IN PRAISE OF DUBLIN REVIEW OF BOOKS

What is it that New York, London and Dublin have in common? They all produce a literary magazine that reviews books. Paris has one too, but it does something different, featuring fiction more than reviews. Sydney set one up in 2013. Other cities have such magazines and this selection has a very occidental orientation and a focus on English language books. All have on-line versions and some come in physical forms. They're all 'good' in the sense that you'll find plenty of readable material in them.

By way of illustration for drb.ie, the Dublin one, there's a long essay by Tom Hennigan, writing from South America, on the opinion writer in The Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole,

http://www.drb.ie/essays/the-analyst-as-eeyore

Tom Hennigan's essay is not simply a biography or a style criticism of the writing of Fintan O'Toole. It's also a sweep through global capitalism; the role of the intellectual in Ireland and beyond; the challenges of modernity; the notion that there are some ideas that are progressive and others that are not and the question as to why we citizens don't pick the apparently 'progressive' ones. Maybe because writers like Fintan O'Toole tell us we should and make us feel that we're thick if we don't.

When Tom Hennigan uses the word 'power' in his excellent essay, it has the sense of being a given, as if he's describing something pre-ordained, rather than something generated everyday in contested engagements by people aggregated in hierarchies of military, business (often the same thing), religious, legal and cultural institutions, which encompass the bulk of citizens, most of whom have no impact on the activities of the hierarchical institutions. It's an old macro/micro matter. And a POWER thing.

So are drb.ie, and all the other such reviews, simply google for monoglot English-speaking chaise-lounge users? It depends on whether you think books, in physical or digital forms, remain places to go to when looking for knowledge, data, information and, occasionally, wisdom. At least they're clear that the knowledge presented is opinion and subjective.

The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com ) is the big one globally. And it knows it.

What has made The New York Review of Books successful, according to The New York Times, is its “stubborn refusal to treat books, or the theatre and movies, for that matter, as categories of entertainment to be indulged in when the working day is done.”

And, from the chaise lounge image of idle old-timey leisure, it's a short step to intellectual snobbery, readily taken by nybooks.com which was set up to be a review

in which the most interesting and qualified minds of our time (says who?) would discuss current books and issues in depth.

and

a literary and critical journal based on the assumption that the discussion of important books (eh?) was itself an indispensable literary activity.

The other 'big' one is lrb.co.uk, coming out of London, both on-line and in physical form at a hefty subscription cost (an appeal to Santa and other benefactors may be required). The whiff of intellectual snobbery can rise heartily from this particular chaise-lounge when they write about themselves

Since 1979, the London Review of Books has stood up for the tradition of the literary and intellectual essay in English.

And

A typical issue moves through political commentary to science or ancient history by way of literary criticism and social anthropology. So, for example, an issue can open with a piece on the rhetoric of war, move on to reassessing the reputation of Pythagoras, follow that with articles on the situation in Iraq, the 19th-century super-rich, Nabokov’s unpublished novel, how saints got to be saints, the life and work of William Empson, and an assessment of the poetry of Alice Oswald.

Every reader is allowed a minimum of two who?s with the above paragraph.

Perhaps snobbery, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and snobs are best met with the rejoinder f- - k 'em. On we get with the interest in literature and the search for knowledge via google, the telly, other people and books, as reviewed in drb.ie and elsewhere.

In drb.ie you'll find long-form essays and shorter reviews of newly published books; blog entries ranging over a number of fields and news of events and literature-related matters. The editors say their ambition is

to promote analysis and ideas by reflecting on international and Irish themes and, where appropriate, on their interaction.

And all free to an on-line subscriber. 

drb.ie? Highly recommended.

http://www.drb.ie

http://www.lrb.co.uk

http://www.nybooks.com

http://www.nybooks.com

http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com

others?

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WATCHING SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT is a film about power.

Set amidst clerical child abuse, there are few children and even fewer priests. Victims are referred to in lists, court cases and newspaper clips. Their appearances, though telling, are brief. SPOTLIGHT is a film about journalists, lawyers and senior church people, lay and clerical.

