Dina Carroll (born Geraldine Carroll, 21 August 1968, Newmarket, Suffolk) is an English singer of Scottish and African American descent who had a string of hits from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.
To be fair, I hadn’t heard of her either but someone mentioned that her 1993 single The Perfect Year from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” has some scenes of Dublin in it. Indeed it does.
The 40 steps can be seen around 6 seconds in, followed by a pub at around 21 seconds in (could it be Grogans?).
At 2:53 you have Regents barber shop in Temple Bar, Rorys Fishing Tackle Shop also in Temple Bar at 3:22 and a brief look at Moore Street at 3:27.
A favourite writer of mine (and indeed many of the Plain People of Ireland) passed away on April Fools Day 1966. Today on walking tour duty I spotted a poster for ‘Myles Day’ in The Palace bar window advertising a day in celebration of the man. I imagine a day means a day and a night.
About three years ago I was given my da’s old copies of The Third Policeman and At Swim Two Birds and I loved them. It wasn’t long until I’d built up a fine collection of his works.Seán Ó Faoláin, Oscar Wilde and Flann O’Brien are three writers that really do make me love Irish literature. I take any chance to throw a Myles quote into a conversation, and am delighted to see new found appreciation for his writing in recent years from all corners.
Anyway, the poster in the window….
Mylesday will be held in the Palace Bar, Fleet Street, Dublin, from 2:00 on 1st April, 2011. Along with the assembled glitterati, we are hoping that you, the Plain People of Ireland, will overcome your inherent shyness, and come along to contribute your own favourite pieces from the works of Myles.
With nowhere to be on Friday until 7.45 (The Dublin Derby), I’ll pop in and have a look.
A Wall Street Journal article on Flann O’Brien which somehow passed me by until now makes for excellent reading if you haven’t seen it yet.
Every prominent Irish writer from the mid-1930s until O’Brien’s death in 1966—on April Fool’s Day, yet—saw him drunk. Nuala O’Faolain was the last, writing in her acclaimed 1996 memoir “Are You Somebody?” that she “saw Myles na gCopaleen urinate against the counter in Neary’s one night.”
So, the food might be great but The Alamo’s ever changing window sign has become a bit of a joke in these corners. A €3.50 pint is more than decent in Temple Bar, a €4.50 pint hardly worth advertising surely?
Today walking by, I noticed our previous ‘victory for the punter’ might have been a bad call. The €3.50 pint has jumped back to €4.50. Weekend pint versus midweek pint? Surely those days are gone…..
I normally stick up the poster for the monthly Flea Market up at Newmarket, it falls on the last Sunday of the month. For some reason I forgot to do so this month.
In the past, of all the mad finds, I picked up a copy of the late 1940s far-right Aiséirghe newspaper via this market before. Today I picked up this 1960 Aer Lingus carrier bag, to come home and find one sold on eBay recently for three times what I picked it up for.
I’ve been to car boot sales and flea markets in every corner of the city, I might try to do a Sunday session of them around Dublin some week and do a write-up. If its mad old fascist newspapers or obscure pieces of Aer Lingus memorabilia you’re after, Newmarket is your only man.
The last time I posted Last Minute Miracle by The Shirelles, it was to celebrate the great Dave Mulcahy scoring a last-minute goal for Saint Patrick’s away to Bohs and sending the place into hysterics.
How fitting it should be upon Dave’s 100th game for the club he does it again. 89 minutes. Scarves go up. The crowd goes wild. It’s all the more remarkable when you consider with a half hour to go we were trailing Dundalk by two goals to nil.
Shed End Invincibles prior to kick off.
Once again, the Shed End Invincibles deserve praise for bringing the Richmond Roar back to Inchicore.
Their musical chairs journey around the stadium seems to have come to an end, they’ve been in every corner of this stadium but seem to have found a natural home. Watching the game from the Camac, they were louder from there than they normally would seem right next to us in the ‘new stand’. If they remain where they currently are, and Bohs fans bring their voices next week, it will be a great advertisement for the League.
One of the most bizarre moments I can recall in the League comes soon after kickoff, with both the travelling Dundalk fans and the Shed End Invincibles singing ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’, the Depeche Mode classic introduced to the football stands and terraces of Europe by the Green Brigade of Glasgow. They’re not in sync, at all, and the sing-off continues for a few minutes with neither side willing to concede the song for the night.
They are temporarily silenced on 17 and 49 minutes when Pats hate figure and one time European hero Mark Quigley scores. Two goals, and two beautiful goals to boot- the worst kind for a hate figure to score really. The second, a top class overhead strike, has the home faithful thinking we’re on course for a third defeat in a row. A disaster in other words.
What followed on the pitch was a spectacle. In fact, coming from 2 nil down to win by a goal is pretty ironic considering only two weeks ago we were cruising at that same scoreline against Bray before losing.
It would be wrong to conclude any report from the night without tipping the hat to the PA woman. Gone are the Cheryl Cole and Lady GaGa tracks, replaced by The Selector and The Clash. Maybe next week, for Mulcahy, we’ll stick on Last Minute Miracle.
Between 2005 and 2007 I took nearly 450 pictures of street art and graffiti around the Dublin area, primarily in the city centre and the South-Eastern suburbs. At first using a number of throwaway cameras and then an Olympia digital camera. I was hoping to capture a little bit of Dublin graffiti social history with the fanciful idea of putting a book together of all my snaps. I soon lost interest but thought it would be worthwhile to upload the best snaps here so they don’t go to complete waste. Enjoy.
The second featured graffiti artist is GRIFT who was also a member of the RCS (RadiCalS) and ICN (InCogNito) crews.
