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Short drama-documentary in the IFI

Sanctuary is a series of 26 ultra-short stories of asylum and refuge in Ireland, being shown in rotation before features in the IFI this month. The stories are all based on interviews I’ve done with people seeking asylum, and were performed by a collection of well known and emerging actors and writers.

Online audio archive for FLAC

Some more online radio: this is an online audio archive I developed for FLAC (the Free Legal Advice Centres). It features an introductory podcast and clips from interviews with a series of legal luminaries involved in FLAC’s first 40 years.

Radio documentary on immigrant election candidates

Online now: my short radio documentary on this year’s local elections, for The Curious Ear on Radio One. The blurb: In May 2009, Colin Murphy hit the roads of Ireland on the campaign trail with some of the 40 immigrants who ran in the local elections. In Dublin, Limerick, Monaghan and Donegal, he talked to… read more +

On tour with Terminus

‘Terminus’ is back at the Peacock in Dublin. This article was first published in the Sunday Tribune on January 13, 2008. It is six hours before Mark O’Rowe’s play, ‘Terminus’, opens in New York. The cast are doing the technical rehearsal. They’ve never been in the theatre before. Eileen Walsh is standing in a dim… read more +

Sam Shepard at the Abbey: glamorous import?

In Sam Shepard’s ‘Ages of the Moon’, not a lot happens. Two men drink, sitting on a porch. Nobody else comes along. One of them leaves, briefly. Most of what they talk about is objectively meaningless: rambling musings on life, alcohol, women; shared memories of past misadventures. A fan hums above them erratically, till one… read more +

On Angola in Le Monde Diplomatique

I spent August in Angola, working on a documentary, and have written

Michael Keegan Dolan’s rites of Spring

Michael Keegan Dolan has made some of the most provocative and inspiring work on the Irish stage in the last 10 years. But his next production is a ballet at, bizarrely, the English National Opera. So has Dolan abandoned the theatre? And has he abandoned Ireland? Dolan is possibly the most significant innovator to have… read more +

Aziza Brahim sings of Western Sahara

Recently returned from the Western Saharan refugee camps in Algeria, where I was working with Donal Scannel on a documentary he’s making of the Sahrawi exile singer, Aziza Brahim. Here’s a glimpse of Aziza during some downtime on tour in Spain this summer. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12XSxS2CgP4&hl=en&fs=1&]

Democracy & Dialogue

I’m currently working on a documentary on post-war Angola, and have cut this one-minute short for entry to the Democracy & Dialogue competition in this year’s Darklight.ie digital film festival in Dublin. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iq746_q8gU&hl=en&fs=1&]

On Lisbon, for Prospect

I wrote this piece on the run-up to the Lisbon campaign for Prospect Magazine in London, on Cóir and Ireland’s new culture wars.