The Literary Film Award for Singers - Oscar Wilde: Honouring Irish Writing In Film

The original Oscar Wilde award was handed out for poetry or even a play; now it is being awarded for film but this year it is been given to a singer, Van Morrison. So if we run through that again, the award associated with the playwright Oscar Wilde is been given to a singer for his contribution to film. What!! Is this a reflection on the merits of Irish Literature when its status is being sold to add weight to film or music?

Exit stage right - Irish theater manuscripts in America

The newly acquired Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Irish Theater will open to the public in the fall of 2006. Currently, the collection includes the work of 82 Irish playwrights and 10 Irish theater companies and numbers well over 1,000 items. Several major twentieth-century Irish playwrights were not included in this collection, such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats, because the Princeton Library already has extensive holdings. Here, again, is a perfect example of American intent and Irish willing to expect America to produce the stage for Irish theatre as it sees fit. What is important here is to note that the collection will grow, if and when Ireland produces any theatre of worth, and American academics will continue to present the Irish stage as they see fit.

Ireland never was Ireland to me - Naguib Mahfouz is dead

Naguib Mahfouz died on Wednesday, 30th of August, and I just found out about it this morning; is this a reflection of the esteem that arabic culture is held in in Ireland? Was there more coverage given to Günter Grass about his war time experience that the actual death of the author of the Cairo Triology because of attitudes in our country?