10 | The Tuam Herald ARTS NEWS & REVIEWS Thursday, January 28, 2010 A comedown for Charlie HIS time last year it tried to get an interview with Dan on the international map but there seemed a dream overseas Rooney, the new US Ambassador to seems little chance of poor Charlie posting for a man like PAT HOWLEY’S Ireland but couldn’t find him in the ever managing something similar. TCharlie Bird. He had just crowd as Charlie didn’t know what In the course of the year, Charlie OMNIBUSOMNIBUS taken up his prestigious Mr Rooney looked like. When some received permission to visit appointment as RTE’s Washington official or other eventually made Guantanamo Bay in Cuba but he A WEEKLY MISCELLANY Correspondent in the run-up to the TV COMMENT contact with the ambassador, the wasn’t allowed to film anything of heady days before President word that came back to Charlie was significance, not even the sea, and Obama’s inauguration. He would one recalls that the likeable Charlie I felt sorry for Charlie on a polite but adamant refusal, and no matter how he framed his be there when the most had been the RTE star of the show Monday night, on his own in a city that was that. questions, nobody would tell him A ffrench woman in charismatic and most quotable of during his years in Montrose. Now with the reputation of being one of His only real break throughout anything. He did better when he presidents since Kennedy stepped “a Washington nobody” — his own the most impersonal in the world, the entire year came with a phone travelled to a small town in West out to lead America, a magical time description — he had been a big and he has come to hate the place. call from the State Dept that Virginia to meet Lynndie England, Czarist Russia of hope and promise for a new fish in Dublin where he knew As he said, he was mad to take on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a soldier involved in the previously Camelot, a unique and lofty everybody and could come up with the American job and, obviously, was prepared to give him an mentioned Abu Ghraib prisoner HE Tribes of Galway were a varied lot. Of the 14, occasion when the eyes of the a newsworthy quote from anyone has bitten off more than he could interview and the news was a great abuse who was given a two-year some have disappeared completely — when did you entire world would be focussed on merely by lifting a phone. He had chew. He’s a home bird and the boost. Strangely, nothing from the jail term and a dishonourable last meet an Athy or a Font? Others, like the Lynches ‘DC’, and Charlie was at hand at a broken some of the biggest stories Montrose roost was never as interview was included on discharge from the army. She Tand the Blakes, propagated themselves around the time when honeyed words and of the Troubles, with George Lee he attractive. Monday’s documentary despite didn’t want to meet Charlie in the county and the world. sugary phrases were again all the had reported on the National Irish Now pushing 60, he feels he was Charlie thinking he had turned the trailer park where she now lives. And then there were the ffrenches. They, like the Blakes, fashion. Except, for Charlie Bird, Bank offshore accounts story and too old for the job and never seems Washington corner, only he hadn’t. The measure of her unpopularity cropped up in several locations around the county, one of the that’s not how it was at all. had been central to Beverly Flynn’s to have fully embraced his new Isn’t it all a far cry from the became evident when Charlie and most significant being the village of Monivea. His RTE predecessor in failed libel action against RTE. And responsibilities. From being a success of one of Charlie’s Lynndie were thrown out of the Every so often you’ll hear the claim that Monivea has the Washington, Robert Shortt, had now in Washington, his career has media darling in Dublin, it predecessors, Carole Coleman, in restaurant in which they were widest street in Europe. It doesn’t really stand up, because alerted him to some of the pitfalls gone pear-shaped but, to his credit, bothered him that in the US nobody the Washington job? Her one-to-one conducting the interview and they what divides one side of Monivea from the other is a more a and Charlie was quickly to he is offering some insight into the gave a “flying fiddler” who he was. interview in the library of the had little choice other than lawn, intersected by roadways. appreciate the truth of what he had reasons why. By his own admission, he has White House with President continue their chat in Charlie’s car. This was originally laid out by the local landlord, a ffrench been told. I always thought Shortt On his appointment he had been struggled to cope but that has been George W Bush on the eve of his She receives nothing from the whose name escapes me just now, but who wanted to improve hit the Washington nail on the head optimistic and was quoted as obvious to viewers for months. 