Photos:

Very Top - 'Tipping Point' at The Hugh Lane

Top - The River Liffey in Dublin

Middle - The view from Howth

Bottom - the audience at the Serendipity show, Queen of Peace School, Limerick

Trip Reminder:

For those joining the blog at this stage, a quick reminder of what this is all about. (For a more fulsome explanation please see previous blog entries). In a nutshell, I have been successful in applying for a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to investigate the provision of arts and creativity for older people in Ireland and USA. Once my investigation is completed, I will be publishing a comparative report into this particular sector within UK, Ireland and USA. Between 18^th May and 30^th May, I shall be in Ireland taking part in the Bealtaine Festival - the Irish national festival of creativity in later life, organised by Age and Opportunity (www.bealtaine.com). This year’s theme is “Have dreams and speak them without fear” from a poem by Anthony S Abbott.

Up In Smoke? (Mon 17^th – Tues 18^th May):

Anticipating something that may never happen is a habit of mine, I therefore decided on Sunday night to hire a car and drive to Holyhead because of the ashcloudsituation (the anxiety from which has almost been as bad as the coalitionsituation). I figured that to control what I could control would be better than to be beholden to BAA or Ryanair. Picking up the car on Monday night, I got a stone chip in the windscreen four miles from our house and decided that, as we live 20 miles north east of Norwich, that I should set off at 6am the next day. It was as I was passing Chester that I heard themanontheradio stating with no irony that thegovernment was reviewing the levels of ash through which it was safe to fly and that most likely the density level would be increased. Hmm science vs Willie Walsh... I wonder? Anyway Sirstelios seems to disagree with Sirrichard that increasing the safe density level is a good thing – I think I agree with Sirstelios.

Anyway, I drove off the ferry at Dun Laoghaire and got to within a mile of the house in which I am staying in a north western suburb of Dublin called Castleknock. I am staying in a house which we found on www.airbnb.com which is owned by a lady called Louise who is currently in Cuba. I arranged to pick up the keys from Louise’s partner Mark which worked out fine. Mark showed me around and dropped me at the local supermarket called SuperQuinn. (Sounds like a Haights Ashbury-dwelling perma-stoned super hero from back in the days before Dylan went electric?) Anyway thanks to SuperQuinn I was able to eat before bed.

By Serendipity I ended up in Limerick? (Weds 19^th May):

Not quite. My pre-trip investigations had resulted in a new contact called Hedda Kaphengst who runs the Serendipity Theatre Group who organise variety / theatre shows in community settings and who have been supported by the Bealtaine organisers to develop their work. I had discovered from Hedda that Serendipity were due to play a public show at the Queen of Peace school just outside of Limerick. Despite the previous day’s journey, I was determined to see the show and naively jumped in the motor and went across to Limerick arriving in the relevant housing estate three hours later. As I was rather early, I decided to drive into town to check out Limerick. Having had something to eat, I was in the process of finding the car when I passed a plate glass window with a series of posters displayed. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the 34^th annual Exhibition of Visual Art is taking place this year in Limerick (“Ireland’s pre-eminent annual exhibition of contemporary art”). As memorable as the exhibition was, more memorable was the fact that the organisers have made use of city-centre real estate (ie newly built but unused city-centre office space) to stage some of the exhibition. I spent an hour at the Thomas Street location stunned not just by the work (which is mostly excellent), but by the fact that I was wandering around a recently-built plate-glassed but unoccupied five storey office block (no interior walls). I was informed by a local that much of the unused retail and office space had been given over similarly to artists and creatives because it would otherwise remain empty due to the recession.

Firing-up the Vauxhall and exiting the crap 80s carpark, I slowtailed it in the wrong direction around the bye-pass back to the Queen of Peace school for the Serendipity show. Hedda had taken the “have dreams and speak them without fear” theme and developed an excellent show in collaboration with the Bealtaine Writers’ Group which included songs, quotes, poems and anecdotes about love, marriage, fame, ambition and happiness. Material came from both Hedda and the Writers’ Group plus famous artistes including Noel Cowerd, Grace Kelly, Woody Allen, Marlene Dietrich etc. The audience predominantly consisted of ladies from various community projects and day centres from around the city who were given tea and cake prior to the show and sang along with all of the tunes. The post-show raffle resulted in several members of the audience acquiring either a) strong liquor or b) litter-pickers or c) compost bins “delivered to your door by the council so don’t worry”. Suffice to say, all went away happy.

http://serendipitytheatregroup.ning.com/profile/HeddaKaphengst?xg_source=activity

Thursday 20^th May (Dublin):

Weather – mixed. A busy day spent in Dublin negotiating by phone with the company which runs the M50 toll and negotiating around the Dublin railway system: Tom “I have never used the railway here before”, attendant “well you are indeed very lucky”.

