Somewhere on my shelves is a book called Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears. Even the title summarises the way too many people think about crime, and particularly the Minister for Justice and the Gardam.
If the media are to be believed, we’re living in a hotbed of crime which is one of the most dangerous places in Europe. But, as SIMON BASKETTER discovers, the latest official figures simply don’t add up.
While the end of the eponymous film might give the impression that organised crime and hard drugs disappeared from Ireland after the reporter’s death, latest garda figures offer a very different picture. And the harsh reality, many insist, is even worse.
A once high-flying solicitor who was jailed for fraud, David Elio Malocco is now a budget film-maker with a strong anti-establishment view, a man who says he has swapped a "disgraceful" materialistic lifestyle for a social conscience. Here, he talks about crime, punishment, Sinn Fein, Shelbourne, God and the movies
One campaigner in the local elections was told by a succession of potential voters that the trouble with this country was ‘too much law and not enough order’. Certainly a lot of people exercised themselves on the subject.
Thousands of adolescents go before under-age courts in this country every year. In this exclusive dispatch, we report from the frontline of the criminal justice system as it applies to teenagers.
When the words ‘drummer’ and ‘solo project’ are mentioned in the same sentence, it’s usually time to cut and run to the hills, leaving all your worldly possessions behind except for a pair of ear muffs and a box of cyanide tablets.
Beauty And Crime might not convert the masses but it’d be nice to think there’s a place for such literate otherworldliness in the big, bad game of rock.
Criminologist paul o mahony is one of the country s most progressive and radical thinkers on Irish criminal
justice. olaf tyaransen hears his provocative and important analysis. Pix: cathal dawson
Convicted traffickers are being put behind bars for far longer than their crimes actually merit. Is this progressive policing - or a miscarriage of justice?
Hailing from Dublin and weighing in at over six hundred pounds, the Fight Like Apes experience is a chaotic clash of electronics and rock, topped off with a frontwoman who can soothe and confront in equal measures. As debuts go, ‘How Am I...’ is a serious achievement, a kaleidoscope of different ideas that somehow manages to hang together and forge its own identity. Most impressive of all, amongst the madness lie three genuinely great songs that – the odd swear word aside – could grace daytime radio with no bother. They’re pretty much everywhere over the coming months, not to see them at least once would be a crime.
With the laziest, most cowardly and most intellectually-flawed bills ever to pass into law in Ireland, the Government has criminalised countless thousands of Irish teenagers. It'd be a joke if it wasn't so horribly serious
Given that Christmas seemed to start around the end of August, it’s perhaps no great crime to be talking about Liberty Bell in terms of being one of the great alternative records of the season, even if it is only mid-November.
Even given that anything bearing the stamp of Carol Keogh is destined to be pretty marvellous, this is still one of the most life-affirming, joyous songs to emerge from these shores in recent years.
It is nothing short of the solid gold sound of celebration, not only of Dublin but of Autamata themselves and of all the other bands from the city and beyond who have made this such a memorable year in Irish music. God bless the whole bloody lot of them.
Given that Christmas seemed to start around the end of August, it’s perhaps no great crime to be talking about Liberty Bell in terms of being one of the great alternative records of the season, even if it is only mid-November.
Even given that anything bearing the stamp of Carol Keogh is destined to be pretty marvellous, this is still one of the most life-affirming, joyous songs to emerge from these shores in recent years.
It is nothing short of the solid gold sound of celebration, not only of Dublin but of Autamata themselves and of all the other bands from the city and beyond who have made this such a memorable year in Irish music. God bless the whole bloody lot of them.
For the average expat Irish criminal living in Spain, life is a blur of booze, prostitutes and drug deals with the threat of violence, and even death, never far away.
Adapted from the crime novel by Harlan Coben Tell No One is a plot-driven Running Man mystery that frequently pounds along like Dan Brown after an enforced stint in Literacy Camp.
Delivered with compelling lyrical dexterity and all the elements of a great story (love, crime, betrayal, action and substance abuse), this is a superbly crafted record.
Apart from Donnacha Costello and Dave Donohoe, Irish dance producers have failed spectacularly in their efforts to make a lasting dance album. While Swedish producer Jesper Dahlback co-wrote ‘Disarmed’, his partner in crime is Corkonian Mark O’Sullivan, and their debut is one of the freshest electronic albums of 2005. Apart from their ability to deliver timeless acid trax – ‘The Difference’ and ‘Life Is Everywhere’ – there’s the prickly indie pop of ‘Sweetness In Time’, the downbeat, Joy Division-styled doom of ‘Disarm’ and the mixture of epic dancefloor techno, brooding Dave Gahan-esque vocals and Gothic undercurrents on ‘Where’s The Fun’, ‘Heart Like A Demon’ and ‘Three Souls’. By combining music from opposite ends of the spectrum, DK7 have created something disarmingly compelling.
Old Rope for new money as Sandra Bullock's tough crime scene investigator finds herself solving the brutal murder of a young woman by two uber-intelligent high school students
Following atrick Chamusso's arrest and torture for a crime he did not commit, he joined the African National Congress to become a freedom fighter for the cause. Catch A Fire, a political thriller based on Chamusso’s story.
Charlie Parker may be gone – at least for the time being – but then he probably wouldn’t have survived crimewriter John Connolly’s latest outing anyway.
Wyclef uses the majority of the tracks here to highlight the heinousness of a society that encourages its youngsters, particularly its black youngsters, to adopt guns and crime as a way of life
Irish fiction continues to grow in both popularity and hipness. In this special feature we talk to three of its most prominent young exponents: John Connolly, Conal Creedon and Julie Parsons.
She began her career as a police reporter before taking a job in the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Virginia. There, she spent as much time in the morgue as possible, watching autopsies - including dozens on bodies which had been savagely maimed and mutilated in the course of being murdered. Now she writes crime novels, but Patricia D. Cornwell keeps going back to the morgue to witness the kind of gruesome sights that would give an angel bad dreams.
Interview: Liam Fay Pix: Colm Henry
The Whole Hog (with a little help from his friends) reflects on 12 months in which (among others) organised and disorganised crime were on the increase, German cannibal Armin Meiwes was sentenced to eight years in prison, Cian O’Connor’s Olympic win was tainted, Bertie declared himself a socialist, and the pictures of kidnap victims pleading for their lives in Iraq terrifyingly became the images of the year.
The director plays the crime for maximum grisliness, though long before the final atrocities, there is the horror of helplessness, of civilians sandwiched between German and Russian troops in Kraków, of terrible events happening faster than anyone can process.
The Winner In Me - Don Baker's Story, by Jackie Hayden, is the painfully honest account of the private life of one of Ireland's best-known musicians, and describes his efforts, as an adult, to come to terms with an unhappy childhood and a past littered with violence, crime and alcoholism. In this exclusive extract, Don describes how he believes his troubled childhood relationship with his mother left him with an enduring fear of betrayal in his relationships with women.
Florida's favourite crime writer Carl Hiaasen has turned his attention to the equally murky world of newspapers and rock music for his latest book basket case. Peter Murphy reports
He found fame in Queer As Folk and is currently to be seen in the acclaimed US crime drama The Wire. Now Aidan Gillen is burning up the Irish stage in an acclaimed new production of a David Mamet classic.
Alex Barclay used to write about fashion and beauty products. Now she’s a best-selling crime author with a lucrative book deal. What sets her apart from other whodunnit writers is her forensic eye for detail and chilling mastery of plot. She’s just getting started, she tells Peter Murphy.
The inside story of Veronica Guerin, directed by Joel Schumacer and starring Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
'80s-influenced indie stars BLACK KIDS have been taking flak from message board snobs before their Bernard Butler-produced debut album has even been released. The crime? Being too popular.
Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that anyone who steps needlessly on a worm on the road to revolution has committed a crime. But even she might be dismayed by how daft the British media sometimes go about animals.
If a city can be defined by a catchphrase, then Let the good times roll epitomises new orleans. Landing in The Big Easy slap-bang in the middle of Mardi Gras, siobhan long gets a crash course in gumbo, voodoo, hot music, chilling crime and, believe it or not, legal Ecstasy. But, most of all, she gets a masterclass in how to party. Pix: steve lasky and cathy anderson
2 weeks ago in Dublin, the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the conviction of Paul Ward [pic left courtesty of The Star] for the murder of Veronica Guerin. It is no disrespect to the murdered journalist to say that this was a good day for justice in Ireland
Massage parlours? Escort agencies? The sex industry is nothing new in Dublin – once upon a time, in one small part of the city, there were over 1,500 “poor, unfortunate girls” servicing clients (including King Edward and James Joyce) and being terrorised by madams. Until, that is, the Legion Of Mary came along. Billy Scanlan investigates the history of the battle for the soul of the city’s once infamous red-light district
The inside story of Veronica Guerin starring Joel Schumacher, Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
Ted Hawkins, in Dublin recently to play a never-to-be-forgotten gig in Whelan’s, talks about his journey down the long and winding road which led him from an early, joyless life of petty crime and racial discrimination to his belated fame as one of the most respected of contemporary blues men. Interview: Gerry McGovern.
