As Minister for Arts and Culture, Catherine Martin is no stranger to formally opening art exhibitions.
But Tuesday evening’s ministerial gig was a formal opening with a difference – the paintings were by her husband.
Politicians decamped from Leinster House to the other side of Merrion Square to view the work of Francis Noel Duffy, the Green TD for Dublin South West. Among the attendance at the packed launch in the Irish Architectural Archive were Catherine’s Cabinet colleagues Norma Foley, Eamon Ryan and Heather Humphreys, along with Minister of State Malcolm Noonan and the Attorney General, Rossa Fanning.
Francis is an architect and an accomplished artist. He first began exhibiting 30 years ago, although work and family life saw him step back from his easel in recent years. His wife persuaded him to return to his passion and Into the Light is the result.
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“I am here, of course, not only as a Minister but as a proud wife,” she said, describing his paintings of lighthouses “as a fusion of his skills as an architect and talent as an artist”.
The exhibition “is the first one since our children came along” and she pointed to Turlough, Tadhg and Stella, who were on hand to greet people as they arrived.
“My dad was an artist and I remembered fondly watching as a child as he transformed a blank canvas into something extraordinary. Lovely that our children have seen their dad do the same,” she said, adding that last Sunday, with the show ready to open, Noel Francis told her that he used some of her father’s brushes to paint the lighthouses.
“This meant a lot to me.”
Deputy Duffy, who has always been drawn to cubism, told guests: “I would love to talk about my journey of learning, which includes the qualities of egg tempera, gesso birch ply panels, the frames I have refurbished, the investigation and challenge of how one paints water, wind, clouds, rocks, flora and fauna, the psychology of cubism and my love of light and shade in portraits. But this will bore you to tears, so I hope the work will speak to that.”
He thanked his wife for convincing him a year ago to start painting seriously again. While their children have witnessed their parents running in national and local elections “this is the first time they have seen me paint, as they have heard Catherine sing”.
There triggered a panicky interjection from the Minister.
“Not tonight!”
Paschal the Billie boy
Ciarán Cannon, the Fine Gael TD for Galway East who is bowing out of national politics at the next election, has branched out into broadcasting.
He recently began hosting a weekly music show on Loughrea Community Radio called the Grey Lake Cafe.
It’s all very mellow. “A light night move to a special place where music moves you in many ways,” says the blurb.
He introduced a new element to the Thursday night programme this week called Music that Moves. It’s a tried and tested format where a guest talks about music in their life and chooses three songs which have special meaning for them.
Paschal Donohoe was his first guest. The Minister for Public Expenditure will go anywhere to talk about music. The only time he won’t go anywhere to talk about music is when he has to be somewhere else to talk about books.
On the show, Ciarán bravely revealed that the first album he ever bought was the Bee Gees greatest hits.
Paschal mused on the meaning of music to him. “It’s such an important part of my personality and what I am, outside of politics.”
The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, along with Nirvana, were a defining feature of his teenage years.
“The very height of personal wealth that I would have had as a teenager was being able to buy a book and an album in the same week when I’d been working with my dad over the summer and saving every cent,” recalled Paschal, who never frittered away his teenage money on stupid stuff.
For him, the joy of music is “when the song words and the melody come together. And even when I don’t know what the words mean, they just touch something in you and they create a snag in your heart and in your soul. That’s a mark of great music for me.”
Two of his musical choices came from way back in 1988 – Fisherman’s Blues by The Waterboys and When Love Comes to Town by BB King and U2.
The Minister’s final choice was bang up to date with Billie Eilish’s “What was I made for?”.
“I’ve always been a really big fan of Billie Eilish,” said the chair of the Ecofin group.
Her Glastonbury performance in 2022 “was one of the most extraordinary performances I’ve seen on stage in recent years from a new modern artist who was about to become a global superstar. I think she is simply an extraordinary musician.”
A long way from Tipperary
The billboard ads are going up around the country introducing voters to a delightful array of candidates seeking election to the European Parliament next month.
An enormous one appeared this week in Longford town on a very prominent site at the side of a building on Main Street.
“John Mullins for Europe” it trumpets from its prime location above the Grooming Spa doggie pampering emporium. Can’t miss it. And there’s John, looking for the number one, smiling his big Fine Gael smile with the hair nicely coiffed and an EU flag behind him.
John is a long way from home. But then, Brussels is a long way from Castlemartyr in Cork and any fella who wants to become an MEP must be willing to travel.