Having made it into town, (as opposed to the middle of nowhere – there are no signs at Castleknock Station), I first visited the Original Print Gallery in Temple Bar for the ‘Ink’ exhibition (photographs by Aidan Kelly of older people and their tattoos, which is highlighted in the Bealtaine catalogue. (www.bealtaine.com). Within Temple Bar there are many other galleries, studios and creative businesses as well as the National Library of Ireland which is showing a very interesting exhibition of re-printed photographs taken during the period of the War of Independence and the Civil War in Ireland by W.D. Hogan. Lots of pictures of the Black and Tans plus Michael Collins in full cry along with other key figures from the period. (Google the National Library of Ireland for more information). Just around the corner, another gallery whose name escapes me were exhibiting the ‘Prix Pictet’ an annual international competition of photography and image-making which communicate “powerful messages of global environmental significance”. I particularly liked the images by Yao Lu which appear at first glance to be traditional Chinese Landscape paintings but which are in fact composite digital images using huge landfill sites as their basis. (www.prixpictet.com)

After lunch I trekked up to The Hugh Lane Gallery and took in ‘The Perceptive Eye: Artists Observing Artists’, the Ellsworth Kelly drawings and the Francis Bacon studio exhibitions all of which are either directly part of the Bealtaine or are linked to it.

The Ellsworth Kelly exhibition takes as its basis drawings executed between 1954 and 1962 when Kelly was beginning to immerse himself within his now famous abstract approach to painting and drawing. Kelly is now well into his 80s, unfortunately I missed the lecture on his work by Logan Sisley on Wednesday as I was following tractors around Limerick byepass. ‘The Perceptive Eye: Artists Observing Artists’ takes as its basis paintings and portraits of artists by artists including self-portraits. (There have also been two talks about portraits of artists in later life but these took place before I arrived). The Francis Bacon studio exhibition is worth a look just to see both the studio itself and to see the looped edited interview footage between Bacon and a very hirsute Melvin Bragg, presumably undertaken for an early South Bank Show. Also at The Hugh Lane currently is a fantastic film which takes as its basis the oeuvre of writer W.G Sebald. Tacita Dean’s film concentrates on Sebald’s friend and translator Michael Hamburger, or more accurately, on his imposing Suffolk home and orchards and also his preoccupation with apples. Excellent, particularly the wind-dominated soundtrack – very East Anglian, in fact very Sebaldian...

Friday 21^st May (Dublin):

Weather – hot. Another busy day. I first of all went along to The LAB on Foley Street for two Bealtaine exhibitions: ‘The Rialto Twirlers’ a fantastic film focussing on a local majorette group by Anne Maree Barry and ‘It’s Nice to Meet Our Friends Once In A While’ by Michael McLoughlin. ‘The Rialto Twirlers’ is a beautifully produced film, shot in a disused factory and concentrating on several local majorettes as they practice their routines. Whilst leaving the LAB, I also came across an interesting sculpture / installation involving the work ‘Ubiquitous, Undesired Friend’ by Janet Mullarney – again excellent.

I then went along to The Hugh Lane for ‘Tipping Point’, an excellent dance piece involving the Ciotog dance company and members of the Macushla Dance Club – an over 50s local dance group. ‘Tipping Point’ is therefore the result of a collaboration between professional and amateur dancers both young and old. The piece is described as “a chamber piece about pressure, slipping, sliding and tripping from one unstable balance to another” and takes its inspiration from the “forces shaping canvas and image in Francis Bacon’s work”. Being a definite fan of Bacon’s particular brand of dislocated miserablism I loved ‘Tipping Point’, particularly as the work involved the dancers interacting with each other in a way which took into account the limits of their physical abilities, whilst still allowing them to express movement reflective of the core creative themes mentioned above. Talking of dance, the Dublin City Dance Festival is also on currently, so on Sunday I will be going to see Soledad Barrio and ‘Noche Flamenca’, a night of Flamenco. When in Rome...