For close to twenty years, MARTIN CAHILL led the forces of law and order a merry dance. Known as the General, he was suspected of masterminding virtually every major crime committed in Ireland – but for as long as matters, the Gardai had been unable to pin anything on him. And when he was brought to court on petty charges, he posed outside for press photographers, dropping his trousers to reveal a pair of Mickey Mouse boxer shorts. Last week, however, the game was cut brutally short when Cahill was blown away within 100 yards of his South Dublin home by an IRA hit squad. Report: NEIL McCORMICK.
There s very little torture involved in making a record until it s released and then the audience gets to suffer. PETER MURPHY meets the one and only LYDIA LUNCH.
The publication of EMILY O'REILLY's Veronica Guerin: The Life And Death Of A Crime Reporter, has stirred up a hornet's nest in Irish media circles, with journalistic heavyweights such as Paddy Prendeville, Vincent Browne and Gene Kerrigan queueing up to take pot-shots at the author. Here, she takes the opportunity to answer her critics.
Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN. Pics: COLM HENRY
The Junk yard: Voices From An Irish Prison is the title of a powerful new collection of writings by inmates of Mountjoy Prison. ADRIENNE MURPHY hears how the pen has replaced the spike for one former inmate, PENNER, and also talks to the anthology s editor, MARSHA HUNT.
Best-selling crime-writer PATRICIA
CORNWELL
has a gripping new tale of sex, exploitation and violence to tell. But this time it s her own.
LIAM FAY hears the story she didn t tell on Kenny Live.
Pix: colm henry
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.
Barely had the new smoking legislation been put in place than the law was broken – in the Dail Eireann bar, by a TD. John Deasy, who subsequently lost his position as fine gael spokesperson on justice, reckons his crime was minor compared to the “criminal excesses” of some of his political colleagues. and he won’t guarantee that he won’t break the law again.
Peter Murphy takes a train to the wild west (Galway that is) with the original Texas Jewboy, crime writer and legendary stardust cowboy Kinky Friedman. Peter Matthews has the negatives.
The Mayor of Baltimore, Martin O'Malley has issued a statement to hotpress.com stating that the "Martin O'Malley" whom allegedly signed the ongoing online petition regarding Shane MacGowan's business relationship with Joey Cashman is NOT Martin O'Malley the Mayor of Baltimore.
How did Brandon Flowers, Ronnie Vannucci, Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer go from the Las Vegas dive bar circuit to selling four million copies of their debut album, Hot Fuss? On the eve of the band's highly-anticipated Oxegen 2005 appearance, Stuart Clark talks to the people involved in the making of The Killers.
Meanwhile, the Gardaí themselves have problems. Early in January, retired Circuit Court judge Anthony Murphy told RTE’s Prime Time that “there have been occasions when the Guards have committed perjury in my court.” His view was that “if there was a confession and nothing else, the man walked.”
Career criminal Dutchy Holland died yesterday in prison. Long one of Ireland's most infamous criminals it was regularly reported and assumed that he was one of the men who killed Veronica Guerin.
Whatever your fancy chances are the capital will be able to oblige. Here, the Hot Press team pound the pavement in selfless pursuit of Dublin's hottest - and coolest - nightspots.
Swansong For You is the second ‘solo’ album of string-soaked and heart broken love songs from Isobel Campbell, cellist and songwriter with Belle and Sebastian.
He doesn’t play an instrument but he is a pop culture giant, so we think it’s only right we tell you that John Waters is bringing his new one-man show to Dublin’s Vicar St. this September.
Back in the days of the Wild West, Judge Roy Bean presided over his court as ‘the law west of the Pecos’. Rough and ready, and largely self-taught, his constituency included chancers, fleeing miscreants, vagabonds, thieves, murderers as well as homesteaders and frontier entrepreneurs.
In this fortnight's issue of Hot Press, in a wide-ranging and hugely engaging interview, comedian and star of RTE's The Panel, Andrew Maxwell talks about the reaction to the night he blacked out on stage, the controversy over Tommy Tiernan's comments on the Holocaust and how Alan Shatter made an ass of himself.
It’s a pleasure to report that Guerin’s hair-raising story has finally been committed to celluloid in a manner that does the tale justice, and the result is a gripping and supremely-acted piece of work.
The Galway singer So claims Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd and Neil Young (“with or without Crazy Horse”) as inspiration, but the only discernible influence here is Dylan-esque folk-pop. On the EP’s lead track, ‘Just For You’, he evokes sweeping vistas but forgets to include a chorus.
LORD ALMIGHTY, exactly how boring was Payback? It's difficult to quantify. I could probably write a book about how boring it was, but it wouldn't be very interesting and it probably wouldn't sell too many copies.
Hot Press are proud to present a screening of The Wire, followed by a public interview with writer/producer David Simon. Read on for your chance to win tickets...
Following on from the orgy of excess that was the Christmas and New Year period, we’re sure that you’re all trying to undo the damage by cutting down on calories and making regular trips to the gym. Us? Well, we’re planning to spend even more time in 2004 sitting on our big fat wobbly arses.
Recorded in mono, containing twelve tracks and running for just over half an hour, Platespinner is the latest addition to this year's glittering parade of greatness from one of America's most vibrant underground scenes.
According to industry figures announced today, half of all new films sold in Ireland on DVD are pirated versions in what amounts to a multi-million Euro black market.
IT is every journalist’s worst nightmare. It doesn’t often happen that a story is either important or sinister enough to lead a writer into direct conflict with dangerous forces.
Unfolding like a freak show for the very best and worst of humanity, the ridiculously precocious director has fashioned historical grievances and iniquities into a modern classic.
Here's a suspect device: 3 Colours Red consider themselves a political and polemical band yet they only sound convincing on the (trite) love songs on Revolt.
A true-life tale of a once-famous Victorian murder investigation paints a fascinating picture of a society undergoing profound changes – and has eerie parallels with today’s fears about the rise of a surveillance culture, explains author Kate Summerscale.
From the grim and gritty depths of east Glasgow, Glasvegas tout a sure-to-be-huge mix of ragged emotion and vintage vibrations straight out of the Phil Spector playbook.
Why the recent record drugs haul off the Irish coast will do little to stem to cocaine tide- and my pose a very real public health risk as dealers move to fill the gap in the market.
Police are advising festive revellers hoping to attend the Boxing Day Planetlove event at the King's Hall, not to buy tickets from unauthorised sources.
Since its premiere back in 2002, HBO’s The Wire has, over the course of five years, garnered a reputation as the only serious contender for The Sopranos’ title of greatest TV show of all time.
If we care about the lives of Irish women, then a no vote in the march 6th abortion referendum is a must. Adrienne Murphy poses the questions and offers some answers
There’s a touch of the criminally underrated Unbreakable about this splendid indie debut from first time writer-directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore.
Loud, buzzy, fast-moving and colourful – if more than a little preposterous – Daredevil compares favourably with other recent comic-book spinoffs such as SpiderMan and X-Men.
THERE are times when you wonder if this is the right line of work to be in. Maybe it's the fact that it's a small country and we all think that we know each other well. Whatever the reason, there are few things more unseemly than the spectacle of journalists squabbling, and there's been a hell of a lot of it going on in recent years. The mud-slinging which has surrounded the impending publication of Emily O'Reilly's book about Veronica Guerin is just the latest and most intense example of a malaise which is rapidly coming to characterise the Irish journalistic milieu.
As a long term drug rehabilitation activist, Sean Cassin knows more than most about the extent of heroin use in Ireland. Now, as a member of the Drugs Policy Action Group, it is telling that he is angry about institutional resistance to progress on the issue.
2006 seems to be the Chinese year of the side project, what with Broken Social Scene, James Dean Bradfield, The Raconteurs, Thom Yorke and now this second album from Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme – or ‘Baby Duck’ as his alter ego dictates.
One look at the cover will tell you all you need to know, with all four members rockin’ the second-generation Heartbreakers look via Izzy Stradlin and Andy McCoy.
THREE men are murdered in horrific circumstances in the seaside town of Scheveningen in Holland. The descriptions of the torture inflicted on them, and of the final brutal manner of their murder, are harrowing in the extreme. Putty or plaster of some kind, it is reported, had been rammed into the orifices of at least one of them. All three were dowsed in inflammable material and set alight. The bodies are so badly disfigured that they are unidentifiable. To contemplate it, even in the abstract, is enough to stop you in your tracks, to render you speechless at people s unbelievable capacity for evil.
Éanna Dowling admitted to causing #1,400 worth of damage to Smurfit Institute of Genetics - but the courts took a lenient view. Report: Adrienne Murphy
The Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne is worried that the "Blue Flu" business has "brought the law into public disrepute". Oh, I don't know. I heard Brendan from Rialto on The Last Word saying that the public should treat the striking gardai the way gardai sometimes treat strikers. If they demonstrate, kick the fuck out of them, and don't worry if they complain, they'll be denounced in the O'Reilly press as troublemakers who weren't hit half hard enough.
