What’s being said about Say Nothing
PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT Volume Two. Number Thirty-Nine. 21 November 2024
More than an email. Less than a newspaper. In your email box the first and third Thursday morning of every month. Published by The Portland Hibernian Society.
PHS MEETING TONGHT – SIX P.M. KELLS RESTAURANT – PROGRAM DETAILS BELOW
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY NOTHING
Since its publication in 2018, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe has been recommended – almost required – reading for anyone with even a bit of interest in Ireland. The book was such a huge success that suddenly millions of people knew what it meant to live – and die - during The Troubles. Even if you’ve not read the book, I wager you’ll be intrigued by the way the story is told in the nine episodes of the Hulu series based on the book. (“I was never confused, only gripped throughout,” The Guardian) If you’ve read it, you’ll appreciate he way this story is told; capturing the callousness of life during wartime in Belfast in the 1970s.
CLICK HERE for a lot more information – news reports, reviews, exclusive photos from West Belfast, reaction from the real people portrayed and why this appears at the end of every episode: Gerry Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in any IRA-related violence.
Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price in costume in Say Nothing.
NOTRE DAME FANS IN BELFAST WARNED AGAINST THE WEARIN’ OF THE GREEN
Since the West Coast is not exactly a hotbed of ice hockey, the PDX HI was unaware of an annual tournament in Belfast that brings together four US college ice hockey teams. This year the teams are Merrimack College, Harvard, Boston University and Notre Dame. The Irish are bringing controversy with them. The ND student newspaper The Observer reports that a social media posting on a Notre Dame account warns fans travelling to Belfast NOT to wear or show the following to the SSE Arena (home of the Belfast Giants): Green, Fighting Irish, Irish, Shamrocks, Ireland Flag, Leprechaun. Say what? ND has been selling a commemorative jersey for the event with the word Irish on it. Quick as the drop of a puck, the warning was revoked and ND apologized, “Our game in Belfast is meant to bring people together and build bridges through sport, we apologize to fans and to the people of Northern Ireland for any confusion or offense.” The tournament begins Friday, November 29. It's the only National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division One ice hockey tournament to take place outside North America.
MEETING TONGHT: MODERN IRELAND AND ITS MUSIC. THE WHOLE WORLD IS LISTENNG.
David O'Longaigh.
Legend has it that after the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show on March 12, 1961 wearing sweaters their ma sent them from Ireland because it was a really cold winter in New York, sales of Aran jumpers (as sweaters were known in Ireland) jumped 700%. Paddy, Tom and Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem became regulars on Sunday nights on television and the self-esteem of Irishmen and Irishwomen in America rose higher than those sweater sales. At our meeting tonight – Thursday November 21 at Kells Restaurant at 6 p.m. - Dublin native and co-founder of the PHS David O’Longaigh will talk about Irish traditional music from The Clancy Brothers to Celtic Women. You could say David’s been working all his life on this interesting and ambitious narrative about the convergence of Gaelic and folk subcultures into the Irish traditional music of the 20th century. He grew up surrounded by the songs and tunes that helped shape a modern national identity. No-host dinner at Six P.M. David’s presentation at Seven P.M. No cover charge. ALL are welcome. Failte. Location: 212 SW Second Ave. Portland.
HOPE YOU CAN COME TO THE PHS HOLIDAY LUNCH - DEC. 14
Instead of a third-Thursday meeting in December, we’ll be gathering at Kells Restaurant at Noon on Saturday, December 14 to enjoy good cheer and great company. BONUS – Katie and Tim Hennessy recently made a pilgrimage to the site of the original Clonmacnoise Cross near Offaly, Ireland. To commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the dedication of the Celtic Cross at Mount Calvary, Tim and Katie will share what they learned about “our Cross” at the home of the original Cross.
Katie and Tim Hennessy at Clanmacnoise Monastery in Ireland.
GLADIATOR II ARRIVES – THE IRISH ANGLE
With the opening of Gladiator II tomorrow (Friday, 22 Nov.) we’ll see a leading man who looks decidedly unRoman. Paul Mescal, who plays Lucius the son of Maximus (Russell Crowe in the original) is so Irish his pre-release press conference in Dublin ws held at Croke Park, the mecca for the Gaelic Athletic Association and indigenous Irish sports, which he played as a lad for Kildare. In an interview with RTE, Mescal sounded a bit blown away by the scale of Gladiator II, which cost a reported $300,000,000 to make. “I was brought up playing with fake swords with my friends and now I’m a 28-year-old man in a costume and you have all the infrastructure around you to play, essentially. It was really enjoyable." Director Ridley Scott took 25 years to get around to making the sequel to Gladiator because he couldn't find the right leading man. “Then, like everyone else, he spotted Mescal in Normal People and something clicked, with the director going as far as saying that Mescal reminded him of Richard Harris, who, in one of his final roles, played Lucius’s grandfather Marcus Aurelius in the first Gladiator.”
IN ANCIENT ROME THEY CALLED IRELAND HIBERNIA
The irony of an Irishman playing a Roman hero reasonates because there are differing opinions about whether Rome ever invaded Ireland. They didn’t dare, writes Frank Delaney in his novel Ireland. “The Romans never came to Ireland. A Roman general called Agricola once stood on the shores of Scotland, looked over at the distant headlands of Ireland, and boasted that he could take us with one legion. Observe that he never tried, and so Ireland was the only country in the west of Europe that never became a Roman dominion.” That’s the legend. The likely truth is that General Agricola decided there was nothing in Ireland to justify an invasion. Challenging that legend is recent archaeological evidence that a Roman settlement was established near Dundalk. Unscientific evidence that Rome did not invade Ireland: Have you ever met anyone Irish who’s done the 23 & Me/Ancestry thing and found Italian blood in their distant DNA?
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Waiting for Godot, performed by Corrib Theater, opens November 29 at the COHO Theater in NW Portland. Samuel Beckett, who wrote the play, was born in Dublin and is one of four Irish writers to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Wm. Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Seamus Heaney are the three others, if you were wondering.)”In his most famous work, the drama Waiting for Godot, he examines the most basic foundations of our lives with strikingly dark humor,” noted the Nobel declaration.
Cast and crew of the Corrib Theater production of Waiting for Godot, which opens Fri. Nov. 29. (Corrib Artistic Director Holly Griffith lower right next to director Patty Gallagher.)
YOU WON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN GALWAY AND DUBLIN
Gemma Whelan is taking a group of live theater enthusiasts to Ireland again this summer. This will be the sixth annual theater tour arranged by Gemma and Adam Lieberman and it includes five-day stays in Galway AND Dublin. They’re accepting bookings now.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I was very deliberately trying to write something that would be approachable for people who couldn't find Northern Ireland on a map. I wanted it to be the kind of story anyone could find emotional purchase in - and not just people who have a more scholarly kind of inclination to learn the history." Patrick Radden Keefe - Author of Say Nothing in a New York Times interview on Nov. 15, 2024
Mise le meas.
