke the geek with a pointed stick. pNever mind the b****** bleeps
RADIO REVIEW: THANKS BE to **** for the asterisk. It's useful in print, as you will see, and there are many ways around it on the radio, if you have pre-recorded a programme or have a few seconds' delay and can bleep. But sexually charged and profane language is seeping its way onto the wireless. And, before you ask, it's not all potty-mouthed Gerry Ryan's fault either. p'I swear to God, roysh, it's like she can hear him because she stops mixing the egg whites and sugar and licks the spatula'
The new Nigella? The only thing more disgusting than watching the old dear cooking on TV is watching Oisinn lap it up p