Quite a few people could be surprised by Rónán Ó Snodaigh’s debut solo album. While there are large elements of folk present, the arrangements often have more in common with classical rather than traditional music.
Frontman Neil Finn is reluctant to engage in the arena-pleasing jinks with which Crowded House made their reputation – anyone hoping for another ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ is going to find Time On Earth a disappointment.
Honorary Irishman Josh Ritter is still pinching himself after getting to play with Brooooce at the massive Springsteen tribute gig in New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Anastacia is an engaging presence, able to interact with eight thousand people in a relaxed and natural manner and while her voice may not be to everyone’s tastes (to put it mildly) there’s no arguing that this is one singer who doesn’t need any help from backing tracks.
"Thanks to everyone and apologies to no one" Manor have stepped onto centrestage. This Keady quartet have been plugging away on the live circuit and in the recording studios for quite a while with ne'er a glance in the direction of the corporate music business for handouts.
As the supposed redevelopment of the Dublin Inner City area fails to halt its seemingly terminal decline, Gerry McGovern discusses the problems facing these forgotten areas and talks to community worker Paddy Malone.
Equally commendable to Offside's dealing with social injustice is the film’s ability to communicate the sheer, simple joy and strange comedy associated with supporting a football team.
After stepping down from her position as Director of the DUBLIN RAPE CRISIS CENTRE, OLIVE BRAIDEN tells KIM PORCELLI how far things have come, and how great a distance is still to be travelled to get justice for victims
She made her reputation as a poet but Gil Adamson’s debut novel is no work of high-flying lyricism. Instead, it’s a gritty morality fable set in the Canadian wild frontier. She talks about making the transition from poetry to bloody reality.
Next Sunday, March 14, Irish based charity the Perm Children’s Fund will be hosting a quirky tongue ‘n’ cheek sports derby in Dublin which promises to be a great laugh and raise some much needed money for Russian orphans.
Following on from the colossal success of Independence Day and Men In Black, Will Smith has fallen flat on his face with his latest summer blockbuster.
"Glyder use their twin guitars to the max, and in vocalist Tony Cullen have a gritty frontman who avoids the macho excesses of so many other exponents of the genre."
It’s not revolutionary or groundbreaking stuff by garage standards, but it’s an impressive enough statement of intent from potentially Peckham’s finest export since the family Trotter.
The concrete jungle of London’s downtrodden and multi-racial East End is home to some of the most terrifying statistics BBC news has to report, as well as some of the hardest, filthiest hip hop and drum ‘n’ bass beats in the UK. The area’s many big mouthed, bigging-up MCs frequently play with the term urban poet, but rarely is it so aptly claimed than in the case of this young acoustic guitar-playing, Bukowski-reading, Radiohead-loving rapper.
Best-selling author Colin Bateman has just published his 21st book, which is being hailed by critics as a cracker. He talks to Hot Press about cutting his teeth as a writer in Northern Ireland
Even before the opening credit sequence, the zaniness of the presumptuously entitled Fun With Dick And Jane has become truly wearisome. And it’s all downhill from there.
Common has retreated from the sonic adventure and wilful eclecticism of his previous release, 2002’s Electric Circus. Perversely, he has managed to achieve greater creative success in doing so. Rather than minimising its impact, the tight, cohesive nature of the material on Be is a welcome change of focus.
And that’s just the politicians we spoke to... The publication of a major new anthology of Hot Press interviews by Jason O’Toole, focused primarily on the Irish criminal underworld, gives cause for reflection on what it takes to ‘get good interview’.
Given that many of rock’s most universally revered icons could at least partially be filed under ‘folk music’ – Dylan, Cohen, Nick Drake - it’s striking how rarely the genre attains genuine crossover appeal among those who’d gleefully hunt down reggae or blues obscurities.
“Guilty until proved innocent” seems to be the unthinking philosophy behind the recent introduction of ASBOs, providing just one more opportunity for the authorities to abuse their powers.
The first time I saw Ron Sexsmith live, I was immediately struck by the gentle, almost unobtrusive way in which his songs meandered into my head. I was so impressed that the next day I rushed out and purchased Other Songs, a quite beautiful album in its own, unique, low-key way.
Rob B of the Stereo MC's is angry. At rock stars who take drugs and at governments who ban marijuana. At media people who support the status quo and at religious leaders who distort the message. His antidote? "You've got to feel the music," he says. "It's got to be an inspiration." Interview: Tara McCarthy.
The decision in Sweden to send the operators of the Pirate Bay website to jail will "send shivers down" some of the other sites that facilitate illegal downloading, IRMA CEO Dick Doyle has told Hot Press.
Nice to see Father Ted’s Graham Linehan back in Dublin recently, taking a break from writing his latest project, a comedy feature film set in ‘20s Paris
It appears that the Smuggler’s Tour scheduled for Vicar St on February 18th and featuring Howard Marks and Robert Sabbag has been canceled
Tommy Tiernan is keeping schtum about his recent visit to the USA where he ‘had talks’ with TV entertainment giant NBC
Word around the campfire (well, okay, judging by the press release) suggests that this, the fourth album from Garbage, is a record that’s lucky to have gotten this far. Bleed Like Me, it seems, has had a troubled gestation...
Twenty-four years is a long time to spend working up to a debut solo album, but Roland S. Howard follows his own wayward star.
Whether participating in the jagged juvenalia of Melbourne’s Boys Next Door, lending his trademark flicknife guitar …
DESPERATE TO start your own white militia but don t know where to find the necessary hardware?
Well, fret no more my fascist friends, because The Small Arms Review has finally made it over the Atlantic. A must-read for anyone who wants to build their own fortified compound in the Wicklow Mountains, the magazine is packed with ads for companies like US Ordenance, who can fix you up with a Vickers Semi-Auto .303 machine gun for just $4,495 (including p&p).
A massive rock guitar sound underpins much of Punkara, combining with the very intensity of the beats and vocal delivery from new recruit Al Rumjen, formerly of King Prawn.
To get ahead in Irish society, a dubious attitude towards the truth has always helped. But as chickens come home to roost it is, at long last perhaps, time for change
The man who co-orchestrated the creation of one of the truly incredible and timelessly influential long players (Slanted And Enchanted), is firing on all pop-picking cylinders
Those opposed say it’s an acute infringement on civil liberties. Supporters say it’s an essential step. Anti-social behaviour (ASB) may be a serious issue – but there is an increasing belief that the on-the-spot fines and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOS) proposed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell are not the answer. Karla Healion reports.
There's a bit of a tendency to take The Chieftains for granted. They, and mainman Paddy Moloney in particular, have been so prolific and have been responsible for so many interesting and varied musical experiments that one album can tend to blur into the next. It's a view that does them an injustice, however.
Continuing the Coen brothers’ ongoing flirtation with something resembling the ‘mainstream’, this wholly unexpected remake of Alexander Mackendrick’s 1955 screwball comedy The Ladykillers is a real curiosity.
When the Garda Emergency Response Unit went to confront a criminal gang in Lusk, they brought their most powerful hardware with them – leaving less lethal, but no less effective, weapons behind. With two men dead, we need to know why.
If you get your rocks off to breakneck guitars, thumping drums and shout-along choruses, then The Offspring may be just the cartoon punks you've been waiting all your life for. Their only other hit, the anthemic 'Self Esteem' seems such a long time ago now that Dexter Holland ... pals could be a completely new band.
From Friday August 1, up to two-thirds of the country's pharmacists will withdraw from all government funded drugs schemes in an ongoing dispute about pay.
Aslan’s Christy Dignam lives not too far from where he grew up in Dublin. He talks to Hot Press about birdwatching, how he stays away from drugs and his disdain for celebrities who complain about fame.
Law enforcement agencies are worried it could be the new ecstasy. In the fourth part of Hot Press investigation into drugs STUART CLARK reports on the new breed of super-amphetamines
One fine day about a decade ago, your reporter was idly hitching a lift to Wexford town when he chanced to glance up and realise that, to his horror, he was thumbing a hearse, the incriminating digit standing obscenely erect in full sight of the driver, the mourners and their grim cavalcade.
Jesus, what does Green Gartside have to do to make Virgin drop his band? Since 1988's Provision, he's produced precisely five minutes of music - a 1991 duet with Shabba Ranks - yet he and Scritti Politti are still signed to the same label they were with 17 years ago. Either he's an extraordinarily persuasive boardroom negotiator, or Virgin's A&R people are keeping him on for a bet.
A report from the World Health Organisation recently concluded that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol. So why is the Garda Commissioner persisting with the same old fictions?
By Olaf Tyaransen.
