Cheebah and all that - Limerick, Ireland

A town out of time

Town Out Of  Time is a short Irish film by Micheal Twomey. Using the town of Youghal as a representative environment for an investigation, Twomey takes a sociological perspective in questioning how a combination of planning, landscape and job loss act to define contemporary place.
The film’s purpose is to present the issues as a macrocosm of a national and international trend of what happens when external forces take a stranglehold of a community’s destiny.
Town Out Of Time recently featured in an Irish Times series of articles focusing on the same issues and has attracted interest from communities in Germany and Italy who are seeking to screen it as an example of what went wrong in Ireland.
Twomey is a recent graduate of UCC where he recently completed a Masters in Film Theory and Analysis. He currently teaches English and History and contributes as a journalist to various Munster newspapers.
There will be a Q and A session with the director after the screening hosted by Paul Tarpey Joint Programme Leader from the Masters Course in Social Practice and the Creative Environment LSAD.

Belltable this Friday 4th November 2011

 

Survivor

 

Captured on Catherine Street, scene of cultural dig. What happens when you mix this with a good drop of rain.

Freedom, Chaos and Fun

 

I'm reviewing the video footage of the Rubberbandits gig, thinking as the nail is hammered into Santas groin, is this Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty?

Community fight

SIPTU Community Branch in the studio from DCTV on Vimeo.

The cutbacks suggested by McCarthy through An Bord Snip will have a severe effect on the Community sector. This is an area in which many are employed and has quite an important role in social cohesion here in Limerick. Further to this a number of really worthwhile projects to do with music and the arts have been undertaken in conjunction with the community sector in the last few years in this city.

SIPTU are leading the fights against these cuts and Dublin Community Television had this piece in the run up to the very successful protest last week.  Protests are next planned for Galway on the 17th and Limerick on November 5th.

Shane

Voting Works

While it may appear that only over this campaign Irish hip hop emerged as a political force with plenty of videos, (including local ones), the reality is of course very different. Back in the early to mid 90s, much Irish hip hop had a political tinge to it. From Scary Eire's  '10 men dead' to Marxman "A sad affair" and ill dependents "the retort", irish hip hop punched at a much more radical weight than most other genres of its time. I would not include the above track  in that canon, however I suppose it is interesting that a young rapper like the assassin (recording here is from 1997/8) feels that he had to do something political to fit in with the prevailing trends in Ireland. Taken live from the legendary Stevie G show on pirate Radio Friendly. Archived forever on the great old h2Eire site.

If you are voting today, you will presumably be voting your own way for a variety of reasons from  local to  European. While there are a myriad of issues, which people will be basing their opinion on, it would be amiss of us considering the nature of this site not to draw you attention to one.

Over this election campaign in the local Limerick area, two Fine Gael councillors have made immigration their central issue. Around the same time that posters of Jim Long kitted out in his blue shirt began to appear in the City south ward he also beefed up his comments on migrant workers. He admitted he didn't mind been called a racist. Out in the County area, his colleague Liam Galvin managed to get front page of the Limerick Leader, with more unsubstantiated rumours. He uses as a source taxi drivers for claims that some Eastern Europeans may be involved in welfare fraud.

While there is no doubt that not all members of Fine Gael share these views, the approach by the party in dealing with it is worth noting. Enda Kenny the leader informed the media that he told Long to apologise but Long claims he said no such thing. Under pressure from the Limerick Leader, after the Galvin outburst the party promised that their immigration proposals would be published during May. However these have not been published. On a national level we have already seen the outbursts in the last year from Leo Varadkar and Brian Hayes.

It apears that Fine Gael will emerge as the most popular political party in Ireland this weekend. In the race for "anyone but Fianna Fail" they obviously appear as an appealing option to some. However their  failure to deal effectively with the above should make these people think.

Diversion Ends

On Thomond Bridge recently this installation laid siege to the Castle. A visual mess of contradictions sees an plastic based Micheal Noonan acting in a recycled capacity for Sinn fein postering. The SF poster within arms reach was quickly ripped down re exposing the upside down Noonan to the current electorate. Its unfortunate from a semeiotic point of view because any visage representing what ever political philosophy hung upside down from a lamp post is historically not a good look particularly if your party has been the recipient of slurs linking you to a movement whose Italian leader ended viciously up upside down on a lamp post at the end of the second world war.

The assemblage was removed after an hour of it being photographed and also before Fine Gaels director of elections Frank Flannery hinted that an anti Fianna Fail strategy could see Fine Gael and Sinn Fein do business. In light of that statement and  Enda Kennys denial the mongrel postering may have been prophetic.