2004 visit to Ireland was a special army and nothing from anyhwere the value of his estate and the lot of his tenants by some years earlier when he jibed looking forward to seeing how With little or no backup, he did coup. She began by asking Bush did else either and in a State where the establishing a linen industry. The greens were to be used to “If you want a friend in America would like him, and vice his best but failed to get an it bother him that the Irish people ownership of a gun is the most bleach the material. Washington, get a dog”. In the first versa. He had barely arrived when interview with President Obama on did not want to see him because of coveted of rights — as Charlie That is part of the legacy left to Monivea by the ffrenchs. part of the two-part Charlie Bird’s he began to have misgivings and as the occasion of the visit by the unpopularity of the war in Iraq discovered when talking to some of Another is the Norman tower, all that remains of the big American Year, poor Charlie had Robert Shortt was showing him Taoiseach Brian Cowen for St and the Abu Ghraib scandal. the locals — Lynndie’s only regret house. And there is the mausoleum, hidden in the woods, no dog. Neither has he the around RTE’s surprisingly grotty Patrick’s Day. He succeeded in Bush didn’t like Coleman’s line is that she can never again do so. which contains the mortal remains of the last two consolation of a successful year Washington office, Charlie became getting into the Oval Office as part of questioning one little bit, but she There’s another part of Charlie’s generations of the family. because his overseas stint to date aware that he would be living and of the media posse but apart from a continued with queries as to his programme still to come, probably That peculiar stone has been less than inspiring and working in a city in which he didn’t shouted question, which he was to reasons for invading Iraq when it next Monday, and the Lynndie building, built to resemble has prompted little other than the know a soul. As the year wore on discover is not the done thing in was subsequently discovered that England piece was the best of what a keep, is usually under tongue-in-cheek query “Has anyone he became miserable and lonely the First Residence, he got nothing. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of Charlie had to offer this week. lock and key. But in a seen Charlie?” and it was the loneliness, especially It was even worse when, at a mass destruction after all. The From his year in America, wasn’t it couple of weeks’ time, on All of which is amazing when at weekends, that really got to him. glittering Washington function, he Coleman/Bush interview put RTE a poor enough return? Sunday February 7, it will be open to visitors to mark a very significant event. This is the launch of a book which looks to have all the hallmarks of a fascinating read. The Odd Couple gets a woman’s touch An Irish Woman in Czarist Russia is the story of Kathleen ffrench, daughter of Robert Percy ffrench of Monivea Castle HE Neil Simon classic The concert will include on sale at €15 each. For booking and Sophie Alexandrovna Kindiakova of Simbirsk on the comedy The Odd Couple performances by the Junior, and further information contact banks of the mighty Volga. (Simbirsk is now named will be seen in a female Intermediate and Senior orchestras Cancer Care West on 091-545000 or Ulyanovsk in memory of its most famous son, Vladimir Tversion this weekend. under the direction of their visit www.cancercarewest.ie Ulyanov, alias Lenin.) Abbeyknockmoy’s drama group conductors Michael Dooley, Joanne Robert Percy was a diplomat in the British foreign service Abbey Acts are busy in final Cater and Peter Berrill. and Sophie was from an old landowning family which had rehearsals for the comedy made This will be Peter Berrill’s first NUIG’s Hope for served in the Czar’s armies for generations. Although they famous by the hit movie with Jack concert conducting the GYO did not know it, they were among the last of their class to Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Juniors. Peter, from Headford, like Haiti concert enjoy the luxuries and privileges of the gentry, and their The ladies’ version of the play his fellow conductors is well known SOME of Tuam’s finest young daughter was to see the Bolsheviks confiscate her Russian carries the comedy of the in music circles in Co Galway talent will combine forces to raise estates. mismatched roommates to a whole having been music director in funds for Goal’s relief work in Born in 1864, Kathleen enjoyed a childhood of riding about new level. many theatre productions. Haiti. The Coonics and The Ralphs the family lands seated in front of her grandfather on his Newly separated from her GYO Seniors will play in the will play on Tuesday February 2 in horse. She travelled Europe with her mother, whose husband, obsessive compulsive Irish Aviation Authority Festival the NUIG College Bar at 9 pm. behaviour was becoming more and more erratic, and at her Florence Unger decides to move of Youth Orchestras in the National The Tuam bands will be joined father’s bidding she visited Monivea, with which she fell in into the home of divorcée Olive BRIAN Kelly of So Cow — in Concert Hall in Dublin on Saturday by Gentleman’s Get Together and love, writing to her Russian grandparents “I am still Madison, currently enjoying the Browne’s Woolstore in Tuam. February 13 and the audience in comedian Stephan Bennet for what entranced with Monivea, and think I could quite happily slovenly life of a single female. the Black Box will have an promises to be a great night. spend my whole life there”. When their worlds collide, the Cow, performing in their home opprtunity to hear their rendition Tickets at the door, €5. She did not, of course, and she ended her days in Harbin, story explodes in this laugh-out- town for the first time as a full of Smetena’s beautiful piece from China in 1938, having lost almost everything she had once loud comedy. band, the night also features Ma Vlast the Moldau which is part owned. But there was enough money to have her body Judging from the group’s performances by local power-pop of their NCH programme. KENNETH Webb in Kennys. Sleep Furiously for shipped back to Ireland to lie in the