As evenings lengthen and winds shift, as light becomes harder and higher and as summer edgily advances, Ireland blinks and shakes its head. A strange year entirely so far. And no story has preoccupied attention like the Catherine Nevin murder trial.
East Timor is a small island close to Indonesia. Invaded in 1975 by its much larger neighbour, in the intervening years almost one third of its population has been wiped out in an ongoing campaign of international terrorism and genocide. The arms being used to terrorise this small island are being supplied by Britain. Report: LIAM FAY
IT S more than curious. Every day in the national newspapers, you read the stories. The gardam have seized another shipment of heroin, with an estimated street value of #5 million.
The highlight of the year – and probably the decade – was scamming a trip to Havana to see the Manic Street Preachers do their live thing in front of Fidel Castro
Once in a very long while – and only if you’ve been a very obedient, diligent sort of film critic – you find your just reward in a film that lunges off the screen, affects some kind of primal, Come To Daddy howl, slavers all over your face and leaves you stumbling into the daylight gasping for air and several stiff gins. In this manner, along lunges Park’s Tarantino-approved, Cannes conquering OldBoy, a dazzling blast of macabre fuselage from South Korea.
If you know who to call, it's as easy to buy a gun in Dublin as a microwave. No wonder there are more firearms in the streets – and more gangland murders – than ever before.
Fianna Fail justice spokesperson John O Donoghue wants the Gardam to pursue a policy of zero tolerance. But how would it work in reality? liam Fay conducts a social experiment. Artist s impression: david rooney.
There are artists who operate as holistics and healers, lifting the spirit, rousing the body. Then there are the pathologists and post-mortemizers that map the anatomy of cancers.
He predicts rocky times ahead for the economy and says the housing boom is unsustainable. But what’s really troubling David McWilliams is all the flak his latest book has attracted.
As one of Britain’s most consistent singles bands ever (in a six-year period between 1979 and 1985 their first twenty releases made the Top 20; spookily enough their twenty-first stalled at No.21), Madness were frequently under-rated by ‘serious’ critics on the rather patronising grounds that they seemed to be enjoying themselves a bit too much and therefore couldn’t be regarded as heavyweight contenders.
A home-grown, low-budget offering about a Dublin-based dope-dealer and his struggles against the forces of law and order, Flick is by no means as bad as the recent glut of gangster Britflicks - but for a movie with such a promising and praiseworthy agenda, it suffers from a curious lack of heart and charm.
Nostalgic yes, but never burdened by maudlin sentimentality, Kíla sing of an Ireland proud of her tradition and of a heritage bereft of tackiness so commonly found in Temple Bar.
JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, the jetty collapses. On Friday afternoon last, it was hard to escape an awful, mournful sense of dij` vu, as the word came in on the mojo wire that the new devolved institutions of governance in Northern Ireland had been suspended, and direct rule from Britain reimposed.
By dragging leprechauns into the new millennium, Wexford author EOIN COLFER has enraptured children and adults alike and given Harry Potter a right run for his money. FIONA REID meets the brains behind Artemis Fowl
Criminologist and author of The Irish War On Drugs, Paul O'Mahony was one of the few voices of reason in the recent, hugely impressive Prime Time report on the subject.
Despite the IRA’s declaration of a ceasefire, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the Provos, like their Loyalist counterparts, are still engaging in “punishment attacks” and in the issuing of expulsion orders. Report: Liam Fay. Pics: Alan O’Connor
No expense has been spared here. Stages lift and fall, lasers cut through plumes of dry ice, diaphanous movie screens give the impression of 20ft tall gospel singers towering over the crowd.
How do I get there?
Aer Lingus flies direct to Geneva. If you don’t have specific dates in mind, you can get a great deal. Prices vary from as little as €6 excluding taxes and charges to over €150 each way.
Whether it’s reality schlock, hard news or sports, television holds a mirror up to society – and tells us truths about ourselves we may not always be comfortable confronting.
Are they genuine punks or just an amped-up, radio-friendly version of the real thing? Good Charlotte‘s twin frontmen Benji and Joel wouldn’t like to say for certain.
Tom Vek's eponymous debut album was an electro-rock gem with echoes of Beck and Talking Heads, partly recorded in a flat on Exchequer St. He returns to the scene of the crime for the upcoming BudRising festival.
There is inescapable evidence that British security forces colluded in the murder of defence lawyer, Pat Finucane. But now Michael Finucane wants to know just how high the responsibilty for the crime really goes.
Gregory David Robert‘s life reads like the most sensational book, a painfully true but scarcely believable saga of academic success, crime, heroin addiction, incarceration, torture, escape, re-capture, and finally, literary acclaim. Peter Murphy hears the extraordinary tale of australia’s ‘gentleman bandit’ turned author. photography Liam Sweeney
The Progressive Democrats may have chosen to launch their campaign in Prosperous, but Ireland's thriving Celtic Tiger image belies the harsh reality of health, housing and crime problems as well as the ever widening gap between rich and poor. The Whole Hog casts a baleful eye over the general election landscape
To give him his full title, he's the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation with responsibility for local development and the National Drugs Strategy. But it's for the latter responsibility that EOIN RYAN TD has earned the unofficial title of "Ireland's Drug Czar". As a new seven-year strategy is unveiled, STUART CLARK enquires about leisure, legalisation, decriminalisation, health, creativity, crime and punishment – and whether or not cannabis really is "a gateway drug". Photographs: PHILLIP TOTTENHAM.
The Irish star opens up on sex, drugs, racism, crime, acting, actors and actresses, as well as slamming the Irish film industry and RTE.
Text: JOE JACKSON. Portraits: CATHAL DAWSON
Hot Press crime correspondent STUART CLARK
preaches zero tolerance to MASSIVE ATTACK and in return gets the
lowdown on their new album, Bruce n Tarby-style hobnobbing with Radiohead, and why Bristol City piss all over Bristol Rovers
Yup, we thought you'd like our stab at a tabloid headline. Thing is, there was a time when Danny Boy O'Connor looked inexorably set on a course for the California State Penitentiary. Then he discovered the therapeutic qualities of the House Of Pain and apart from the odd skirmish with the 2FM Roadcaster, there's been no looking back since. Crime reporter: Stuart Clark.
Fashion designer, punk Svengali, musical maverick, filmmaker and occasional pervertor of justice. MALCOLM McLAREN has been all of these things – and more – in a rollercoaster career that's seen him become a hero to some and an unscrupulous villain to others. STUART CLARK tools up at Ron & Reggie's Gangland Surplus Store for a showdown with the man who manufactured cash from chaos! Scene-of-the-crime photographer: COLM HENRY.
Jimmy Mulhall is in the Joy for writing on walls while Charlie Haughey roams the streets in broad daylight. The reason is that Jimmy is a decent man who lives in Rutland Cottages in inner-city Dublin while Charlie Haughey is a liar with two luxury homes. This is representative of the way justice works in Ireland.
They dress as surgeons on stage and punctuate their records with spoken-word monologues. You could say indie electro oddballs Clinic are determined to do things their own way.
In the same week that Channel 6 launched with its exciting re-runs of Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond, American TV viewers had to make do with the sixth season premiere of the boring old Sopranos.
In a special hotpress feature Colm O’Hare investigates how the music business is attempting to deal with the single biggest threat facing the industry today – piracy.
Country rockers Richmond Fontaine are back with their most accessible LP yet. Frontman Willy Vlautin talks about juggling music and literary careers, and his recent foray into racehorse ownership.
Animal Collective regale us with tales of Conan O'Brien, tour-bus illnesses and explain why the life of the footloose musician isn't always a romp through the daisies.
A Garda seizure and anecdotal evidence suggest that the dangerous drug DOB – aka ‘Snowballs’ – is well established in Ireland. and there’s worse to come.
Commitments director Alan Parker and actress Laura Linney on their new movie, The Life Of David Gale, which explores the murky territory of the death penalty.
You may think of her as a much-loved veteran of sit-com television, but with a role in Roman Polanski’s powerful new holocaust movie to her credit, Maureen Lipman offers passionate and often controversial views on history, the hounding of Matthew Kelly and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They're Ireland's leading hip-hop duo but there's more to Messiah J & The Expert than gangsta stereotypes. Over brunch, they talk about their move towards using live instruments and their hotly-tipped new record.
What promoters and clubbers perceive as Garda heavy-handedness in the -war on drugs- is making life increasingly difficult for dance venues across the country. STUART CLARK reports.
In recent weeks, we have been subjected to a slew of new headlines announcing the alleged dangers of cannabis. But this is just blatant scare-mongering...
UNIMAGINATIVELY BILLED as a hybrid of Forrest Gump and The Truman Show, this expensively-budgeted time-travelogue boasts an intriguing enough premise (two Nineties kids let loose in a Fifties TV show) as well as its fair share of highly inventive visuals, but owing to an excess of sub-Capra sentimentality and a grossly over-extended running time, it ends up spoiling much of its own impressive initial impact.