The city of Boston in 2001 presents as rain sodden and grey, except for a thrilling high-colour shot of Autumn trees, ablaze in gold and umber, used to make the transition to the final sequences, playing out in a Christmas season of grubby snow. The colour palette is almost black and white. Sepias, creams and magnolia feature. The luminous green globes on the lamps in the library are eerie and talismanic of the dominant culture in the city.

The Boston Globe understandably features the film and the Spotlight team in its current on-line edition. The most obvious film echo is ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, set in the Nixon-Watergate era. Are films about journalists in print media on the way out?

The wonders of the newspaper production facility of The Boston Globe in the early 2000s are lovingly shown. The great news room, the staff canteen, the industrial print plant, the definitive edition, carrying the big story, tumbling into bundles for loading onto the fleet of liveried trucks in the dispatch bay in the basement; these images are reminiscent of numerous American films set in the days of the dominance of print media.

The central drama is driven by the investigative Spotlight team within The Boston Globe, headed by ex-Batman, Michael Keaton as 'Robby' Robinson, alumnus of a good Catholic school and proud Bostonian. They are fired up by the arrival of a new editor, evident outsider Marty Baron, played by Liev Schreiber, who looks like Jurgen Klopp's slightly older brother. The loss of faith and, with it, the loss of an anchor of social and cultural stability, is very well portrayed as a betrayal of trust, as is the way institutional power elaborates and operates in acts of commission and omission among groups of men (largely), tied by bonds of kinship, ethnicity, social class, aspiration and religious adherence.

The principals – Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams and Brian d'Arcy James – are all excellent. Billy Crudup is a joy as a self-serving lawyer, while victim and source, Phil Saviano, is suitably edgy, hurt and fatalistic, as played by Neal Huff. Having 'the knowledge', psychotherapist Richard Sipe, never appear, yet contribute fundamental research in phone conversations, adds clandestine weight to the words of the uncredited Richard Jenkins.

SPOTLIGHT has achieved nominations and awards, great reviews, good audiences and box office returns. It will garner more and deservedly so. Best hair-piece? Stanley Tucci's as victim-supporting lawyer, Garabedian. Best scene? Garabedian talking about being an Armenian in Boston, while eating soup in a diner. Best line? Neal Huff, as victim Phil Saviano, asks

“How do you say 'no' to God?”

SPOTLIGHT http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/?ref_=nv_sr_1

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie/

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A RESPONSE TO THE CONSULTATION ON THE DCAL STRATEGY FOR CULTURE AND ARTS 2016-2026

MAKER'S MONEY

Investment in Entry-Level Artists

A draft proposal by Dave Duggan, dramatist and novelist, 3.2.2016

The purpose of the consultation by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland is to seek views on how arts and culture can best promote equality and tackle poverty and social exclusion: making arts and culture available to everyone.

Maker's Money is targeted investment in entry level artists, so they can make art. This meets the key focus of the consultation, which is the benefit of arts and culture to individuals, while ensuring maximum community benefit, value for money and public support. It assists the future recognition of the artists, their work and its value. It will enable artists to begin careers as practitioners, not facilitators, in Northern Ireland. The investment will deliver equality, strengthen the economy, contribute to the growth of the artistic workforce (a vital element in the creative sector), enhance the tourism offer and hearten us all, thus improving health and wellbeing.

Like all investments, it is not without risk. Making this investment in a confident manner, however, will enable artists, in particular new ones, to respond actively and make work across all artistic forms. Application and reporting can be minimal and not arduously administrative for a sole trader. The investment programme should be considered as long-term. Details would require working up, but, in outline, could include:

- An investment period of ten years, 2016-2026;

- an investment pot of £10, 000 per year, allocated as £2, 000 each for five individual artists per year, no artist being eligible for two Maker's Money investments;

- application is a one line statement of what the artist intends to make in Northern Ireland, supported by a brief cv of work previously made in Northern Ireland. As an investment in entry-level artists it is likely, but not necessary, that the investment would be made to younger practitioners. A receipt to confirm the investment has been received into the artist's bank account is the only reporting required.

