On The Town: Forget shamrocks and shillelaghs - the intention of the Forty Shades of Green exhibition at Dublin's Farmleigh Gallery is "to showcase the work of leading Irish practitioners in the fields of art and craft", explained Arts Council director Mary Cloake.
The show is not intended to represent anyone's concept of Ireland or to express a notion of Irish identity, she said.
"Art and craft occupy the same spectrum of creative endeavour and . . . the boundaries of the two are often blurred," added Cloake. "This is a groundbreaking initiative by the Crafts Council of Ireland, as it offers us all a welcome opportunity to interrogate the relationship between art and craft . . . Both artists and craftspeople are driven by a similar passion to create beauty and to enrich other people's lives through the enjoyment of what they create."
Among the contributors to the exhibition who attended the opening were wood-turner Roger Bennett, silversmith Kevin O'Dwyer, artists Rachel Joynt and Helena Gorey and sculptor Angela O'Kelly.
Artist Christine Mackey explained that her drawings are "to do with drawing rhythmically, drawing stitches rather than sewing the stitches. It's about pattern and time".
Maud Cotter, whose work is called Making Sense of Nonsense, said: "I was working with re-animating manufactured domestic objects . . . I was interested in the idea that objects you live with harbour residual emotions. There's always a hovering presence in them when people die and leave them."
The exhibition's curator, Brian Kennedy, and the Craft Council of Ireland's exhibitions programme manager, Vincent O'Shea, were both present at the opening. Seán Benton, chairman of the Office of Public Works; David Anderson, of Hillsborough Castle; and Frank X Buckley, board member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, were also there.
Forty Shades of Green was seen by 20,000 people when it opened last year in the Glucksman Gallery as part of Cork's Capital of Culture celebrations. The exhibition will tour Ireland later in the year and will go to Paris in 2007.
• Forty Shades of Green continues at Farmleigh Gallery until Mon, Apr 17. It shows in Portadown from Jul 25 until Sept 14, and later in Coleraine from Sep 25 to Oct 14
Campaigner ushers in year of intellectual adventure
Writers must be vigilant in the face of censorship. Those in power do not like to have any dissidence, said Lisa Appignanesi, a campaigner for freedom of speech, in Dublin this week.
Writers "need to stay vigilant . . . Power of any kind is all too willing to close down the possibilities of free expression, since restricting it helps the powerful feel as if they can keep their power immune from criticism", commented the London-based campaigner, critic and writer. "Freedom of expression is a right, and it's basic," she said. "If religious leaders had their way, we would have little literature, less art and no humour."
Appignanesi was the first guest to give a talk under the Arts Council Critical Voices initiative, a biennial programme of public debate about art, culture and ideas. This is the third in the Critical Voices series.
"It is designed to be an intellectually adventurous programme that reflects the current preoccupations and interests of those who participate in cultural life in Ireland," said journalist and critic Helen Meany, who is curating the year-long series in collaboration with Irish arts organisations.
The programme of more than 30 events around the country will provide "a springboard for discussion among those participating in the programme", said Meany. Among those at the opening lecture in the Critical Voices 3 series were Loughlin Deegan, of Rough Magic Theatre Company; Gráinne Millar, of Temple Bar Properties; Karen Fricker, of TCD's Institute for International Integration Studies; and Harry Browne, of DIT's School of Media Studies.
Artist Cecily Brennan, who is working towards a show at the Jetty Barracks Gallery in Helsinki at the end of the year, and writer James Ryan, who was just back from speaking at a New York conference on consumption and commodification, also joined the audience.
The programme "is really good, it's buzzing", said Ailbhe Smyth, head of UCD's Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre, who also attended Appignanesi's talk at the Royal Hibernian Academy Gallagher Gallery.
Further details: www.criticalvoices.ie
Life's tide taken at the flood
Friends gathered to marvel at the life and times of Finbarr Flood when he launched his memoir, In Full Flood, in Dublin's Mansion House. Flood's rise from messenger boy to managing director of the Guinness St James's Gate Brewery was "a phenomenal story", they agreed.
"He's quite extraordinary in that his career has spanned every level and he has done some very worthy service. His experience of business, when allied with his working class background, has given him great credibility with employers and with trade unionists," said Turlough O'Sullivan, director general of Ibec, who has known Flood for more than 20 years.
Flood's first cousin, broadcaster Gay Byrne, launched the book. "He was very much held in high regard by employers and trade unionists because of his fairness, his integrity and his compassion," he said.
Flood played professional football in Ireland, Wales and Scotland and is now chairman of Shelbourne FC. He also served on the Labour Court for 10 years, becoming its chairman in 1998. He is currently chairman of the Government's Decentralisation Implementation Group and of boards implementing the Fatima Mansions and St Michael's Estate regeneration plans.
"He was fundamentally a people person his whole life," said Kieran Mulvey, chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission. "He's a strong character and he would listen to people's arguments and, irrespective of the result, he would try to be fair to people. Also, his view was to ensure that the parties coming to the Labour Court had sufficient time to present their case."
Among those at the launch were Jimmy Somers, former president of Siptu; Willie Doyle, former president of Siptu's Guinness Brewery branch; Brendan Leahy, former chief executive of the Tourist Industry Federation and former director general of Fás; and Michael Cody, honorary secretary of the FAI.
In Full Flood, by Finbarr Flood, is published by Liberties Press
A prize to impress the family
Winning a literary prize is important, in particular for those starting out on the literary road who want to impress the family around Christmas time, said writer Colm Tóibín in a lighthearted address at the Gallery of Writers in Dublin this week.
He was welcoming the newly announced Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards, with five categories and a total prize fund of €45,000.
"But, within the family, being on the shortlist and losing might be better, because there's nothing that strengthens your resolve more," he added mischievously. And "there's always a lovely secret group who prefer the loser", added Tóibín, who will be on the award's 15-strong judging panel.
According to Martin Naughton, chairman of Glen Dimplex, the awards are aimed at new writers because the biggest need when starting out in business is the seed money and later the start-up funds.
"This is the point in a promising writer's career when the unprecedented support and exposure that these awards will give is most needed," said Cathal McCabe, director of the Irish Writers Centre.
Writers at the event included Jack Harte, Mary O'Donnell and Ronan Sheehan, as well as David Kiely and Christina McKenna, who have collaborated on a factual book, The Dark Sacrament: Exorcism in Ireland, which will be published by Gill & Macmillan in September.
Also in attendance were poets Anatoly Kudryavitsky and Iggy McGovern, writers Lynn Caldwell and Audrey Talbot, and publishers Antony Farrell (of Lilliput Press) and Lilian Chambers (of Carysfort Press).
Rachel Milotte, of Irish Academic Press, called in after an earlier launch next door at the Irish Writers Centre, where Eibhear Walshe's first book, about the writer Kate O'Brien, was celebrated.
According to Dr Maryann Valiulis, director of gender and women's studies at Trinity College Dublin, who launched Kate O'Brien: A Writing Life, Walshe gives readers "a sense of the complexities that surround Kate O'Brien . . . being from Limerick, from Ireland, but who found it difficult to live in her native country".
Milotte intends to enter Walshe's book in the new competition, she said.
• For details of the Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards, see www.newwritersawards.ie
• Kate O'Brien: A Writing Life, by Eibhear Walshe, is published by Irish Academic Press