Prisoners families are a marginalised group, often ignored by the powers-that-be and society at large. Here, BARBARA FLOOD hears them argue for a more compassionate approach.
His dreamy electro-pop is winning Ulrich Schnauss an international fanbase. In his native Germany however, they’re still not convinced. Maybe it’s something to do with all those guitars.
Two major London newspapers recently ran large advertisements which contained the most extraordinary injunctions to world leaders - and proposed the direst of consequences should they fail to comply. Under the dramatic headline World News Flash, it was confidently predicted that the world would end on July 25th 1994.But will it? And who is behind this incredible attempt to save us all from imminent extinction? LIAM FAY reports
“There’s no sense running for election unless first you suspend all sense of shame.” From that starting point, Eamonn McCann went on to exceed all expectations in the Northern Ireland election. Here, he recalls the highs and lows of the campaign.
“There’s no sense running for election unless first you suspend all sense of shame.” From that starting point, Eamonn McCann went on to exceed all expectations in the Northern Ireland election. Here, he recalls the highs and lows of the campaign.
The mere concept of Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and all the other aforementioned geriatrics striking out into space is so fantastically out-there it defies logic that someone actually deemed it worthy of a movie.
*THE TWO biggest pleasures in life are fucking and killing.* This, stated succinctly and brilliantly, is the world-view of the redoubtable Perdita Durango, quite definitely the most unforgettable noir heroine since (at the very least) Thelma ... Louise.
The actors who became cult heroes for their recreation of the tribunals on Tonight With Vincent Browne are bringing their show to the stage. Interview: STEPHEN ROBINSON
With the countdown to the general election now officially under way, the most important aspect to remember amid all the hype is that the right to vote is both a privilege and a responsibility.
The British police have admitted to adopting a shoot to kill policy in their pursuit of Islamic terrorists. But already, with the brutal slaying of Jean Charles de Manezes, they have claimed the life of one innocent victim. So who will be held accoutable?
In the past five years, Garageland has helped numerous unheard bands and artists find a more permanent spot in the music biz. With a series of upcoming shows that will spotlight the most successful of the bunch, Marissa Connelly speaks to some of the highlight acts about life after their Garage Gig debuts.
30th Anniversary Retrospective: The Hot Press team look back over 30 years of Irish literature and find the best 30 novels, including works by John McGahern, Roddy Doyle and Patrick McCabe.
Although Ireland's comedy community is heavily dominated by male figures, women like Carol Tobin have overturned the notion that women are intrinsically unfunny.
A rock star having sex with his 19-year-old girlfriend whilst drenched in blood – no, it’s not Sam Snort’s latest escapade, it’s the new collaboration between God of Fuck Marilyn Manson and Titanic director James Cameron.
With his latest opus Team America upsetting everybody from Sean Penn down to the White House, South Park co-creator Matt Stone sounds off to Tara Brady...
He made his name with the excellent anti-establishment drama How To Cheat In The Leaving Cert. Now director Graham Jones is back with another challenging offering in Fudge 44
Nationalism is still alive and well at least on the walls of toilets. Then again, football and genitalia seem just as popular. Last issue, we looked at the writing on women s walls; this time STEPHEN ROBINSON finds out what men are scrawling in their own convenience. Pics: Paul Connell
It has taken a long time, but at last a really clear picture is beginning to form of the involvement of the Catholic Church in child abuse - specifically in covering up and colluding in the abuse perpetrated by its priests and brothers
Amid very public images of violence and allegations of intimidation and brutality on the part of members of the force, public confidence in the Gardai has plummeted. Imogen Murphy reports on what needs to be done.
'Sectarian conflict, bigotry and racism, coming soon to a city near you'
In a column published two days before the unspeakable massacres at New York and Washington, THE HOG mourns the dawning of the most 'violent and polarised' era for the Middle East since WWII, and suggests, with tragic prescience, that the greater world would soon feel the reverberations
Croke Park is to open its gates to "foreign" games, despite the intransigence of Ulster delegates. Meanwhile, new Criminal Justice legislation runs counter to Human Rights concerns.
So says the man the tabloids have dubbed Fat Puss, Alan Bradley. But he's due in court on charges of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, with figures between €950,000 and €2 million being bandied about in the media. In an exclusive interview, he asks how can he get a fair trial?
. . . and listening too. GERRY McGOVERN discusses the distressing implications of the latest surveillance and state security technology with TOM COONEY of the Irish Council of Civil Liberties.
Maybe the downturn will force us to step back and recognise what has gone wrong. First up: help the unhappy young men, the main problem in Irish society.
"Hope is a scarce commodity in the Inner City," writes Gerry McGovern. Here, he hears from Paul Hansard, who has lived in the Inner City all his life, about the many and varied injustices aimed at the working class, the frustration of never rising above the level of subsistence and about trying to wish for better for your children
A happy New Year to you, getting happier by the day, considering the position of the powers that be who still have ambitions to control our lives. (Pause for laughter, pour yourself a drink, and get ready to tot up the damage they have done themselves so far, with fifty more weeks still to go.)
Ten Feet High is surprisingly playful, but in a serious way. For the most part, Corr and producer Nellee Hooper have fashioned a hybrid of high street pulses, airy melodies and acoustic chamber pop.
Been there, seen that, doin' it tomorrow. Is there no stopping Shay Healy? The most popular songsmith in Europe — and, er, Turkey — has just published a new novel Green Card Blues. Night hawk: SIOBHÁN LONG.
While we have taken RTE television to task in the past for its less-than-perfect comedy output it seems that RTE Radio 1 is determined to make up for lost ground
It seems that Brendan Courtney's star is in the ascendent at RTE following his rather excellent presenting job on that network's 40 year’s Of Presenters show
They've earned a reputation as catfighting divas. But in person Sugababes turn out to be absolute sweethearts. New 'bab' Amelle Berraba talks about fame and dodging the papparazi.
Critically-acclaimed novelist LISA ST AUBIN DE TERAN's latest book, The Hacienda, is a gripping
autobiographical account of how she and her daughter escaped from a tyrannical, insane
husband in deepest Venezuela.
Interview: ADRIENNE MURPHY.
Pic: Cathal Dawson
Veteran post-rockers Mogwai have just released arguably their finest record yet. On a suitably overcast day in France, band leader Stuart Braithwaite talks about the influence of Glasgow on their work – and explains the part played by ‘nonsense art’ in their music
Italian-born multi-instrumentalist antoni o'breskey considers Ireland to be his spiritual home, so much so that he changed the spelling of his name just for us. siobhán long finds out more.
With heroin use spreading beyond Dublin, the country faces a new outbreak of drug addiction. But does the government have the will to tackle the crisis before it spins out of control?
WHILE THE BIRMINGHAM SIX AND THE GUILDFORD FOUR CAN, AT LONG LAST, ENJOY THEIR CHRISTMAS DINNER AT HOME WITH THEIR FAMILIES, THERE ARE STILL MANY OTHERS WHO WILL RING IN THE NEW YEAR LANGUISHING IN PRISON CELLS ON THE STRENGTH OF VERY DUBIOUS CONVICTIONS.
FRANK JOHNSON IS ONE OF THEM.
REPORT: RICHARD BALLS
There is someone out there – well, maybe more than one – who knows how to get you horny with a simple text or email. So if you go all the way with them at a safe distance, are you being unfaithful to the man or woman you sleep with? And does it matter?
WE need to be very careful. During the 1970s, under the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, a violent and nasty culture developed within sections of the Gardaí Síochana.
Rioting in Dublin raises many questions about our society. Not all are easily answered. Of one thing there can be no doubt, however: Glasgow Celtic 'supporters' who participated in the mayhem peddle a uniquely Irish fascism.
The time has come when we can no longer pretend that we’re in control. An incipient sense of cosmic disorder, for the past year gnawing away at the fringes of our collective consciousness, has suddenly become devastatingly palpable.
Civil liberties in Ireland are being gradually eroded. But, then, it’s just part of an international trend. If we’re not careful, we will we soon be living in a Big Brother nation.
Located in the top floor of one of north Dublin’s last remaining tower-blocks, Hotel Ballymun is both an art project and a dynamic social experiment. It’s also proof of what a community can achieve when it pulls together.
The more I think about it, the more angry I feel. What is this bullshit the bishops have been peddling, about not understanding fully the seriousness of child sexual abuse?
“I grew up in a tough neighbourhood, and we used to say, ‘You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word’.”
- Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables
Best known as the author of the modern noir classic LA Confidential, JAMES ELLROY is back in the spotlight with his new book The Cold 6000, a factional encounter with late 20th century America.
Here, the straight-talking Ellroy tells why JFK was second-rate and J. Edgar Hoover a fiend, why Bill Clinton is a horrible human being and George W. Bush not as bad as we think, and why Martin Luther King was the greatest American man of the last century
Words: DANNY ILEGEMS
FIONA REID meets SEAN MILLAR, the acclaimed singer/songwriter who’s currently overseeing a music workshop for inner-city youths and talks to one young participant, IAN FAGAN
WHAT I want to know is this: how do so many intelligent people still give their allegiance to the Catholic Church? Now I know that nobody is perfect and that there are flaws in every institution.