The programme budget of £100, 000 over ten years can be allocated as part of the Department's overall budget in allocation models as used by Invest NI and Strategic Investment Board. Consideration could also be given to funds secured by the National Crime Agency in the form of 'assets recovered'. This investment programme would not replace SIAP funding offered by ACNI.

In enabling artists to make work using this investment the Vision of the draft strategy, to offer everyone an equal opportunity to achieve their aspirations and ambitions, while tackling social exclusion of artists in a manner that tackles wider exclusions in society by new, creative works and acts, can be delivered. The key theme of cultural togetherness is made manifest when a society confidently invests in makers who use their creativity and skills to make the work they wish to make. These artists contribute to their own and society's wellbeing through rich cultural expression, rooted in this place and reaching far beyond it.

Dave Duggan 3.2.2016

https://www.dcalni.gov.uk/consultations/consultation-strategy-culture-arts-2016-2026

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FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO OFFEND

Approaching the consideration of offensive utterances as a matter of rights leaves us with major problems. An editorial in The Irish Times (Saturday, 9.1.2016) exposes them.

In the week Paris marked the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre Belfast also saw a small, welcome, not entirely unrelated, blow struck for free speech. In both cases the casus belli was the disputed right to grievously offend, specifically Muslims.

Whenever assertions of rights are made, there is often a counter assertion of responsibilities. This appears to be absent in this case and that's a problem.

Pastor James McConnell (78) was acquitted on charges under the 2003 Communications Act of sending “a grossly offensive message” on the internet in May last year, a sermon from his Pentecostal church, the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle, describing Islam as “satanic” and “spawned in hell”.

The utterances of the Pastor are regarded by his supporters as the words of a conviction preacher. It is his conviction which impels him to use this language. In the quotations from his remarks, replace the word 'Islam' with 'Christianity', the word 'Muslim' with 'Christian' and they remain offensive. Other words may be inserted to the same effect. It might be said that the Pastor's words are, at best, ill-considered and problematic.

…. what the pastor was being prosecuted for was his comment damning all Muslims as untrustworthy: “People say there are good Muslims in Britain – that may be so – but I don’t trust them”. Unpleasant, and clearly a manifestation of prejudice, if not bigotry, such words are akin to those of Marine Le Pen who was also cleared in December of charges of incitement to hatred after comparing Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France.

Human history has many instances of people of religious and secular beliefs speaking trenchantly and publicly, out of their convictions. A reflection on those people will readily throw up considerations of who benefits from such words. The Pastor is reported to have said, in the aftermath of his acquittal that he would reconsider such words again, not because he feels he does not have the right – the courts have legally vindicated him – but because he might find a better way to express his convictions. Better in the sense of being more useful, beneficial and helpful to us all. And, from in his own perspective, more in keeping with the divine edict to 'love they neighbour as thyself'.

Sometimes, necessarily, we pay for such largesse by allowing the regrettable fanning of sectarian fires, or the right to cry fire in a crowded room. Or speech verging on defamation.

The assertion that sectarian strife may be a reasonable price to pay for the right to be offensive in this manner is dangerous. The question is begged as to who is being referred to with the word 'we' in the quotation above. Are the sectarian fires to be 'their' problem?

But if we are not to ban offensive speech, we are not required to offer it a platform. Newspapers and broadcasters in a free society remain free not to publish, and their discretion in this matter ….... readers/consumers. (It is rightly the latter, in buying or tuning in to media outlets, who) must make the choices which will determine how civilised debate will be conducted. Not the courts, regulators, overzealous prosecutors, politically-correct civil society groups, or even over-prescriptive press councils.

The appeal to the concept of a free society, while genuine, must be considered in circumstances where great difference exists between peoples, where the violence of poverty and war is an integral part of human commerce and where inequalities cause huge problems.

Is there a responsibility on people of conviction, in particular those who have significant public platforms such as the Pastor, to bring a measure of sensitivity and compassion to all utterances?

Or are we as knavish as Hamlet says?