There is a prominent Independent candidate who proudly proclaims that her posters are ‘recycled from 2004’ and we know this because she printed up stickers to emphasise the fact. Back on the Bridge the Sinn fein candidate undertook a much more progressive tack in cutting up Fine Gales ‘previous’ for their platform (the debris of history etc). From an angle the orange road sign info looks separated by the splash of green to create a Tricolour gone sideways.

John Bergers book on visual signifier ‘Ways of Seeing’ is widely known but one would not need to be familiar with its essays on de coding urban visual matter to appreciate the installation on the bridge ‘ Diversion end.’

Berger has said  that ‘Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream’. Observing Diversion end while sitting in traffic many may have speculated on the Sinn Fein green peeling from the Fine Gale face and thought of façades,  converging policy directions, Public image etc..

Paul Tarpey

A smoking hurley

I recently had occasion to speak to an old school English socialist party worker who was spending a few days in Limerick. He was intrigued with as he put it the ‘vulgar’ amount of election posters assaulting the senses on his way in from Shannon. Too true. After the last trip down this aisle there was some talk of a cutback  of the unnecessary volume of these toxic flags. This was not to be. Quirky media fillers from the last election showed images of houses and boats made from these tenacious oversized flyers relegating a ‘less is more’ argument straight to the wastebin. This time we now encounter a doubling of strained nervous plastic faces 1984-ing locals and tourists alike.

The visitor I spoke to registered the generic Fine Gael's campaign in particular. ‘Are the people in the back of the picture chasing the candidate?’ he wondered. "Also are all in that crowd white?". No but the design doesn't flag it. I had wondered about that poster myself. Are the models Irish or stock imagery? Because its the campaigns; ( the party and the design agency’s) decided image of how the Celtic tigers grown up children appear. They look quite conservative.

The whole soap opera encapsulated in these overbearing dioramas mean little to the youth of Thomondgate. Where these unbending placards haven't been burnt leaving melted gobs on the pavement they have been co-opted / initiated into the realm of the celtic tigers cousins (Hey cuz!). The people the design agencies don't have stock imagery for. The streets redesign now sees Fine Gael's Hurley properly attired and outfitted for a radical shift in the party's policy and you couldn't get fairer than that in a democracy.

Paul Tarpey

Wear Red

Photo owned by Luke Hoagland (cc)
March in solidarity with the victims of gangland crime today at 3.00 pm in Limerick. Assemble Pery's Square. Those in attendance are been asked to wear red. Full details here. In the past, marches in Limerick have surprised in terms of attendance. I expect this to be no different. Be there.

Rita and Benny

Paul Tarpey has a great piece on Adrian Sherwood in the Limerick Events guide this month. The dub warrior plays the Roots factory on Saturday May 30th. This anecdote caught my eye and is another link in a chain that we have looked at before here, notably the connection between the Irish and Jamaican communities:
Amongst these influences Sherwood remembers an interesting link between the Irish and Jamaican music he experienced from a small record shop in Stamford Hill.
“ It was called ‘R‘n’B’ after the owners Rita and Benny and people thought it stood for rhythm ‘n’ blues. They’d record Russian music off the radio and press it up. That little shop released the first Lonnie Donegan record, the first Jamaican record and the first Irish Record in England and the label said ‘Irish and Jamaican records together,’ because both communities were getting treated the same ( as immigrants) there was this link between them, they were drawn together because of their love of music, Irish and all this, on a label run by a Jewish couple!”
Full interview here

Shane

Know your City

Last Sunday Newstalk covered Limerick in their documentary series urban beauty, urban blight. The emphasis was definitely on the positive with contributions from the likes of Mary Coll, Jon Kenny, Denis Leonard and Shelia Deegan. There was a snappy vox pop bit at the start with people on the street defending the city strongly. Some interesting pointers as to future city direction including a reference to the need to create a real heart to the city and the suffocating issue that is the boundary extension. If you haven't much idea of the citys architectural development or indeed social geography it is worth a listen (click here). Just treat some of the hyperbole for what it is.
The newstalk documentary didn't look at anything much beyond the last thirty years, but there are interesting lessons to be learnt from further back too. Paul Tarpey, myself and the size2shoes duo were amongst a very healthy group of about fifty people who attended a walking tour of the key sites associated with the Limerick Soviet. This month marks the 90th anniversary of the Soviet and Labour historian Dominic Hough will conduct the tour again this Sunday as part of the commemorations. He will be joined by local playwright and actor Mike Finn. Definitely worth an hour of your time. There is also a number of other events happening. Check here for full details.
Sticking with industrial disputes and indeed republicans both of which are intertwined in the Soviet story, RTE recently rebroadcast the fascinating story of the Ferneka plant in Limerick. Interunion disputes, strikes and kidnapping  all feature. Listen back here.

Shane