The afternoon saw me searching out the Dublin City Library for ‘The North Strand Bombing’ exhibition which features photography and oral histories relating to the North Strand Bombing by the Nazis during the Second World War. This event was one of several attacks which pressurised the neutrality of Ireland during the war. The exhibition is one of a number of local history/ archive / community creative projects undertaken by Dublin City Public Libraries as part of Bealtaine. On the way to the library, I also happened across the exhibition ‘Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef’ at the Science Gallery. This exhibition is the result of an ongoing project to develop crocheted sculptures which mimic the development of natural phenomena such as choral (both mathematically and visually). The same technique is also used to illustrate the problem of plastic-waste at sea. This may sound odd but apparently scientists now believe that hyperbolic geometry as found in nature, particularly the apparently random geometry found in choral, can in fact be replicated through crochet (no really). I had a conversation with one of the attendants about flat, Euclidean and Hyperbolic geometry and frankly it’s all Greek to me.... I went home to try and draw parallel lines on ping-pong balls but couldn’t find any.

Saturday 22^nd May (Dublin):

A very interesting day. I was having trouble phoning the axis arts centre in Ballymun in order to book tickets for a play called ‘The Parting Glass’ and I also wanted to see the exhibition and food market at The Red Stables Arts Centre in St Anne’s Park. I therefore set off intrepidly into the Dublin road system and confirmed what I had suspected – that my orientation as regards where I have been living was incorrect... The house in which I am staying is on the ‘outside’ of the M50 and not the ‘inside’ as I had assumed. This latter point will only make sense to anyone who has navigated the Junction 6 roadworks on the M50 recently. Also as I haven’t been able to access the internet at the house, I haven’t been able to print more detailed maps – the street map I have purchased doesn’t include where I am living and the address is ‘Castleknock’ when it seems to be closer to Blanchardstown...

Anyway I navigated myself down the N3 and then up into Ballymun to find axis. The axis centre is located on a dual carriage-way entitled ‘Main St, Ballymun’ which makes it sound like a village suburb – it isn’t. Ballymun is a northern suburb of Dublin which you wouldn’t go to if you didn’t have a reason. It is fair to say that Ballymun has been subject to several periods of regeneration. There are concrete blocks of flats which appear to date from the 1960s, some of which appear to be totally empty and sealed with metal sheeting and shutters. Some are still part occupied, despite being boarded up on the lower floors. Some land has been completely cleared of all buildings and there have been several attempts to redevelop and build new accommodation, retail and business space. The axis centre is in one such development, part of a larger building which also includes the social security offices, Garda and other statutory organisations (I think). Nearby there is a newly built Travelodge (almost as attractive as the one on the North Circular with the spiked fence around it). Across the dual-carriage way there appears to be a Tesco, alongside other older buildings from the 1960s including what looks like a social club. There are several other newish buildings in the vicinity with accommodation and retail space, however all around there are large tracts of empty / cleared land within which sit the aforementioned abandoned or semi-abandoned blocks of flats.

I arrived at the centre at about 9.30am and asked the man on the door whether the box office was open – it wasn’t and he said to come back after 7pm as only 50 tickets had sold (18^th-22^nd May were all preview shows for the premiere of ‘The Parting Glass’). I got talking to the man (I think he was the front of house manager) and he confirmed my suspicions – Ballymun has been in a semi-permanent state of ‘regeneration’ for many years and every time progress is made, a recession prevents further progress (and presumably leads to a period of decline). Whilst we were standing at the door two younger people asked to use the toilets in the building and I knew immediately that the man was worried that they would be using the toilets to shoot-up so we finished our conversation and I went on my way. The man had indicated that if I took a side road off the Main Street, I would be able to access the underground car park for the social security offices which would be in use in the evening. (More of which later).

I then navigated across the northern suburbs of Dublin into St Anne’s Park where life couldn’t have been more different. The Red Stables Arts Centre is located in St Anne’s Park in the Clontarf area overlooking Bull Island. As the name would suggest, the Red Stables is a converted stable block and arts centre. I wanted to see their Bealtaine exhibition and was also curious about the Saturday Food Market which was excellent. Having purchased various extremely middle-class locally-produced / organic food items I then drove back to Castleknock via the city centre and Phoenix Park. A morning of complete contrasts.