mausoleum she had had inaugural production of the The recently shown RTE series built in 1896 to house her father’s coffin. And this is what will hilarious farce June Groom a mere about the music programmes in St. seeing the master at work. one night at THT be open for a few hours on February 7. seven months ago, a wonderful THE HERALD Agnes’ and St. Ultan’s Primary Other artists taking part in the SLEEP FURIOUSLY is a film, set in The story of how Kathleen’s biography came to be written night of entertainment is Schools in Dublin shows the value series include Maria van Kampen, a small farming community in mid began in the Guinness brewery in Dublin. That is where the guaranteed. This time, a whole new of instrumental teaching and Jerry Marjoram, Jim McKee, Grace Wales, which explores a landscape young Jean McMurtry met her husband to be, John set of faces takes to the stage with orchestral playing in the Cunningham and Ben Maile. and lifestyle strangely familiar to Lombard. The couple ended up in Australia, where John many of the Abbey Acts summer ARTS development of young people. Commenting on the initiative, the Irish viewer. worked as a journalist for the performers working behind the Galway Youth Orchestra has been Conor Kenny of The Kenny Gallery The film, presented by Galway Australian Broadcasting scenes. central in the provision of music said, “We have had a close Film Society on Tuesday February Corporation (ABC). They spent So, if you want to escape from NOTES playing opportunities for young association with Cancer Care West 2 at 8.15 pm, takes us on a poetic three years in South East Asia the winter blues and have a people from both city and county for many years now. We intend and profound journey into a world when John was correspondent guaranteed night of laughter why sensations The Ralphs, Donegal’s for almost 28 years and this concert that this series is just the beginning of endings and beginnings, where there, and then went on to not come along. punk rock titans Rural Savage and will give their audience a chance to of this sort of initiative on behalf of old ways are rapidly disappearing, Moscow in 1988, just when the The Odd Couple plays Friday the grindcore insanity of see young players at their best. Cancer Care West. The calibre of yet hope springs eternal. Soviet Union was beginning to January 29 and Saturday 30 in Claregalway’s Bahfiddle. artists we have gathered is superb “This film is pure cinema: open up under Gorbachev’s Abbeyknockmoy Community So Cow will play selections from Kenneth Webb and Kenneth Webb is the ultimate visually alert, brilliantly musical, policy of glasnost. Centre, at 8.30 pm. Tickets are last year’s debut LP So Cow as well artist to set the scene for the and moving in the way it captures Before arriving in Moscow AUTHOR Jean Lombard. available from O’Donohoe’s Spar, as tunes from forthcoming LP programme.” time passing and lives lost” — they spent a few weeks in Abbeyknockmoy, The Woodside Meaningless Friendly. The three- paints at Kennys Richard Flaherty of Cancer Care Mark Cousins, author of Imagining Dublin where John’s mother, a cousin of Kathleen ffrench, Bar, Monivea, and at the door on piece plan shows for North West expressed his appreciation to Reality and The Story of Film. mentioned letters she written to her Irish relatives during the night. Photos on Page 6. America and Europe later in the for charity The Kenny Gallery. “We are hugely Admission is €8/€6 (concession). the Russian Revolution. year. Entry is €5 and the first band THE Kenny Gallery will host a grateful for the support and Jean brought the letters to Moscow, and eventually she and starts at 9.30 sharp. series of art demonstrations in interest shown by Kennys in the a journalist friend, Masha Kiseleva, went to Ulyanovsk to see Bizarre, noisy association with Cancer Care West work we do here at Cancer Care Tuam artist to if they could find out any more about Kathleen ffrench. throughout 2010. West. We have been very lucky to They found a treasure trove of letters and records, and bands for Tuam Youth Orchestra The series will begin with a have such wonderful artists show in Dublin from this grew the book which looks as though it will be a THIS Friday night at the Woolstore demonstration by artist Kenneth contributing their expertise to our ARTIST JoJo Hynes, a stalwart of cracker. There are tales of imprisonment by the Bolshiviks, in Browne’s of Tuam four of the concert Webb on Saturday January 30 at 2 efforts.” the Tuam Arts Festival, has a one- months driving through Siberia and Mongolia in search of most bizarre, noisy, interesting and GALWAY Youth Orchestra will pm. Almost 60 years after he first There will be a limit of 110 woman show in the Ivy House, 114 her missing lover, and the building of that extraordinary fun groups currently going get give its first concert of the decade sold a painting in Kenny’s, the tickets for each demonstration and Upper Drumcondra Road, opening mausoleum. Jean and John Lombard will be in Monivea for together. in the Black Box Theatre, Galway Kenny Gallery has the pleasure of all proceeds will go directly to on February 11. More news next the launch in the Fr Sammon Centre, and I look forward to Headlined by Tuam’s own So on Saturday, January 30 at 8 pm. offering this unique opportunity of Cancer Care West. The tickets are week. meeting them there. — David Burke Dark deeds in dastardly Dublin, and a nasty dose