I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my

beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give

them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I

do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all;

believe none of us.

Such fellows as I, in the throes of our arrant knavery, could usefully consider, with sensitivity and compassion, as well as conviction, our responsibilities in all the public utterances we make.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-the-freedom-to-offend-1.2489891

http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=hamlet&Act=3&Scene=1&Scope=scene&LineHighlight=1814#1814

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READING SEYMOUR M. HERSH

The reader is swept up by the words and the ideas of Seymour M. Hersh. Their density is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Can this be true? Is it the rantings of a man so convulsed by American conspiracies that he spews complexity and travesty to such an extent that what he writes could not possibly be the case?

And yet what makes Seymour M. Hersh's words chime is the very ring of truth they have been sounding since his shocking 1969 revelations about the My Lai massacres in Viet Nam. He has sources inside the military, political and secret service institutions of the most powerful country on the planet, the United States of America. He writes forcefully and compellingly. He grips.

In the first 2016 edition of The London Review of Books (Volume 38, Number 1, 7th January) Hersh writes about a source, a close adviser to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria.

But the military chiefs felt that the politicians in Washington were fixated on getting rid of Assad, in the classic 'regime change' strategy that led to the chaos the peoples of Iraq and Libya endure. They felt this would lead to another disaster, for the US. So they embarked on a subterfuge, circumventing political direction and supplying intelligence to Assad via allies, including Germany, Israel and even the Russians.

It was clear that Assad needed better tactical intelligence and operational advice. The JCS concluded that if those needs were met, the overall fight against Islamist terrorism would be enhanced. Obama didn’t know, but Obama doesn’t know what the JCS does in every circumstance and that’s true of all presidents.

The reader is mesmerised. Is this the back story of a Hollywood Middle-East political drama? Then, the reader enters the sewers of rendition torture chambers.

Later that year, Syrian intelligence foiled an attack by al-Qaida on the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and Assad agreed to provide the CIA with the name of a vital al-Qaida informant. In violation of this agreement, the CIA contacted the informant directly; he rejected the approach, and broke off relations with his Syrian handlers. Assad also secretly turned over to the US relatives of Saddam Hussein who had sought refuge in Syria, and – like America’s allies in Jordan, Egypt, Thailand and elsewhere – tortured suspected terrorists for the CIA in a Damascus prison.

Can this all be true? And can it make sense of the dead boy on the beach, of the thousands fleeing by sea, drowning in the Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) of the Roman Empire, in today's 21^st Century battle of the Empires? This is Star Wars written on our own broken, blue planet.

Seymour M. Hersh's sources cross the planet. He writes of unlikely allies and macro-alliances, played out above the heads of citizens.

A senior adviser to the Kremlin on Middle East affairs told me that in late 2012, after suffering a series of battlefield setbacks and military defections, Assad had approached Israel via a contact in Moscow and offered to reopen the talks on the Golan Heights. The Israelis had rejected the offer. ‘They said, “Assad is finished,”' the Russian official told me. ‘“He’s close to the end.”’ He said the Turks had told Moscow the same thing. By mid-2013, however, the Syrians believed the worst was behind them, and wanted assurances that the Americans and others were serious about their offers of help.

The reader is not surprised but is nonetheless forcefully struck by Hersh's assertions regarding the relations between the militaries in the regimes in the US and Russia. Is this a background paper to a John Le Carré novel? See how, supposedly neutral, Ireland gets drawn in?

In August, a few weeks before his retirement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dempsey made a farewell visit to the headquarters of the Irish Defence Forces in Dublin and told his audience there that he had made a point while in office to keep in touch with the chief of the Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. ‘I’ve actually suggested to him that we not end our careers as we began them,’ Dempsey said – one a tank commander in West Germany, the other in the East.

Yet again, this is not a surprise. Hersh writes what many people know to be the case.

One of the constants in US affairs since the fall of the Soviet Union has been a military-to-military relationship with Russia.

Hersh writes about macro-events, amidst the political/military and secret service elites. He cites US militarist amazement at the Obama Administration’s support of the Erdogan regime in Turkey. He offers no explanation of the US political administration's much-criticised insistence on 'moderates' in Syria, and the support offered by the regime in Turkey.