I’m normally in town early enough in the day, and enjoy popping into R.A.G.E on Fade Street for a quick look. They’ve taken over the old Road Records and stayed very true to the spirit of that Dublin favourite, with vinyl taking pride of place and classic sounds playing all day. Unusually, they also stock classic video games for the kind of consoles you have under your bed.
I’d heard about the shutter, but you can hardly shout in ‘CLOSE YER SHOP SO I CAN HAVE A LOOK AT THE SHUTTERS!’ in fairness.
Continuing in our series of classic music videos filmed in Dublin, we have the The Spice Girls and their 1998 hit single Stop which was filmed in Stoneybatter in the heart of Dublin 7.
Wikipedia tells us that ‘the opening segment, reminiscent of a traditional British 1950’s working class street of terraced houses … was filmed at Carnew Street in Dublin, and features scenes of each member of the group knocking on different doors.’
Each householder was given £100 each in return for stealing off the street according to The Mirror.
The video was shot on January 27 1998 and was directed by James Brown.
Well, it went swimmingly. A crowd of several hundred (PACKED!) twenty-somethings gathered out the back of a pub to listen to Don tell stories, and more importantly they gathered to watch the man draw owls.
Here is some audio from the event, Don discussing a visit from the postman in his childhood. He was loving the banter with the crowd, and I was surprised by the amount of random faces I encountered there, people I’ve never spotted in the pub before, including people from my childhood. The man is loved.
Pardon my mates and the general crowd:
Having drawn a few owls and told a few stories, Don was happy to sign heaps of autographs and pose for plenty of photographs.
Well done Don, the most successful artist in The Bernard Shaw yet 😉
Between 2005 and 2007 I took nearly 450 pictures of street art and graffiti around the Dublin area, primarily in the city centre and the South-Eastern suburbs. At first using a number of throwaway cameras and then an Olympia digital camera. I was hoping to capture a little bit of Dublin graffiti social history with the fanciful idea of putting a book together of all my snaps. I soon lost interest but thought it would be worthwhile to upload the best snaps here so they don’t go to complete waste. Enjoy.
The first featured graffiti artist is DROP who was a member of the RCS (RadiCalS) and ICN (InCogNito) crews along with GRIFT and others.
As the world mourns the death of Elizabeth Taylor today, a number of people on RTE radio earlier this afternoon were telling their own stories about meeting Taylor during her visits to Dublin in 1965 and 1967. (You can listen to the podcast here.)
Taylor stayed first in Dublin in 1965 with her husband Richard Bruton who was filming the classic The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. The Oscar-winning adaptation of the novel by John Le Carre starred Burton as a Cold War-era British spy.
Though set in Berlin, Smithfield Market was used as stand in.
For several weeks in the late winter of 1965, the lead-grey skies of the Irish capital deputised for those of East Germany and, in the opinion of director Martin Ritt, were more convincing than the real thing. Dublin’s architecture helped too.
Scenes were shot in Cork Street, North Strand, and elsewhere. But the star performer was Smithfield: a run-down plaza north of the Liffey, where the fulcrum of Cold War-Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie, was recreated. – Frank McNally, Irish Times.
[The opening shots of the movie were filmed in Smithfield. You’d recognise those cobbled streets anywhere!]
One woman recalled that they both used to drink in Kavanagh’s in New Street on the corner of the Long Lane. Apparently Liz herself was partial to a pint of Guinness. While Bruton used to enjoy a drink in The White Horse in the Liberties as well, Liz, a woman, was refused.
Another caller remembers meeting the couple in Malpas Street in the Blackpitts when they were using a part of a derelict wall there as a substitute for the Berlin Wall.
The couple and their children took over a full floor of The Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street and stayed there for two months during the filming.
An additional listener told Joe Duff that he met the couple briefly in The Comet Pub in Santry.
In 1967, Taylor returned to Dublin in more somber circumstances. During her initial visit two years previously, her chauffeur-driven car had knocked down and killed an elderly pedestrian on the Stillorgan Road. Taylor returned to attend the coroner’s report and court hearing. To make it even more tragic, the chauffer himself, Gaston Sanz, had just returned from France where had buried his 16 year old son who was killed in a shooting accident.
To round off the Ghost Notes exhibition we have decided to screen A Suite for Ma Duke from the Timeless Series in Block T this Thursday @ 8pm.
If you would like to attend please email info@choicecuts.com to reserve your place as it is limited to approx 100 for this viewing. B+ will be in attendance to answer any questions about the screening. Please title your email with A Suite for Ma Dukes in the subject bar and how many places you would like to reserve. This will be screened on a high quality sound system for maximum enjoyment! – Choice Cuts
If your around this Thursday, rock down to Block T for a film showing, a fantastic photo exhibition and (if your lucky) a free drink or two.
It’s your final chance to check out Limerick born Brian Cross’ (aka B+) fantastic photo exhibition ‘GhostNotes’.
Simon Judge summed up B+’s legacy better than I ever could:
“Depending on your point of entry into hip-hop, there is a good chance you own a record, or at least a magazine, that Limerick-born photographer Brian Cross, aka B+, shot the cover of. Having lived and worked in LA since the early 90s, B+ has established himself as the go-to guy for just about every MC, DJ, and record label of note. Since graduating from NCAD in 1989, he has fleetingly visited Ireland, so it is with much expectation that the big man shows his work in Dublin.”
Since 1993, B+ has a worked with over 100 artists in hip-hop business including Mos Def, Rza, Cappadonna, Q-Tip, Eazy E, Jurrassic 5, Dialated Peoples, DJ Shadow, Company Flow, Blackalicious, South Central Cartel, Warren G, Yusef Lateef, Yesterdays New Quintet and Damian Marley.
Front cover of DJ Shadow's 1996 debut album 'Entroducing'. The image was taken by Irish photographer B+ (aka Brian Cross)
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 