WINTERLAND mill debasement and the low lifes are and detail and paves the way for a good sniping skills he learned growing up in By Alan Glynn TONY GALVIN’S simply that, not fiendishly clever old-fashioned yarn about a man who the woods to work on the side of the lived life to the full for the century or FABER & FABER €16 megalomaniacs out to take over the miners. universe. more he’s been on this earth. Naturally, this doesn’t make him too H what a tangled web we BOOKSHELF Waterland worked for me. It tips Trenchmouth is named after the popular with the authorities and the weave... could have been a along at a fair pace and even at its most condition he suffers from. A deformity coal bosses so he goes to ground in the suitable sub-title to Alan outlandish it’s believable which in this of the mouth and gums which renders Appalachians for years. OGlynn’s thriller Winterland We don’t get to find out for a while sister Gina who can’t accept that it’s overloaded genre where authors his orifice a toxic and ugly gash. You He uses his apprenticeship as an which is set against a backdrop of because the right man with the right coincidence that two members of her compete for the limited attention span probably know the condition as outlaw to good used when he takes to shady political dealings, dodgy name, Noel Rafferty, is found dead in a family named Noel (the toerag is a of jaded armchair psychopaths is high Vincent’s stomatitis or acute the newspaper business. This is not as property deals and murder in ditch soon after. nephew), are killed on the one night. praise indeed. necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis. OK, I incongruous as it may seem as while noughties Dublin. The first Noel Rafferty is not much of At Noel toerag’s funeral Gina meets googled it to see if it was real and it his early years were difficult, having to Hang on, don’t turn off. It’s not as a loss to society but the second is to his his gang boss, The Electrician (don’t turns out it is and the trench mouth tag suffer the torments of school mates and bad as it sounds. In fact it’s remarkably ask), and starts the long and torturous THE BALLAD OF exists because it became common local wiseacres because of his good. Quare goings on in Dublin have road to find out what happened to her TRENCHMOUTH TAGGART among solders in the trenches of the condition, he had a remarkable almost replaced those dreadful “one brother, and to a much lesser extent By Glenn Taylor WWI — along with trench foot. relationship with his stepmother who more killing in memory of Fr Seamus” Abandoned by his natural mother, her nephew. BLUE DOOR €15 appreciated the value of education and style thriller which were one of the less Fleshing out the plot is a major who saw him as the spawn of the devil instilled in him a love of learning. attractive aspects of the Troubles. property developer, Paddy Norton, A BALLAD, my dictionary tells me, is a and tried to drown him, he’s saved and His wilderness years appealed to me The Peace dividend has thankfully who’s in cahoots with a man set to narrative song with a recurrent adopted by a widow who makes a living most as the author has a feel for the been extended to thriller readers and become the next Taoiseach. Naturally, refrain. The Ballad of Trenchmouth distilling superior outdoor life and his many of the worst Troubles tat both have all kinds of secrets they don’t Taggart is an ear bending narrative moonshine in the hills of admiration for the producers have been decommissioned, want out but how far are they willing to and the recurrent refrain is the hard West Virginia. She also mountain man’s lifestyle is typewriters put beyond use with some go to keep them in? Well, you may ask. man for the hard road. When it comes takes in another stray, a in pleasant contrast to the of the worst offending authors At this stage you either abandon the to traditional storytelling, this is as girl three years older than traditional depiction of morphing into politicians with no story or go with it and it’s a fair good as it gets. Trenchmouth. drooling, inbred hillbillies. further need of book earnings. reflection on the author’s skill at We first meet the hero of this ballad, Born in 1903, he comes of I feared at first that this It’s not giving the game away to say baiting the lure that by the first few Trenchmouth Taggart, when a age at a time when coal was going to develop into that the story begins when a Dublin hit chapters I was in for the long haul. journalist is sent to interview him as miners are banding the tale of Forrest Gump’s man allows a lapse in quality control Glynn has the ability to make those he’s the oldest man in Virginia. He together in an effort to wayward brother but this and takes out the wrong man. Right involved in high level skulduggery settles the young reporter down and reform the medieval character is far too tough, name, wrong man. Sure it could sound so ordinary but yet very warns him that the story he will hear systems they’re forced out smart and world-weary to happen to any of us. But this still leaves believable. Developer Norton is may not be to his liking but it’s the only of poverty to work under. be taken for anyone’s fool the right man and why would anyone addicted to pain killers and even with one he has. And so it begins, like all This is Joe Hill territory or to think life was a box of want to kill a harmless engineer all his connections finds it difficult to great epics, at the beginning. and when the conflict chocolates. This is a great working on Dublin’s first mega get his prescription renewed. This simple literary device cuts becomes bloody read. Highly skyscraper? Well may you ask. The political intrigue is run-of-the- away a lot of distracting explanation Trenchmouth puts the recommended.