But who started it? Olaf Tyaransen went to the final protest march against Britain’s repressive criminal justice bill and found himself reading helpful hints on how to throw a brick with maximum effect before a full-scale riot broke out. This is his report . . .
Mooks, homies, rat bastards and why Quentin Tarantino is in danger of catching a slap
nope, it s definitely not the Phish interview. jonathan o brien raps with
HUEY MORGAN of the FUN LOVIN CRIMINALS.
Not content with her million selling success with Destiny's Child, Beyonce Knowles has just released a solo single 'Work It Out' from the Austin Powers - Goldmember soundtrack and is shortly to release a debut solo album
If you're under 25 and out of work for six months, watch your back. That's the message from the Tánaiste Mary Harney, who announced plans last week to cut people off the dole after six months
If you're under 25 and out of work for six months, watch your back. That's the message from the Tánaiste Mary Harney, who announced plans last week to cut people off the dole after six months
Knock-knock, who’s there? It’s only Jackie Hayden, making another of his house calls. This time the door is opened by Cork’s Red FM presenter Martina O’Donoghue.
Sex abuse by priests is just one reflection of a problem that is at the heart of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church-its defininition of sex outside the confines of marriage as a sin.
Despite overwhelming evidence in support of the view, it is apparently now a criminal offence to call a certain columnist's favourite
football team "shite"
EVERY COMEDIAN enjoys a “corporate”, those occasional highly paid bookings by companies who wish to bring their staff out for an evening’s worth of drunken ribaldry and mirth.
It was in KIERON DUCIE’s house that the model Katy French had the seizure that preceded her tragic death. Since then, he has been the subject of a campaign in the press which reveals the skewed news values of too many newspapers.
While high-profile successes have been scored by the authorities in the so-called war on drugs, the problems associated with heroin addiction in Dublin are worse than ever. Report: Adrienne Murphy.
At first, the death of Rosemary Toole Gilhooly must have seemed like any other tale of ordinary tragedy - one more sad suicide to add to the statistics, over which sociologists might in time pore and ponder 'why?'
It entered another realm, however, with the revelation that Gardaí were investigating the possibility that this was Ireland's first case of assisted suicide
Together for only a year, MR NORTH are causing more polarisation on the Dublin rock circuit of than any band since the legendary Muff Divers.
Within the past six months they've been tipped for world domination by some and written off by others as nothing but ground up Chili Peppers. Which side will you be on when lines are drawn? Interview: TARA MC CARTHY
It is right that the religious should have to pay for the appalling actions of their members, and the cover-ups for which the religious bosses were responsible. But we should not forget the part that the State played.
They’re loud, they’re proud and they “endorse” really heavy amplifiers. Also Lafaro are partial to a spot of inter-band shagging. That’s what their website claims anyway. You are right to be intrigued.
A new survey has revealed that 50% of Bosnian refugees are finding it difficult to make ends meet, and that 33% of them have been unemployed for over 12 months. STUART CLARK meets one refugee working to change the system from within.
Colin Carberry meets Darren Smyth and Pete O’Neill, the men behind Fortune Cookie Music, the leftfield promotional company who continue to bring a range of America’s foremost alternative artists to perform in Belfast. And in Meg White’s case, to crash in their gaff!
The lesson of the last major clampdown on prostitution – as depicted in Paul Reynold’s Sex In The City – is that Michael McDowell would do well to get off the statute books laws which result in pointless and expensive exercises in policing.
Frank Oz may be the man behind those cuddly muppets, but he’s no pushover in person. Now, his chequered career as a director culminates in the darkly comic Death At A Funeral.
Seven years ago, I sat with a dear friend of mine in a coffee bar one Saturday morning and we read the Irish Times. The night before, Ireland had elected Mary Robinson. It was an Irish revolution.
It is very difficult to get any debate going about the banning of Natural Born Killers. The reasons are obvious. Since the film has been banned, not many people in Ireland have seen it.
The Israeli army has deliberately targeted civilians in Lebanon and behaved like a terrorist gang. Their excuses will only convince the terminally gullible.
Having survived their initial mauling at the hands of the British music press, Asia-obsessed psychedelists KULA SHAKER have returned for a second innings. Frontman CRISPIAN MILLS lays off the poppadoms for long enough to chat to JACKIE HAYDEN about his band's new album, Strangefolk.
On the occasion of Mr McCartney’s recent visit to this country and in a welcome contribution to the on-going debate on the merits or otherwise of popular culture, our Mr Snort explains why the Beatles were a load of shite.
The routine surveillance of the travel movements of Irish citizens represents a fundamental threat to civil liberties. So why has there been so little resistance to these Government proposals?
Ireland's new boss is receiving a lot of flack over his selection policies. But as long as he continues to get the right results, there's no reason why he should bow to his critics.
A full 17 years after their acclaimed eponymous debut exploded onto the American alt-rock landscape, Milwaukee malcontents The Violent Femmes are back with a new album (Freak MAgnet) and the same old typically off-kilter worldview. Interview: PETER MURPHY.
Dublin anarcho-pop five-piece The Camembert Quartet have just released their debut album Music Is War, but with song titles such as 'Boybands Are C**ts' it's unlikely they'll be joining westlife on tour
As well as improving his word power, the admirable Reader’s Digest gives Barry Glendenning some indigestible food for thought about the place of Ireland in europe
When PETER O CONNELL (not his real name) was charged with the molestation of two young boys in Kilkenny and Waterford in 1994, his statement to Gardai revealed for the first time, his own horrific saga of sexual abuse, and resulted in the conviction of a priest who had ostensibly taken him under his care. With full access to court documents, RICHARD BALLS reports on the case of a 33-year-old with a mental age of 12 who, for much of his grim, institutionalised life, had been in the words of the judge who sentenced him to 18 months imprisonment more sinned against than sinning .
The violent life and death of the Florida prostitute Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for a string of murders, is the subject matter of the debut film feature monster by Patty Jenkins. Craig Fitzsimons talks to the writer-director about the controversial, Oscar-winning movie
Consent1 v.i. express willingness, give permission, agree, (to a thing, to do, that, or abs.); -ing adult, (esp.) homosexual. [ME f. OF consentir f. L CON- (sentire sens - feel) agree]
I’m dandering down the Strand Road the other night wondering whether Jacky is on in Mullen’s and, if he is, whether the chances of him advancing me another sub to see me through to the weekend are good, bad or indifferent to the circumstances I find myself in following the inexplicable failure of Queen’s Consul to do the business at Southwell, when who do I encounter but three citizens by the names of Robbo Terry, Barricade Joe and Rosemount Tom and all of them with expressions upon their faces suggesting that they are anticipating this very evening an occasion of passionate joy.
One by-product of the technological revolution is an increase in state surveillance. Sweeping new EU powers invoked in the 'war against terror' may sound the death-knell for our communications privacy
Everywhich way you turn now, the extent of the intrusion of the State into the minutiae of Irish life is more keenly felt. It is unlikely that James Connolly would have approved.
Fun Lovin' Criminal, pizza joint owner and garbage mogul – Huey Morgan is a man of many talents. To that you can add a film stealing cameo as a psycho-tranny in Shimmy Marcus' beleagured but proud drug mule caper Headrush.
The brutal regime of Idi Amin is the subject of Kevin Macdonald‘s The Last King Of Scotland. Here the director explains why, to capture the real Africa, he insisted on shooting on location in Uganda.
Jackie Hayden calls round to visit Miriam Ingram’s current abode at the foot of the Dublin Mountains and gets to hear his first Christmas carol of the season.
He has strong views on Republicanism, Israel, George Bush and Steve Staunton. But, as a TD for Dublin South Central, Michael Mulcahy also reveals how much he loves Fianna Fáil – and how he wouldn’t mind a coalition with the Greens.
Does ABSINTHE really make the heart grow fonder or are the Conservatives right in calling for its ban? STUART CLARK and his showbiz chums check out the drink that s taking clubland by storm. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
TRUE ROMANCE (Directed by Tony Scott. Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken)
FAST tells Fiona Reid about the Fun Lovin Criminals' plans to posthumously record with Reggie Kray and takes her track by track through their new album Loco
Unpalatable truths about the 'war against terror' - and Ireland's involvement – will be revealed during the trial of Eoin Dubsky, the young Wexford man who spraypainted a US war plane refuelling in Shannon
A straight-talking Swede renowned her famously candid – and frequently highly controversial – personal web-blog, European Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom is not your typical Eurocrat. On a recent visit to Dublin, she took time out to talk to Hot Press about Tony Blair, George Bush, the Irish and the Swedes’ mutual love of alcohol, Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevey’s accent, Bono and Bob Geldof. And she even taught us a few Swedish swear words. Interview by Jackie Hayden. Photography by Liam Sweeney.