The Longford Leader, concerned it might have found a stray, contacted Fine Gael headquarters. Last time they checked, the town is in the constituency of Midlands North-West.
“We knew John Mullins’s campaign would go far and wide, but we didn’t think it would extend into Longford,” responded a spokesperson. “John Mullins’s campaign will be remaining in the Ireland South constituency from here on. Voters in Longford will see numerous posters of their hard-working MEP Maria Walsh from next week on.”
Oops.
Meanwhile, on Fine Gael’s domestic election front, Senator Garret Ahearn lost out to Clonmel councillor Michael Murphy in Monday night’s selection convention for Tipperary South. This came as a big surprise to many observers as Ahearn, whose national media profile has increased in recent months, was seen as the party’s preferred candidate and tipped to get the nod.
But the delegates in Cashel’s Halla na Feilé didn’t get the message. They backed long-serving councillor Murphy by a decisive 246 votes to 214. It is unlikely that Ahearn, who is also based in Clonmel, will be added to the ticket in the new three-seater as the all-important 2Gs (gender and geography) are not in his favour.
The former mayor of Clonmel appeared on Tipp FM’s flagship Fran Curry Show on the morning after his win. “There is so much emotion in me right now,” declared the candidate designate following “an incredible night”.
After running an intensive three week campaign, he was “exhausted”.
Cllr Murphy credited his victory to his election track record, Fine Gael roots, extensive family connections in the county and 15 years on the county council.
Not forgetting his personable nature.
“The likeability factor. I think people like Michael Murphy,” he told listeners. “Michael Murphy is an optimist.”
Could there be a split in the FG organisation in the wake of what was being described as “a political earthquake in Tipperary” wondered Curry?
“Fine Gael is united behind the candidacy of Michael Murphy,” he stressed. “It’s all in for Michael Murphy now.”
In the course of the interview, Councillor What’s His Name Again? referred to himself in the first person almost 20 times.
Not a great habit to get into but still an all “we’d prefer the self-referring Michael Murphy than the self-revering Garret Ahearn” was how one local cynic put it to us afterwards.
Politics is a tough game in South Tipp.
Poignant memories of a peace process reporter
There was a poignant but joyful service and celebration of the life of former BBC political editor Stephen Grimason at Drumbeg parish church on the outskirts of south Belfast earlier this week.
Stephen, of course, is the man who famously broke the story of the Belfast Agreement on Good Friday in 1998, holding up a copy of the deal and declaring to the camera outside Stormont Buildings: “I have it in my hand!”
One mourner described the service as “a big convocation of peace process hacks” who gathered with lots of memories and anecdotes from those heady days.
The service was conducted by a relaxed Rev Willie Nixon, with Stephen’s close friend and former Sky journalist Gary Honeyford delivering the eulogy and also acting as a sort of master of ceremonies for the more secular parts of the service.
Right to the end, Stephen had a wicked sense of humour and his friends and former colleagues recalled them with affection on the day.
But the best and the boldest line came from his son Chris, who spoke about how, in the final days of his dad’s long illness, he tentatively brought up what should be done with his ashes.
“Put a spoonful in Jim Allister’s cornflakes,” shot back a dying Stephen, who in his time would have had his fair share of clashes with the prickly leader of the TUV.
It brought the house down.
You say tomato ...
The Tánaiste gave up salt 30 years ago.
“I worked in a bakery as a student and I could see the salt going into the mix – buckets of salt going into it, you know, so salt is in everything we eat.”
The man who introduced the smoking ban in Ireland is all for reducing the amount of salt in our food. Maybe some government might be able to do it in the future, he hopes.
“I’m fascinated with food and I’ve read a few books on it and so on,” Micheál Martin tells Prof Luke O’Neill in the latest episode of his In Conversation podcast series.
“Is it true that roasted tomato or grilled tomato is one of the healthiest things you could have? I really drive people mad when I say things like this to them: eat a tomato, that’s far better for you.”
If we want to eat healthier food, Luke told him that “a good line to use is you should eat food that is recognisable as food”.
“A great line,” agreed Micheál.
“Does honey help the immune system?”
“Absolutely, that’s a great thing,” replied Luke.
“Thank you!” gushed the Fianna Fáil leader on behalf of himself and all our antibodies.
“And they say the honey in your localities is the best. I call into the English Market in Cork every week for my jar of honey and a few other things as well.”
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