Tim Pat will kick off a series of debates on Ireland’s economic woes when he delivers the annual Mac Lua Memorial Lecture for Irish Writers’ Month in Hammersmith, London.
The event, with a Q&A to follow, will take place on Wednesday 6th June, 7pm.
» For full details go to www.irishculturalcentre.co.uk.
Tim Pat will be making an address entitled ‘Griffith Would Have Jailed Them’ in Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff, on Wednesday 28 March at 8pm.
This will be the third annual Arthur Griffith Lecture.
To mark the centenary of the birth of writer Brian O’Nolan his sole surviving sibling, Micheál Ó Nualláin, has published a collection of reminiscences, The Brother.
Speaking at the launch, Tim Pat Coogan said that O’Nolan’s long-running Irish Times column Cruiskeen Lawn was “the only regular fix of culture” that many people got in the “drab and dreary” 1950s.
Tim Pat’s letter to the Irish Independent, published 24/8/11, probes a deeper question surrounding the race for the Aras…
As the proportion of the population throwing, or not throwing, its hat into the ring of the presidential contest begins to acquire the characteristics of a somewhat farcical mass movement, is it not time to ask the questions do we need a president at all? Can we afford one?
The president’s powers are not essential to the running of the nation even at the best of times. These are not the best of times and we cannot say that they are the worst because we know that there is worse to come in the forthcoming Budget and in charges on water, property, energy and — on what should be the bread of the future — a university education.
The only things going down are incomes and the pitiable benefits of the young and the elderly.
We had no president in our first Constitution after independence. There was a governor general, who was imposed upon us by the British, and who was got rid of by De Valera who introduced the presidency in his 1937 Constitution, and subsequently made the office a well-paid old folks home.
Now that Fianna Fail, which De Valera founded, has got rid of not merely the governor general but of the economic independence which the founders of the State fought for, is it not time to close down this rather ruritanian institution, with its aura of the Raj and the Viceregal Lodge, and spend the money on things like getting cancer sufferers off trolleys in busy hospital corridors or, alternatively, in prosecuting the people responsible for our economic situation?
Tim Pat Coogan
Dalkey, Co Dublin
Follow-on discussion:
Tim Pat will be giving a lecture on Michael Collins on 25th of August in the Glasnevin Museum at 7.30pm. The lecture is free and part of Heritage Week.
Booking is essential to ensure a seat. For more information and bookings, please contact Glasnevin Museum on 01-8826550 or email bookings@glasnevintrust.ie
Glasnevin Museum is located inside the main gates of Glasnevin Cemetery.
The Derry Journal reports on Tim Pat Coogan’s speech at a Féile event in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Derry…
The author and historian said that community movements have driven changes in Derry and those changes have shaped modern Ireland.
“The word which will govern what we succeed in is a word which epitomises Derry – that word is community. It is the ability to hold what you have and try for what you want.”
“Even in the midst of everything that is happening today, that spirit can still be seen looking around Derry today,” he said.
This year sees Féile come of age, celebrating it’s eighteenth birthday with the theme Past, Present, Future. In 1993 residents of the Bogside and Brandywell came together with community organisations to organize a community festival that has become the biggest community celebration in the North West. Now 18 years since it’s inception, Féile is taking the opportunity to look at its history, celebrate its achievements and look confidently to a better future.
As always, Féile features an extensive Political Talks and Debates section. Highlights include lectures from two of Ireland’s most respected political/historical writers, Fintan O’Toole and Tim Pat Coogan.
Féile 2011 takes place at various venues in Derry from Friday August 5th – Monday August 15th. Tim Pat will deliver a lecture ‘Ireland. Yes We Can?’ at An Cultúrlann on Wednesday, August 10.
For more information or to request a programme, contact the Féile office on 02871262812.
Catch the podcast of last Wednesday’s RTÉ Radio 1 ‘Late Debate’, with Tim Pat Coogan, Kevin Humphries TD, Luke Flanagan TD, Brenda Power and Shaun Connolly.
Tim Pat will be speaking at the 2011 Percy French Summer
School, to be held at Castlecoote House, Co. Roscommon, from 11th–15th July
The Athlone Advertiser reports that the headline talk “… is one of many that aims to address current socio-economic issues… Some of Ireland’s leading academics will gather to celebrate the work of Percy French and debate issues such as ‘The Irish conscience’, ‘The Female education debate in 18th century’, ‘Trades, crafts and people of old Fuerty’, to name but a few…. Tim Pat’s talk is of course taken from Percy French’s well known song ‘The West Clare Railway’”
Question and Answer Session – Thursday 14th July, 12.15pm
Sure we’re not right Michael, Sure we’re not!
A reflection on the contemporary political and economic crises with apologies to ‘The West Clare Railway’ by Percy French
Tim Pat Coogan
Luke Ming Flanagan TD CHAIR
Tim Pat reflects on the Royal visit in The Herald:
We’re into welcome mode now. Whatever saucy doubts and fears we entertained in the last few weeks about the timing or wisdom of the visit, the queen landed today and it is not only fitting and right that the best foot is put forward but, to be quite blunt about it, there is an extraordinary commercial spin-off to all that is happening.
I have seen a fair few newsworthy events in my time, but I have never seen such a concentration of journalists descending on the country in such a short space of time.
I’m told that I will be one of some 1,200 media people in Dublin Castle today.
That is the kind of coverage of a country or an event that the Bord Failtes and the IDAs slaver over…