There is something mysterious and unpredictable about the things that make us horny, or that draw us to new lovers. The same is true of those features in potential partners that turn us right off. Here with the results of her own private survey of our likes and dislikes.
If we can force the Western armies out of Iraq then we will have put a halt to the gallop of those who are using the might of the US military to impose their brute agenda on the world.
THE INTERNET has already been utilised to flog every kind of consumer good imaginable, from cut-glass cutlery to left-handed monkey wrenches. Now, even portable commodes have got their own homepage, in the shape of the Bumper Dumper website.
The Bumper Dumper is a stand-alone toilet which can be taken on field trips such as hunting and fishing expeditions, or even on off-roading excursions.
"No more searching for the perfect bush to squat behind," says the on-site blurb. "No more squatting and finding out later it was poison ivy! No more falling off the unstable porta potty! No more concern for germs from public facilities!
"When you have to go . . . you CAN! And with the privacy curtain, you might forget that you are miles from home."
http://www.myfreeoffice.com/rsenterprises/ n
From schlock kingpin to master of understated horror, auteur David Cronenberg has travelled a long way. His latest movie probes the underbelly of Russian criminals in London.
An old friend. A warm place. A moment of rare intimacy. Lust takes its own wonderful shape. Having slept together before, what difference would one more trip through the wild undergrowth make?
For all Ireland s loudly-proclaimed economic success, there has been little progress made in alleviating homelessness. In fact, the problem may be getting worse, particularly among the young. NIALL STANAGE listens to two homeless Dubliners, KEITH and ANTO, tell their story, while the experts from FOCUS IRELAND also have their say. PICS: CATHAL DAWSON
Ahead of his public interview in Dublin with Hot Press, Wire creator David Simon talks about the genesis of the series and about his controversial new Iraq-set show.
It isn't long since the Irish Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, signed a treaty with the government of Nigeria, which would facilitate the repatriation of asylum seekers from that country, whose applications had been turned down by the authorities here
A comparison with Afghanistan is instructive
To coincide with her first solo album, Imeall, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh talks to Jackie Hayden about the pleasures and pressures of inter-band relationships, motherhood, the Irish language and her solo adventure.
There’s nothing that modern women like more than complaining about how useless men are in the sack. But the truth is that there are lots of things that women get wrong too.
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine have lived up to their name. When all and sundry thought they were dead and buried, the English agit-poppers have returned Lazarus-like with a brand new batch of songs. Interview: john walshe.
And even worse, they took it to heart. Thus was Sebastian Horsley refused entry to the United States for the launch of his book Dandy In The Underworld.
Having dragged Britain into war, former Prime Minister Tony Blair is now touting his services as a peace-dealer in the middle east. With Christmas on the way, no wonder he's looking crazier than ever before
NEVER MIND share prices and gross national products. If you want to gauge how tigerish an economy is, take a look at what people are shoving up their noses.
Northern Irishman Colin Murphy's Blizzard of Odd series on Network 2 takes a scathing look at some of the stranger films and television shows that appear on our screens. The actor, writer and comedian returns to the stage this month with a brand new stand-up show that proves he's more than just a telly-addict. Stephen Robinson meets the man who puts the 'ouch' in couch potato
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town – groundbreaking news spoof The Day Today is back on the agenda courtesy of a brand new DVD, and the show’s gleeful send-up of current affairs broadcasting is now more relevant than ever.
The sex lives of flamingos may seem an unusual premise for a Disney nature film but documentarians MATTHEW AEBERHAND and LENDER WARD weave cinematic magic from this most unlikely of source materials.
Hot Press' answer to Russell Grant, Jackie Hayden, slips into his chunky-knit jumper, gazes at his crystal ball and comes up with more predictions that probably won't come true. Like last year.
Technology has changed the way in which prostitution works in Ireland – and both the Gardai and organisations like Ruhana are struggling to cope. Meanwhile, Irish sexual mores are also changing.
Having just bagged the coveted Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, John Boorman's eagerly awaited biopic of Dublin's most notorious fun lovin' criminal, Martin Cahill, has been hailed as a silver screen masterpiece. Craig Fitzsimons hears about the physical, moral and financial perils of making The General.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
Dara O'Briain has made it through hundreds of comedy gigs, only to come close to expiration in Dublin, choking on a grain of rice in the company of our interviewer.
A former drug dealer, he’s been shot at nine times and lived to tell the tale, emerging as one of the most controversial and uncompromising figures in rap. But there's more to 50 Cent than the popular legend suggests. For a start, there’s a new commercial edge to the music, as his US and Irish number one album The Massacre demonstrates. Plus, as one of the new faces of Reebok’s ‘I Am What I Am’ campaign, he’s taken to the role of cultural icon with considerable zest. Oh, and besides, he’s a bit of a wow with the ladies.
Ace statistician and respected political commentator BARRY GLENDENNING casts an analytical eye over the results of the inaugural HUDSON BLUE BEST OF DUBLIN POLL.
Western spin depicts it as a blow for democracy, but for Raied Al-Wazzan, an Iraqi doctor based here for 15 years, the occupation of his country is illegal and must be resisted.
Michael O'Higgins interviews Bertie Ahern, one of Fianna Fail's young tigers and a man many are tipping as a future leader of the party and possible Taoiseach
GER PHILPOTT examines the terrible ordeal of American writer Robert drake who was savagely attacked in Sligo earlier this year against the wider backdrop of continuing violence against gays in Ireland.
JAMES HANRATTY, the son of Irish parents, was hanged for a notorious murder in England in 1961. Following the recent release of the Bridgewater Three, another miscarriage of justice now looks set to be overturned, posthumously clearing the name of a 25-year-old who was wrongfully sent to the gallows. Report: RICHARD BALLS.
I’ve been driving in the west. Out there beyond the water margins of Yang Shang-Po, aka Oughterard, after which the landscape shifts into something quite different from that which has gone before.
An ex-con, a foe of The Krays and a man capable of such acts of violence that he once sliced off a prison guard s ear, Mad Frankie Fraser now makes quite a nice living for himself spinning yarns about his gangster years. Stuart Clark interrogates him about prison, drugs, the IRA, Arsenal and a novel theory on Veronica Guerin s murder which, Fraser insists, the Irish media haven t had the bottle to print. Mugshots: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
In pre-judging the guilt of those arrested in connection with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and fomenting a desire for vengeance, elements of the media have behaved abominably
No problem! Eamon Gilmore has just taken over at the helm of the Labour Party. Here, in a wide-ranging interview, he talks about Bertie Ahern, the future of Labour, Gay marriage, God, abortion, bias in the media – and a whole lot more besides.
What an average week for Irish rock. Shane MacGowan in marriage rumours, Brian McFadden explains why he refused to squirt all over Kerry and Bono gets it from the Queen.
Daemon Codell – aka Joe Daly – is an illusionist with a difference, who likes nothing better than the sight of blood on the stage. It’s only when it’s his own blood that he gets worried.
He is a visionary, a poet – and an innovator in terms of interrogation techniques. Now that he has resigned as US Defence Secretary, the campaign to make him a Nobel Laureate starts. Right here...
He is a visionary, a poet – and an innovator in terms of interrogation techniques. Now that he has resigned as US Defence Secretary, the campaign to make him a Nobel Laureate starts. Right here...
The US army graverobs Hendrix… the death of the man who exposed the Turin Shroud… the international court hamstrung at birth… the lonely death of Annie Kelly
Its Western wing may have gone to pot (and Crystal), but hip-hop’s original agit-prop spirit is alive and thriving in the Eastern Bloc, as evidenced by Polish crew WWO.
Pennie Smith, the legendary NME photographer who shot the cover of The Clash’s London Calling is about to have an exhibition in Belfast. Peter Murphy gets her to rewind the film
COLM O'HARE meets SCOTT YOUNG, father of Neil, and a renowned journalist, author and broadcaster in his own right. In this rare interview he talks about his best-known subject - his famous son.
It was a night of mayhem, hysteria and high decibel screaming which left LIAM FAY psychologically, emotionally and aesthetically scarred. It was TAKE THAT’S Irish debut at The Point. This is his report from the front line.
One of the victims of the paedophile priest Sean Fortune – who took his own life before he could be brought for trial – Colm O’Gorman has since achieved national prominence as an eloquent spokesman and activist on all issues relating to sexual abuse. here he talks about his own experiences, the roles of the church and the courts and need for parents to take seriously the distress of young children.
Music | Interview
21% | 27 Jul 2005
Colm O Hare
She’s been a rock icon, a tabloid sensation and a muse to Mick Jagger. But you won’t find Marianne Faithfull mooning over past glories.
Why, for some people, R. Kelly, “the pied piper of R&B, is the hero to Michael Jackson’s villain; and the chance to reclaim dead prods for the true faith!
