Irish, But Not As New York Knows It: Irish Theatre in NY, 2008

First published: The Irish Times, December 17, 2008
YOU’RE IN A MIDTOWN Manhattan theatre. It’s the opening night of an Irish musical comedy about espionage and intrigue during World War II. Around you in the audience are some people who’ve seen the show before – in Ireland or in Edinburgh – and some who haven’t. [...]

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Review: Righteous Kill

ROBERT DE NIRO and Al Pacino seem to have been circling the same territory for decades, gurning and glowering their way through twin lifetimes of a method acting. And yet they have scarcely once shared the same screen.
In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather IIcast them both as Corleones, but kept them (as is perhaps [...]

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Review: Fiona Sampson, Common Prayer

First Published: The Irish Times, January 26, 2008
‘I lob stones,” says the speaker in Messaien’s Piano, the opening poem in Fiona Sampson’s Common Prayer (Carcanet). In a collection intensely preoccupied with the challenges of form, with its fragile yet dogged conditions, the stones suggest stanzas and syllables; the act of lobbing them, poetry itself.
And about [...]

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