Article Category: Behind the Scenes

Helen O’Neill’s Seat

April 7, 2016
THE LATEST addition to the board of Limerick University’s Concert Hall is Ballsbridge-based academic Helen O’Neill, hailing from UCD, where she is Professor Emeritus... Read more »

PHANTOM’S EXPENSIVE GHOST

April 7, 2016
THE INVESTORS in TXFM (formerly Phantom105.2) have taken a bath, with Denis O’Brien failing to escape the worst of the hit despite having got... Read more »

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

March 24, 2016
THE RETURN of author Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor detective series to Galway has largely gone under the radar, perhaps because of the series’ chequered... Read more »

KCLR Sue Nunn

March 24, 2016
THE SUNDAY TIMES got a frosty reception when it lobbed in some queries about a dispute between radio station KCLR in Carlow/Kilkenny and its... Read more »

A VISUAL CHALLENGE

March 24, 2016
THERE HAVE been a number of comings and goings in Carlow’s arts sector in recent weeks, with changes at the Éigse Carlow Arts Festival... Read more »

LIGHTS, CAMERA, BUBBLE

March 9, 2016
TO ALL appearances, it’s full steam ahead for John Kelleher, Siún ní Raghallaigh and Ossie Kilkenny’s Troy Studios play at the former Dell plant... Read more »

COUNCIL’S “CONCERN”

March 9, 2016
WHILE THE backlash against the Abbey Theatre’s testosterone-fuelled 1916 centenary programme – ‘Waking The Nation’ – was well-ventilated, it turns out that the members... Read more »

OPERA IRELAND’S FINAL SHOW

March 9, 2016
STRANGE GOINGS-ON at the defunct Opera Ireland, where a skip-load of documents have just been filed in the Companies Registration Office in order to... Read more »

The Other awards ceremony

February 25, 2016
THERE WAS a time when a relatively brief eruption of showbiz excess appeared in the press to coincide with the BAFTAs and the Oscars. Now,... Read more »

BRIAN SPOLLEN’S MOMENTUM

February 25, 2016
INTERESTING TO see MCD promoter Brian Spollen setting up a company to run the Life dance music festival in Belvedere House, Co Westmeath, this... Read more »

IRISH NEED NOT APPLY

February 25, 2016
WITH THE Oscar hype keeping the Irish film sector centre stage (well, just behind the election), the absence of females in Irish Film Board-funded... Read more »

YET ANOTHER NCAD DIRECTOR

February 25, 2016
STILL NO sign of the 2013 accounts for the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), but at least the latest interim director is... Read more »

Evicting Paddy Dunning

February 11, 2016
‘MR TEMPLE BAR’ Paddy Dunning is used to being on the wrong end of bad news in recent years as a number of his... Read more »

LORETTA CLARKE’S SETTLEMENT

February 11, 2016
DÉTENTE has broken out in Mayo, where a rather interesting looking defamation action has just been settled in Castlebar Circuit Court. The case in... Read more »

HEATHER HUMPHREYS’ EMPTY SEATS

February 11, 2016
AS THE politicians go about trying to get re-elected, it’s business as usual on the various state boards. In the case of the arts... Read more »

TANIA BANOTTI TO CHAIR FILM BOARD?

February 11, 2016
WITH the general election campaign under way, time is running out for the Government to appoint a safe pair of Fine Gael hands to... Read more »

OPEN AND CLOSED AT THE ARTS COUNCIL

January 28, 2016
WITH BUCKETLOADS of cash being dished out to various artistic and cultural projects under the 1916 centenary umbrella – Culture Ireland is the latest... Read more »

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO…

January 28, 2016
IN ANTICIPATION of the Irish run at the Oscars on February 28, there has been much editorial hot air expended on the case for... Read more »

NO DRAMA FOR IRISH TIMES AWARDS

January 28, 2016
SPARE A THOUGHT for the theatre industry luvvies who, just over a month from now, will squeeze into their fancy frocks and file into... Read more »

THE TOLLMANS’ TAX BILL

January 28, 2016
HAVING acquired Ashford Castle on 350 acres in Co Mayo back in 2013 for a handy looking €20m, South African hotelier Beatrice Tollman and... Read more »

FUNDING THE ‘REBELLION’

January 14, 2016
THE AUDIENCE for RTÉ’s much-hyped 1916 drama Rebellion, which debuted last week, may not be aware that this programme is effectively owned by an... Read more »

THE ABBEY’S LABOUR OF LOVE

January 14, 2016
THE BACKLASH against the Abbey Theatre’s testosterone-fuelled 1916 centenary programme – ‘Waking The Nation’ – has been well-ventilated. Rather less has been said about... Read more »

WEXFORD OPERA’S STRAINED FINANCES

December 17, 2015
STILL NO sign of the overdue March 2015 accounts for Wexford Festival Trust, the organisation behind the annual Wexford Festival Opera (WFO). Given the... Read more »

RACHEL LYSAGHT’S FILM PLOT

December 17, 2015
THE ABBEY (off-stage) farce – starring Fiach Mac Conghail as the director who forgot to include women playwrights in the National Theatre’s 1916 centenary... Read more »

DOMINIC STEVENS’S ‘EXTRAORDINARY HOUSES’

December 17, 2015
CURRENTLY running at the Mermaid arts centre in Bray, Co Wicklow is an exhibition entitled ‘Works by Nature and Man’ by trendy architect Dominic... Read more »

PAUL SHOVLIN’S NATIONAL LIBRARY GIG

December 4, 2015
THERE WAS very good news last month for the National Library of Ireland, when the Government announced a major refurbishment of the building on... Read more »

BAZ ASHMAY’S INTER-NATIONAL EMMY

December 4, 2015
THERE WAS plenty of media coverage of a rare International Emmy awarded to a show produced by an Irish player – Baz Ashmawy. This... Read more »

Committee Review Board Chair

December 4, 2015
ANOTHER new chairman of a national cultural institution, David Harvey, was also up before the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht recently.... Read more »

MICHAEL NOONAN’S CHRISTMAS MOVIE

December 4, 2015
IT IS odds-on that planning permission for a ‘change of use’ submitted by Limerick’s Troy Studios will sail through this week. The ‘Part 8’... Read more »

FIACH Mac CONGHAIL’S CURTAIN CALL

November 20, 2015
THE NATIONAL Theatre unintentionally kicked off a storm in an online teacup last week with the announcement of its 2016 programme, when writers and... Read more »

NO IRISH NEED APPLY

November 20, 2015
INTERESTING to see Michael Dervan in The Irish Times querying the lack of Irish involvement in the 2015 Wexford Festival Opera, which concludes this... Read more »

Humphreys Picks Modern Chair

November 20, 2015
MINISTER for the Arts Heather Humphreys has turned to experienced troubleshooter David Harvey to chair the new board of the Irish Museum of Modern... Read more »

STILL COUNTING CROWES

November 20, 2015
IT IS exactly a year since James Hickey’s Irish Film Board (IFB) announced its intention to put together a brave new five-year ‘Strategic Plan’... Read more »

FUNDING PIXIE McKENNA’S ‘SEX CLINIC’

November 6, 2015
THE STRUGGLING UTV Ireland got a small shot in the arm from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) when it announced the latest handouts... Read more »

Druid Theatre Company & Colm Toibin

November 6, 2015
THINGS HAVE been good on stage and off at Druid theatre company in recent times, where artistic director Garry Hynes generated plenty of plaudits... Read more »