In the afternoon, I took a train into Connolly Station and then took the DART to Howth with most of the rest of Dublin and spent a couple of hours wandering around the fishing port and sea wall. Local families trolled in the sun and foreign tourists ate seafood in the restaurants and bars. Howth is the main fishing / landing area for Dublin Bay. I will return during the week to eat oysters and drink Guinness – I returned home more quickly than would normally have been the case as I wanted to ensure that I gave myself enough time to drive back into Ballymun for the play. It was probably a good idea to leave Howth in the early evening to avoid the rush. As I left, teams of young people carrying boxes of Budweiser on their shoulders were alighting at Howth station.

At about 6.45pm, I drove back to Ballymun and navigated my way towards the underground carpark as directed previously. The side road in question leads between the building in which axis is located and what looks like a school (completely fenced in). Several other roads lead off into what presumably used to be an estate – concrete filled oil drums prevent access to further side roads and the area is dominated by very long, abandoned or semi-abandoned blocks of flats. On the other side of the oil drums, parked up against the side of one of the blocks, a group of six or seven crew-cutted lads lounged against the side of a modified Nissan, alloy wheels glinting in the evening sun. My first attempt at accessing the carpark failed as I didn’t realise that security had ‘buzzed’ me in and raised the barrier. After a second attempt I was met in the carpark by a friendly face who showed me to the lifts. Leaving the lift on the ground floor I was met by security who then pointed me on my way.

I found it very disconcerting walking around the art exhibition in axis and being able to look through the window over towards the boarded-up flats located at the rear of the centre. Having been so beholden to economic circumstance, the location in which the play was premiered has direct relevance to the core themes within ‘The Parting Glass’. As mentioned above, Ballymun is in a state of semi-perpetual regeneration (of which axis is presumably a result). The central (and only present) character in the play is Eoin (now aged 50) a Dubliner who was forced to find work in Germany in the 1980s and who returned to Dublin during the recent ‘Celtic Tiger’ period. The central connecting theme within the play is football and the heroic under achievements of the Irish National Team as they either fail to qualify for major tournaments or are knocked out having raised the hopes of the nation. Eoin is re-united with life-long friends and fellow émigrés Shane (now living in Holland) and Mick (once of New York and now in an urn clasped under Eoin’s shoulder, having been recently cremated following his untimely demise). The three life-long friends plus Eoin’s son Dieter all meet for one last time in Paris on the night of Thierry Henry’s double hand-ball and the goal by Willem Gallas which prevented Ireland from playing in this year’s World Cup. This is a fantastically funny and witty play (you do not need an in-depth knowledge of Irish sporting history or Dublin to understand it) which uses Eoin’s personal journey of emigration, vulnerable prosperity and tragedy to illustrate the dislocation and struggle of the wider Irish Diaspora – on the one hand forced to leave Ireland through economic necessity, on the other desperate to retain a sense of Irish identity and a connection to the homeland (in Eoin’s case through football – which always lets him down). When Eoin is eventually persuaded to return home, domestic tragedy combine with the wider economic malaise (he foolishly buys shares in the Allied-Irish Bank) to leave him questioning his future and continuing to question his relationship with the country which he loves but always seems to let him down. (www.axis-ballymun.ie)

I drove home through the housing estates of northern Dublin as the sun was setting on a very hot day, on the radio Jose Marino’s men became Milanese legends whilst in front of me the taxi drivers ferried groups of inebriated Dubliners from one suburb to another, presumably to avoid all of the inebriated foreigners in the centre of town.

Sunday 23^rd April (Dublin):

I spent the morning updating the blog. As previously mentioned, I had acquired a ticket to see the Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca show, which was the closing event of the Dublin Dance Festival. As it was Sunday and the trains only run every hour, I decided to walk into Dublin from the Castleknock / Blanchardstown area through Phoenix Park – very warm but very enjoyable. The Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca show is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone – it has an equal mix of dance, singing and guitar playing (the three core elements of Flamenco). The Vicar Street venue is great also – I had a seat on the balcony with an uninterrupted view.