Art under the hammer: Auctioneer John de Vere White - gavel at the ready - kicked off proceedings at St Michael and John's Church in Temple Bar, Dublin, on Tuesday night. Rooks in a Storm, by Elizabeth Magill, going at €4,400, was the first painting to sell at the art auction.
"Give that person a round of applause," said de Vere White after a slow start. Thirty per cent of the money raised through the sale of 84 new paintings by Irish and international artists goes to Aware, the charity that helps people with depression.
A painting by the Ireland-based Austrian artist, Gottfried Helnwein (who hosted Marilyn Manson's wedding in his Co Tipperary castle last weekend), sold for €8,000 and one by John Shinnors went for €7,200.
"Each artist was asked to do what represented themselves best currently," said co-curator Noel Kelly, of Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBGS), about the commissioning policy for A Moment in Time: New Paintings. Each piece measures 30cm x 40cm.
"We conceived this as a serious painting exhibition, intending to give an overview of the current directions and trends in contemporary painting," said co-curator Marian Lovett, also of TBGS.
Artist Margaret Tuffy said her painting, Blue Strike, was "about the light and the stone and the environment that I was in at that time in Inis Oirr".
Artist David Godbold, whose painting was of a skull comprised of skulls, was at the opening with fellow artist Finola Jones, who recently opened a gallery called Mother's Tankstation in Watling Street, Dublin 8.
Some artists at the auction preferred to stand "like the non-believers at the back of the church", said artist Desmond Shortt. Among those hoping to bid was Mark Mulqueen, director of the Irish Film Institute, and his wife, Breda Gleeson.
Among the crowd, batik artist Bernadette Madden, whose own Christmas Present exhibition opens today in her studio on Dublin's Haddington Road, was joined by her friends, Paul Moloney, of Axa Insurance, and his wife, Pauline Wheatley, for the bidding.
A Moment in Time: New Paintings runs at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios until Sat, Jan 7
Crowding round Ireland's first ombudsman
Faces in the room included a former president, a former taoiseach and a former Labour Party deputy leader and minister: Dr Paddy Hillery, Dr Garret FitzGerald and Barry Desmond. They were among those who crowded into the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on Wednesday night to pay tribute to Michael Mills at the launch of his book, Hurler on the Ditch: Memoir of a Journalist who Became Ireland's First Ombudsman.
Mills was "the doyenne of the pol corrs [political correspondents]," said the broadcaster and academic, Prof Brian Farrell, recalling Mills's career as a journalist in the 1960s and 1970s. His appointment as Ireland's first ombudsman in 1984 "wasn't just a tribute to Michael Mills, it was a tribute to journalism - but what a journalist".
"He is a man of great skill and courage, integrity and capacity, coolness and justice," added Farrell. "He was very serious, very accurate . . . He didn't go for the quick kill and also he was very respected by the politicians, from Lemass onwards. He was 40 years at the game."
"He was fair, thoughtful and very thorough," said FitzGerald. "He really did his work and he was never political; he wrote quite objectively. We all had a great regard for him."
Others who came to salute Mills included film-maker and lecturer Muiris Mac Conghail, who was editor of RTÉ's flagship current affairs programme, Seven Days, in the 1970s; Joe Fahy, former RTÉ political correspondent; and Michael Butler, formerly of Teagasc and a Co Laois man like Mills. Also at the launch were Mícheál Ó hUanacháin, editor of the monthly literary and current affairs magazine, Comhar, and Brian Mac Aongusa, a former controller of programmes at RTÉ Radio 1 and the first chief executive of Gael Linn, whose book, Broken Rails, was recently published.
Hurler on the Ditch: Memoir of a Journalist Who Became Ireland's First Ombudsman, by Michael Mills, is published by Currach Press
A journey of textures
The music of Handel, Charpentier and Tchaikovsky, plus a new piece by John Dexter, director of the Goethe- Institut Choir, featured at a concert in Dublin on Monday night. Hilariter, the new seven-minute work, "explores some of the beauties, contrasts and mysteries of God's creation . . . The listener is taken on a journey of textures", Dexter explained.
The premiere took place at the choir's 40th anniversary concert in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Dexter split the choir into two for the piece, which features trombone played by Stephen Mathieson.
Dexter confessed to being excited in advance of the concert, and among the choir, which has close to 60 members, many were also excited at the prospect of performing the work for the first time.
"I've come to love Hilariter. It's ordered. Everything sounds chaotic, but it's level," said Dr Matthias Müller-Wieferig, director of the Goethe-Institut, who decided to join the choir after he had listened to the members practising.
Margo McKay, the choir's chairwoman, who has been a member for the past 24 years, said that as well as Dexter's new piece, she loves Te Deum, by the French composer, Charpentier.
"It's very joyful and it's very well-known," she said. "It's the Eurovision signature tune and it has beautiful solo pieces."
The choir, which was founded by the late Cait Lanigan Cooper, who died in 1998, has always followed her custom of "marking major events with commissioned works", explained McKay.
Hilariter, which was commissioned by the choir, "is gorgeous, it's very eerie", said writer and alto singer Siobhán Parkinson, whose next book, Something Invisible, is due out in January.
Backstage, tenors Richard Cooper and Patrick Byrne were both looking forward to the event.
"It's important to be in a choral group because sometimes, feeling homesick, you can get a lot of comfort in the music," said fellow chorister, soprano Doris Strömich, from Germany.
What science fiction looks like
Dancers and choreographers gathered happily in the foyer of Project in Dublin's Temple Bar on Wednesday night after the latest Irish Modern Dance Theatre (IMDT) production.
Choreograper Chris Yon's style was "quirky" and the piece had "a lateral way of approaching choreography and great new perspectives", said Mary Brady, artistic director of the Institute for Choreography and Dance.
"I loved it, it was so original," said the dancer and assistant artistic director at the Monkstown-based College of Dance, Ester Ó Brolacháin. "John was so expressive. His changes of expression were very effective."
"It started out like science fiction, and what does that look like?" said Yon, co-creator with the dancers of RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrKILLKILLKILL . . . to infinity (MAKE IT LOOK REAL).
"These are themes that I've been developing, especially about memory and invented futures," said Yon. But, he added, "the concept of the piece takes a back-seat to the brilliance of the performances", pointing in particular to the presence of Jeanine Durning, a star in the US, and Taryn Griggs, who will return to New York shortly to continue dancing.
"They are like machines and supreme artists," Yon said.
Many in the audience also loved the role of the toastmaster in the piece, played by Sebastiao Mpembele Kamalandua, from Angola.
John Scott, founder of IMDT, said the part he loved dancing most was "my monologue where we describe my five-year-old self, my present self and my 50-year-old self".
There were other issues in the air too: Olive Braiden, chairwoman of the Arts Council, who was "recovering from the worry of the Budget", said she was "happy" that the artists' tax exemption had been retained but "disappointed" that it will now be capped.
Singer and actor Camille O'Sullivan came along to meet friends, having just been upstairs to see Titus Andronicus, which also closes tonight. O'Sullivan, who is one of the stars of the new film, Mrs Henderson Presents, with Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins and Will Young, also played Lola Montez in the Hidden History film screened this week on RTÉ. Meanwhile, publicist Nick Costello said he was off to Belfast the next day for the gala opening of the long-awaited film of the CS Lewis work, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrKILLKILLKILL . . . to infinity (MAKE IT LOOK REAL) closes tonight