Actor Ray Liotta has a jaundiced view of the film industry and the media that feeds off it. But, as he proves in Wild Hogs, he can turn on the comedy too.
The outlaw French directors’ leading man of choice, Vincent Cassel is also a mainstay of the Kourtrajmé collective, husband to Monica Bellucci and the star of the comic-horror guerilla feature Satan.
He's the acknowledged elder statesman of Irish literature. But John Banville also has an intriguing parallel career as a writer of gumshoe potboilers. He talks about juggling personas - and about the dangers of dishing out bad reviews to other writers.
NIALL STANAGE speaks to PHILIP GOUREVITCH, author of a newly published book on the genocide which consumed the African state of Rwanda. PICS : MICK QUINN
Female guppies are so sick of being pestered by their sex-crazed male counterparts, they often prefer to take their chances in dangerous predator-filled waters. Another Saturday night in Temple Bar then. Also: our columnist is mobbed by Boss-obsessed anoraks.
As the General Election looms, many polls suggest Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is the next Taoiseach in waiting. So what is he really like? And where does he stand on the issues that matter to Hot Press readers?
If I ever attempt to write the Irish novel please feel free to kill me . Best-selling thriller writer JOHN CONNOLLY assures GEORGE BYRNE that he only has murder and mayhem on his mind.
Ahead of the reformed Pistols' Electric Picnic set, we caught up with the guitarist, Steve Jones, who spoke about kicking heroin, his dislike of Malcolm McLaren, his on-air confrontation with Jerry Lee Lewis, and why he'd love to do an album with Cliff Richard.
Eleven cannabis dealers have been murdered in Northern Ireland, victims of the IRA’s Direct Action Against Drugs vigilante killings. So far, no one has even been questioned in relation to the killings...
With even the comparatively tranquil Euro 2004 marred by trouble on the Algarve, the issue of football hooliganism remains a live one. Now, one of its definitive texts has made it to the big screen. Craig Fitzsimons meets the men – and learns about the hard men – behind The Football Factory
The High Priest of Soul, AL GREEN is one of the greatest singers this century has known. Coinciding with his recent trail of magnificent shows in Dublin, the mercurial Rev granted this exclusive interview to KARL TSIGDINOS.
Pics: Bernard Walsh.
Most cities and towns have their trouble spots and their danger zones, but Limerick's have been given more than their unfair share of publicity. Such a focus on the negative has tended to detract attention from the positive aspects of this resurgent city, with its vibrant music scene, its buzzing university, the warmth and friendliness of the people, its obsession with rugby, and er, Ryan Turbidy.
After a pair of critical and commercial misfires, Joel and Ethan Coen have returned with what many critics are hailing as the best film of their career, the dark noir No Country For Old Men.
A new book attempts to shed light on the life and violent death of
ROBERT NAIRAC, one of the northern conflict s most mysterious victims. But, as NIALL STANAGE reports, it is unlikely that the whole story will ever emerge.
Trailing a new album and a new contentment, Dolores O Riordan tells Stuart Clark about how she got rid of her hang-ups and learned to love being a pop star.
Steve Earle is known for his passionate political views. But never mind standing firm in the face of conservative America. The hardest thing he ever did was follow Christy Moore onstage.
On the eve of the release of Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, A-list actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson give Hot Press the idiot's guide to making it in the movie business.
Last year Steve Wall was invited to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to deliver a talk on how to survive as a subsistence level musician in an unforgiving industry. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Dutchy Holland, currently serving an eight-year sentence in Wandsworth Prison, gives a remarkably revealing interview where he discusses all aspects of his life as a career criminal.
Recent postings of dubious merit have plunged the Internet site YouTube into controversy, prompting many to wonder if it’s fulfilling its potential for positive, stimulating and innovative broadcasting.
RAYTHEON, the armament-technology firm which manufactured Patriot and Sidewinder missiles, is establishing a plant in Derry and the local politicians couldn t be happier. EAMONN McCANN reports.
The revolutionary Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez aims to cast off the shackles of what it describes as US cultural imperialism by educating its people. But can it continue the campaign without US intervention?
Make no mistake about it, cocaine is more widely available in Ireland than at any time in the past. But is it the nasty, evil and dangerous drug of tabloid legend? In this Special Hot Press Report, Olaf Tyaransen goes behind the myths to uncover the history of, and the facts about, what has been dubbed the Champagne Drug. He talks to the Gardai and to dealers – and offers an honest assessment, from his own personal experience, of the drug that's widely used by musicians, media types, accountants, advertising execs and lawyers.
So what does the arab world really make of Saddam Hussein and the threat of war? En route to Baghdad, Peter Matthews stops off in Amman, Jordan and hears the word on the street.
With the release of their hugely impressive Turbulence album, LA/Irish outfit Saucy Monky have emerged as genuine contenders. As the critical plaudits continue to mount up, twin lead vocalists and songwriters Cynthia Catania and Annmarie Cullen step up to the mic.
Inevitably, The Best Of Nick Cave ... The Bad Seeds can only hint at the scope of the band's back catalogue. But if one listens to the group's ten studio albums chronologically, there are no gear-grinding changes of direction or radical overhaulings of the sound, all the more remarkable considering the amount of personnel that passed through the line-up.
Over 50% of the electorate in the forthcoming General Election will be under 30 years of age. With this in mind, the main political parties are popping policies like smarties in their attemps to court the youth vote. LIAM FAY stands on their doorsteps.
MICHAEL NOONAN may be the most follicularly-challenged member of the Fine Gael front bench but he is also seen by some as the party's leader in waiting, the only person capable of bringing about the kind of revitalisation which has so conspicuously eluded John Bruton. Now aged fifty, Noonan was for years known as the man who as Minister for Justice in the mid-eighties exposed the Sean Doherty bugging scandal and ordered the release of Nicky Kelly. More recently, however, he has achieved real fame as a Scrap Saturday caricature. Interview: LIAM FAY.
Ahead of their Electric Picnic shows, The Beastie Boys talk about Politics, the influence of punk on their sound and explain why Ireland is one of their favourite places to play
Well, a trio of humans, to be precise. Confronted with the flesh and blood reality of Phil, Susanne and Joanne munching sandwiches right in front of his eyes, Nicholas G. Kelly accepts that we must come to terms with the fact that The Human League have indeed risen from the grave. But not, repeat not, the ’80s.
Former cop, private eye and the only man on the Presidential ballot paper, derek nally is the dark horse candidate who could yet shake up the race for the Park. Here he holds forth on low standards in high places, how Sean Doherty almost destroyed the gardai , the foul treatment of Albert Reynolds, the case for the decriminalisation of prostitution and why he wasn t surprised by J. Edgar Hoover s penchant for frocks. Interview: liam fay.
Pix: Cathal dawson.
Alright, there’s more to student life than scrimping and saving – but a bit of it is the order of the day for the vast majority. Recent graduate Louise Hodgson has tips on that, and a whole lot more besides.
He may have already seated his place in movie history with searing performances in the likes of Scarface and Dog Day Afternoon, but legendary screen icon Al Pacino remains keen to seek out fresh challenges. Hotpress caught up with Pacino to discuss his role in People I Know, the gritty New York thriller which sees the actor go back to his lo-fi indie roots.
To coincide with the release of the Today FM DJ’s double-CD compilation tracking the history of alternative rock in Ireland, Tom Dunne talks to Jackie Hayden about the state of Irish music, singer-songwriters versus guitar bands and the role of Irish radio.
THAT OLD scapegoat for all of society’s ills has reared its ugly head again: the Video Nasty. As soon as the guilty verdicts were returned on two young boys for the brutal murder of Liverpool toddler Jamie Bulger, politicians, policemen, priests and parents began casting around for someone to blame.
With paranoia running rampant among US immigration officials in the wake of September 11, even a seemingly straightforward holiday in the land of the free can turn into a Kafka-esque nightmare.
Under severe editorial pressure, journalist/comedian BARRY GLENDENNING is forced to interview himself. But then, given time, he would have anyway.
Pic: Peter Mathews.
CHRIS BARRY's attempts to free himself from his FM104 contract have resulted in one of the messiest and most ill-tempered court battles seen in Ireland for a long time. STUART CLARK analyses the proceedings so far and profiles some of Barry's shock-jock contemporaries across the water.
Papers released through the Bloody Sunday Inquiry show that, as far back as 1972, even a Tory government in Britain could contemplate the idea of a united Ireland. EAMONN McCANN reports on bad news for the Unionists
Politics | McCann
21% | 6 Jan 2004
Eamonn McCann
Eamonn McCann reflects on a tumultuous twelve months in which anti-Bush sentiment reached unprecedented levels of intensity, Dr. David Kelly’s suicide opened a can of worms, and, at home, the stem-cell debate swung into full flow .
With State Of Play and Shameless, Paul Abbott has taken more risks than any other writer of TV drama – with spectacularly successful results. Now, Channel 4 have asked the BAFTA award winner to write a pantomime, that’s destined to be one of the highlig
