In a Hot Press exclusive brian kennedy is interviewed by his friend Pat McCABE. On the agenda: Belfast, religion, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and the current state of popular music. Pics: Cathal Dawson
A surreal journey into the inner life of an Irish transvestite in ‘70s London is the basis of Breakfast On Pluto, the latest cinematic collaboration from writer Pat McCabe and director Neil Jordan.
In Francie Brady aka Frank Pig, author PAT McCABE has created one of the most unique characters in Irish fiction, an underground cult hero who's already been likened to Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Finn. The novel from which he comes, The Butcher Boy, is a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and work on the movie adaptation is already well advanced. Here, the man who's made a silk purse out of a sow's ear (sort of) talks comics, showbands, the human condition and, of course, pigs, in the company of LIAM FAY. Pix: COLM HENRY
pat mcCABE is on a roll. Neil Jordan s film adaptation of his acclaimed novel The Butcher Boy has been rapturously received. His latest meisterwerk Breakfast On Pluto about a border county transvestite is about to be published. He s going on the road with Jack L. And what s more he was recently named Monaghan Man of the Year! Interview: liam fay.
Pics: Mick Quinn
The old fashioned virtues of talent and charisma, combined with the latest innovations in media technology, look set to make JACK L Ireland s first superstar of the new millennium. JOHN WALSHE has the inside story on a man who is about to get to The Point.
The old fashioned virtues of talent and charisma, combined with the latest innovations in media technology, look set to make JACK L Ireland's first superstar of the new millennium. JOHN WALSHE has the inside story on a man who is about to get to The Point.
Neil Jordan and novelist Pat McCabe reunite for the incongruously lipsticked odyssey of Patrick ‘Kitten’ Braden (Cillian Murphy, impressive and impossibly pretty), a border town transvestite Pollyanna stuck in the oppressive sepia of the grubby '70s.
Music Review | Live
61% | 25 Apr 2003
Paul Nolan
"When the group shift the dynamic completely and segue into a typically skyscraping rendition of ‘Revelate’, the effect is dizzying. And as Glen howls, “My human fate/My revelate” with all the fury of Prince Hamlet after being confronted by his father’s ghost, it makes you think Pat McCabe was absolutely spot-on when he pointed to Hansard as being one of the most gifted lyricists around."
30th Anniversary Retrospective: Looking back at 30 years of Irish literature, best-selling author Joe O’Connor reflects that things have never been better.
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is a major new six-part RTE series. Directed by DAVID HEFFERNAN, and featuring new interviews with the major players including Van Morrison, Bob Geldof, U2 and Siniad O Connor it traces the history of Irish music, from showbands to boybands and beyond. By PETER MURPHY.
This year’s Cannes Film Festival is set to be the most successful yet for the Irish film-making community, according to film board chief executive Mark Woods.
This year there is one striking feature of the Dublin Theatre Festival which would suggest that the Capital’s two key theatres are not making too much of an effort for the event.
In his debut novel writer – and Hot Press scribe – Peter Murphy has created a whole new genre, Irish South-Eastern Gothic. Set in his native Wexford, John The Revelator chronicles a troubled teenager's coming of age against a backdrop of rural strife and spiritual turmoil. He talks about the life upheavals that inspired the book – and explains why he draws inspiration from America's renegade writers rather than Ireland's kitchen-sink literary tradition.
From seven long days journey into nightmare, from a city where the Medjugorge Herald is displayed hard by Big Uns From Fiesta, from a city where the local headline runs Padraic O Conaire s Head Recovered and everyone else wishes theirs would; in short from the Czirt Festival Of Literature in Galway the writers week that makes writers weak what s left of TOM MATHEWS sends this report.
While the word pop currently raises the hackles of anyone who considers themselves a music fan, Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh, whose music is influenced by the move, XTC and the Kinks, is attempting to set the record straight
PETER MURPHY meets GAVIN FRIDAY and discovers a fascination with Kurt Weill that has led to Friday and Maurice Seezer’s Ich Lieb Dich revue at the Tivoli Theatre
SEAMUS HEANEY once described Ireland as a country that went from the medieval to the post-modern in a generation. More than any other native band, Horslips embody that idea. Over their ten-year career, the band lurched back and forth from neo-classical Irish chamber music to progressive rock to acoustic folk to psychedelic pop to glam rock; here was one combo capable of going from Carolan to Caravan in a single bound.
