Earlier this year we reported how award-winning documentary maker Alan Gilsenan is working on a film about Michael D Higgins, chronicling the President’s life and his final weeks in office. Not content with becoming a film star, we hear that Michael D is also aiming to conquer the music charts.
The President has recorded an album of poems for Claddagh Records, the label founded in 1959 by Guinness heir Garech Browne and psychotherapist Ivor Browne. Galway’s answer to Jack Kerouac will release his debut album next year, shortly before concluding his term in office.
Christy Moore, one of the label’s best-known acts, is sitting at number one in the Irish album charts with A Terrible Beauty. Could Michael D’s spoken word album, featuring recordings of works from his four collections of poetry, be an unlikely hit?
More taxpayers’ money well spent?
Despite stinging criticism over the €336,000 cost of a bike shed constructed by the Office of Public Works (OPW) on its grounds, the Oireachtas is finding ever more ways to spend taxpayers’ money. It recently commissioned a series of interviews with former politicians about their lives, hosted by broadcaster Sean O’Rourke, for the Oireachtas television channel.
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Ten interviews have been recorded by O’Rourke with former politicians, including Liz O’Donnell, Noel Dempsey and Maurice Manning. Although the Oireachtas declined to disclose how much O’Rourke is being paid for the series, which is not dissimilar in tone or content to his RTÉ Insights podcast, a Freedom of Information request has yielded the overall cost.
Each of the 10 episodes comes in at €7,988.85, a total of almost €80,000 for the series, or just under a quarter of a bike shed. This includes O’Rourke’s fee, production, lighting, make-up, editing, transport and the cost of hiring a room in the headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland on Frederick Street in Dublin, the Oireachtas said.
The others interviewed are James Reilly, Joe Higgins, Eamon Gilmore, Nora Owen, Joan Burton and Martin Mansergh.
Another exclusive for ex-INM chief
Vincent Crowley, the former chief executive of Independent News & Media (INM), has joined the who’s who of apartment owners in Lansdowne Place in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, where price range from about €800,000 to €7.5 million.
The boardroom veteran, who is chairman of stockbroking firm Davy, should recognise plenty of faces from corporate Ireland in the communal areas, which include a residents’ lounge, diningroom, gym, cinema and “wellness centre”.
Other owners in the exclusive development include CarTrawler founder Niall Turley; Voxpro founders Dan Kiely and Linda Green-Kiely; former PayPal vice-president of global operations Louise Phelan; Limerick property developer Rudi Butler; and former RTÉ presenter Mike Murphy, who also dabbled in property development. There are plenty of other well-known names too, including Roy Keane, Rod Stewart and Westlife’s Mark Feehily.
[ Westlife star Mark Feehily sells stately south Dublin home for €2.425mOpens in new window ]
Crowley, who settled a legal action against INM over alleged data hacking in 2022, is selling his former home on Herbert Park as he settles into his new digs – it’s yours for €4.25 million.
Bats in former hooker’s belfry
Last week it was announced that Gordon Wood, a 20-year-old son of former Ireland rugby captain Keith, had been selected for the Munster academy, becoming the third generation of the family to represent the province. Things aren’t going so smoothly for Wood snr in his native Clare. The former hooker bought a historic, rundown pile near Doonbeg last year and is now planning to restore it.
But the renovation of Doonmore House has been frustrated by the discovery of bats, a protected species, in the roof of the dilapidated house, a landmark in the area dating from about 1810.
The council asked Wood to submit a bat survey before ruling on his planning permission. The survey found the presence of both bats and barn swallows, with Wood’s bat consultant suggesting that a “dedicated structure” be built in place of the house to provide “alternative roosting and nesting opportunities for the bats”.
Presumably asking the raging potato, as Wood was christened during his playing days, to scare them away was ruled out.
Save our synagogue
Attempts to transform the Terenure synagogue into 66 apartments have prompted a backlash in Dublin 6W. A dozen objections have been lodged, including one on behalf of Terenure Residents’ Association. Dublin’s Jewish community initially attempted to sell the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road, putting it on the market for €7.5 million, but after it failed to reach its asking price, they decided to redevelop the site with developer Martin Lydon.
If approved, the 66 apartments in three blocks, ranging in height from three to six storeys, will fund an alternative synagogue in another location. But the local residents’ association has complained that the landmark building constructed in the 1950s with five Star of David stained-glass windows over 10 square panels will be lost if the development goes ahead. They’re also concerned about loss of privacy, the “excessive density and height” of the scheme and the extra traffic it will create.
Whip-smart readerships
An astute observation was made by an Irish letter writer to The Economist magazine last week. Brian O’Brien of Kinsale, Co Cork, whose letters also frequent these pages, pointed out that the highbrow business and politics periodical had explained in a recent edition that Volodymyr Zelenskiy was the president of Ukraine, while Keir Starmer was the prime minister of Britain.
“But curiously there was no need for any explanation of a ‘lashing of S&M’ in Sally Rooney’s novels,” O’Brien pointed out. “Clearly the editors know the minds of their readers intimately.”
We will assume that Irish Times readers are also similarly well-informed, sparing the need for any further explanation.
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