Liffey River

I was in city center last night and had an opportunity to stroll home along the River Liffey. The weather was California-esque, which is quite unusual for Dublin.

I took these photos just before 10 p.m. at night and you can see it's still quite light out...

ShortSpace

- left to right (Nick Ryan, Brian Durnin, Andrew Legge)

Filmbase (Arts Council of Ireland) sponsors a night of Irish-made short films on the first Thursday of each month. This month's theme focused specifically on visual effects.

The three films (The German, Of Best Intentions, The Chronoscope) were shown and the directors of each film later took questions and spoke about the making of their films and some of the difficulties they encountered with creating particular visual effects.

Quite an enjoyable evening.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

This was Martin McDonagh's first play back in the mid-90's. I saw it in London in 1996 and remember it for it's harsh cruelties between a mother and daughter. It was refreshing to see it again and better understand some of the Irish nuances that might not have registered with me before. An excellent play as were the performances by the two lead actresses (Rosaleen Linehan and Derbhie Crotty).

McDonagh later wrote The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Pillowman among others.

He won an Oscar for his first short film Six Shooter and also wrote and directed the popular dark comedy In Bruges.

Though raised in the U.K., he is Irish born and it certainly reveals itself in his art. Verbose, specific, funny, and darkly entertaining.

His next film, tentatively titled Seven Psychopaths, should be released next year.

AWCD 2010-2011

My wife was the Philanthropic Chair for the American Women's Club of Dublin this past year. Here's a brief summary of her tireless work...

Enjoy.

President Obama

President Obama visited Ireland for about 9 hours today. He met with the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny (above) and with President Mary McAleese.

President Obama and his wife signed the President's official visitor book (above).

He later spoke to a large group of Irish citizens in front of Trinity College in the afternoon. His speech was well received, primarily because he dusted off his campaign theme of hope, which Ireland's economy could surely benefit from a little more of...

The Ghost

This film is based on a book written by an English ex-political journalist. I'm sure the book was better but the movie was quite disappointing. Conspiracy theories trouble me mainly because people feel that there is some master puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes coordinating a million different potential outcomes. Humanly impossible. Notice I said humanly...

Part Manchurian Candidate, part All the President's Men, part Michael Moore bash-the-leader because of their involvement in Iraq...

A yawner.

European Rugby Champions

Leinster staged one of the greatest comebacks in modern rugby championship play on Saturday night.

Down 6-22 at the half, Leinster came out and played their trademark aggressive tempo game after the break. They won the Heineken Cup for the second time in the last three years 33-22 over England's Northampton Saints.

They are once again the European champions.

- Jonny Sexton scored all but 5 of Leinster's points

- Leinster held their own in the second half scrums