The National Ploughing Championships are an Irish Institution. mud, beer, wellies, farmerettes, mud, singing priests, yodelling farmhands, mud, tractors and more mud - all human life is here. Lucky sod Jimmy Lacey spent a day amid the furrows. Pix: Cathal Dawson
By now one of the most esteemed events on the Irish cultural calendar, the Galway Arts Festival 2003 will once again bring you the best in contemporary theatre, literature, comedy and music
Rock bands, a brain haemorrhage, surviving cancer, and now a successful career as both a
novelist and TV producer.
FERDIA MacANNA s life has been nothing if not eventful. He talks to Peter Murphy.
You know you re doing something right if your book disturbs both Cat Stevens and Snoop Doggy Dogg. But Sligo-born eamonn sweeney s debut novel, Waiting For The Healer, with its explosive mix of booze, blood, manic comedy and rock n roll, is also winning rave reviews for its uncompromisingly forthright author. Interview: liam fay.
It’s been ten years since his last novel, but Neil Jordan has now reprised his role as one of Ireland’s finest contemporary prose writers with the dark gothic drama, Shade. In a wide-ranging interview with Olaf Tyaransen the Oscar-winning writer/director discusses the challenges of literary craftsmanship, swimming with sharks in Hollywood, working with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, his disinterest in celebrity and why Ireland continues to be his preferred place of residence.
They toured the world throughout the ‘70s, earning rave notices from Bono, The Edge and Melvin Bragg, upsetting the clergy, terrifying the American public in the company of Blue Oyster Cult and the J Geils Band and out-glamming even Bowie with their flamboyant sartorial taste. With a new DVD on the way and much speculation about a possible tour, legendary Celtic rockers Horslips here talk to Hot Press about a decade of adventure, decadence and great music.
Ten, nine, eight… we count down the contenders for 2003. Words Hannah Hamilton, Colin Carberry, Niall Stokes, Richard Brophy, John Walshe, Eamon Sweeney and Stuart Clark
Back in their terrifying heyday, they threw pigs’ heads around on stage, covered themselves in muck, provided Marilyn Manson with a career and wrote ‘Community Games’ for Aidan Walsh. Having escaped the clutches of a sinister born-again Christian turned transvestite, they’re now making movies with Neil Jordan, dining with Damien Hirst and consorting with Tony Blair. All in all, it’s been a long, strange trip for The Virgin Prunes
That, according to Shane MacGowan, will be the title of his next, and exceedingly long-awaited album. in the meantime there’s Sean Nós, the war, his dad, drink and Celtic football legend Jimmy Johnstone to be going on with.
Prince may be content just to party but in a four-page special the Hot Press journalistic elite takes a look at everything 1999 has to offer. And then some.
Sinn Fiin s first sitting TD since 1918 chooses his words carefully for the Hot Press Political Interview. I m not measured or calculating, he explains, this is me. As I am. LIAM FAY fires the questions. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
Sinn Féin’s first sitting TD since 1918 chooses his words carefully for the Hot Press Political Interview. “I’m not measured or calculating,” he explains, “this is me. As I am.” Liam Fay fires the questions. Pic: Cathal Dawson
The year began with contrasting and contradictory alignments. On the one hand, the United States were about to invest a new president, a young, rock’n’roll-loving sax-playing boyo from the south called Bill Clinton, offering the possibility of America as the last great hope again.
It's the small venue with the big heart - and the lavish backstage perks. Anna Legge takes us on a tour of Leitrim's Glens Centre, a space beloved of Damien Dempsey among others.
It's been called the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable Turnip", but don't let that put you off: the Flat Lake Festival is rapidly becoming a highlight of the folk calendar.
I phoned Monaghan and they were all out. Well, most of them anyway. And yet. And yet. The compass did yield a handful of musicians, with references to many more whom we valiantly attempted to locate, without success. Monaghan s best-known scions must surely be Paddy Cole and Big Tom.
Annual article: From the strange to the mundane, from poetic champions to pornographic novels, from maverick auteurs to great lost crime novels: it was a hell of a year to be a reader.
Joe Derrane is honoured by the US National Endowment for the Arts; Shane MacGowan pays tribute to Yeats; plus the usual round-up from around the country.
To suggest that music is thriving in Sligo is akin to declaring that there s been a bit of an upturn in the economy lately. Music of all breeds, creeds and colour can be found in abundance around the county.
As St Patrick’s Day approaches, what better time to celebrate all that’s great about Irish culture. From music and film to food and literature, Ireland has always punched far above its weight.
