LooseLeaves: Having his book, The Third Policeman, feature in the TV drama series, Lost, this week isn't the only spotlight falling on writer Flann O'Brien (Myles na gCopaleen/Brian O'Nolan).
He'll also be the subject of an Arts Lives documentary on RTÉ1 next month featuring his friend Anthony Cronin, poet Louis de Paor, academics Declan Kiberd and Alan Titley, O'Brien's brother Micheál Ó Nualáin and comedian and fan Tommy Tiernan. The voiceover is being done by another fan, actor Brendan Gleeson.
While some Irish writers live on mainly in academe, it seems that O'Brien has more of a living legacy. Ronan Ó Muirthile, producer of the documentary, made by Mint Productions, says one of the interesting things to emerge was that younger academics are now looking at his newspaper column, Cruiskeen Lawn, for The Irish Times, in a more analytical way.
"They're realising that there's much more substance to them than perhaps he was given credit for during his lifetime," says Ó Muirthile. Like Swift's pamphlets they were looked on as just journalism of the day, but "now they're seen very much as literature, an extension of his novel writing". Though there was very little archive footage of the writer to go on, the programme will feature an interview with Tim Pat Coogan and the famous film, shot by John Ryan, of the first Bloomsday recreation in 1954 on Sandymount Strand in which O'Brien, Cronin and Patrick Kavanagh took part (see photograph below).
A conference is also taking place at UCD to coincide with the 40th anniversary of O'Brien's death on April 1st, 1966. Organised by Jennika Pierie, speakers include Keith Hopper, senior scholar at Kellogg College, Oxford; Joseph Brooker, of Birkbeck College, University of London, whose book, Flann O'Brien, came out last year; Carol Taaffe, who teaches at Trinity College Dublin as well as at UCD and who is researching O'Brien's writing in the 1930s and 1940s; and Gregory Dobbins, of the University of California, Davis, who is working on a book on Irish modernism, decolonisation and the cultural politics of idleness, called Lazy Idle Schemers.
The conference takes place in the Newman Building (Arts) in Room A109 on the Belfield campus
Voices for our time
Bring on the thinkers - we need them now more than ever. They are listed - along with artists, writers and cultural commentators - among those coming to our shores over the next eight months as part of Critical Voices 3, the Arts Council's biennial programme to create a forum for public discussion of ideas and issues relating to art, culture and intellectual debate. The programme's curator, journalist and critic Helen Meany (right), says it is designed to reflect the current preoccupations of those participating in Irish cultural life.
Not surprisingly, art in a time of conflict is on the agenda. The kick-off event is a talk by writer, critic and freedom of speech campaigner Lisa Appignanesi on March 14th.
www.criticalvoices.ie
Eastern promise for writers
Irish writers are invited to apply for month-long residencies this summer in Riga, in Latvia, and Koper, in Slovenia, as part of the Sealines project to create a literary and multimedia portrait of six European ports with a tradition of literary bilingualism. The other cities are Galway, Cardiff, Helsinki and Valletta. It's an initiative of Literature Across Frontiers, an EU-funded programme at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales. Galway Arts Centre's Maura Kennedy says it is about exploring how languages such as Maltese, Latvian, Finnish, Welsh, Slovenian and Irish are faring within the linguistic melting pot of Europe.
The centre is looking for two writers resident in Ireland to take part. Those interested should have at least one publication to their name and must propose a project. Writers with Irish, visual arts or multimedia skills are especially welcome. The deadline for submissions is Friday.
Details: maura@galwayartscentre.ie or www.lit-across-frontiers.org