Dempsey and his associates remain mystified by Obama’s continued public defence of Erdoğan, given the American intelligence community’s strong case against him – and the evidence that Obama, in private, accepts that case.

As a journalist who writes on such heated matters, with access to named and unnamed sources in very critical circumstances, Hersh attracts praise and criticism in fair measure.

The reader listens to oud players while reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnLfbiHuoko

Is there more to be gleaned about the lives of peoples in the region from the music?

Read Seymour M. Hersh yourself. Listen for the chimes of truth that you may hear. And listen to the oud players, for the human heart of it all.

All good wishes to the peoples of Syria for 2016.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

Le Trio Joubran on France 2 TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Y_FOq8DoY

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SEASONAL SHAME

The Irish Times is a major newspaper in Ireland. The weekend edition is published each Saturday and includes a magazine with human-interest features on celebrities, personalities, food, fashion, travel and gardening. There's a comprehensive listing of TV programmes and a scattering of ads. It provides the 'lifestyle' supplement to the news coverage in the paper.

In the pre-Christmas edition of 19^th December 2015, there is a one-page photographic feature entitled Gifts for Him. It includes an image of a stainless steel self-winding watch by Tiffany and Co., priced at 5, 650 euros.

Who is the Him and has He no shame?

Has the newspaper no shame?

They sold me a dream of Christmas

They sold me a silent night

The front page stories concern strictures applying to judicial inquiries into matters of serious public concern such as the banking crisis and the sale of Sitserv, a private building services company that instals water meters. There is also a story on bonuses paid to the partners of officials in the police service's representative body.

Perhaps Him received one of those bonuses? Or benefitted from the sale of Sitserv? Or escaped, quids in, when the banks re-invented themselves with public money? On page 2 of the News Agenda, there is the statistic that the government baled out one bank with 20.8 billion euro of public money, of which the bank has repaid 1.64 billion euro. Is Him a banker?

And they told me a fairy story

Have Him and the government no shame?

And I believed in Father Christmas

And I looked at the sky with excited eyes

On page 9, in World News, there is a report from the UN that there are 60 million refugees in the world. It is also reported that there are 2.5 people with pending requests for asylum. Is Him among them?

They said there'll be snow at Christmas

They said there'll be peace on earth

But instead it just kept on raining

The political consequences of the suffering wrought by the flooding along the river Shannon are considered on page 6. The human suffering is not addressed in any detail, though there are assertions that eliminating or preventing floods is no longer sustainable and that the recent devastations are the results of Acts of God. So Him is not responsible and can get on with admiring His new watch.

Has Him no shame?

There is report of a UN-backed road map for a Syrian peace process on page 10 in World News. Tensions exist between regional powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, who engage in proxy wars on behalf of allies further afield. Iran and Russia line up with the Assad regime. Saudi Arabia want that regime brought down, as do the western powers. What does Him want? And what do the people of Syria want? Is Assad Him? Is Him an arms' dealer?

I wish you a hopeful christmas

I wish you a brave new year

Has Him no shame?

Have Assad, the many militants and their arms' suppliers no shame?

Some insight is offered on page 11, in columnist Simon Carswell's American Letter. A man (Him?) with business interests in casinos in Las Vegas bought an influential American newspaper for 129 million euro. Could this be Him? Perhaps Him is closer to home. In Business News on page 17 there are details of houses sold in Ireland in 2015 for 26.5 million euros, 10 million euros, 7.5 million euros, 6.35 and 2.2 million euros.

It is evident that Him has no shame. And will brazenly assert  "Everyone wants a 10 million euros house and a 5 grand watch? Or if they don't they're fools.”

Him was at the auction for the personal effects belonging to Margaret Thatcher, described in Fine Arts and Antiques, page 19, as her 'Free market' triumphs. Michael Parson's column indicates that the purchasers of the Iron Lady's memorabilia got real bargains, including a pair of shoes which sold for over 4, 000 pounds sterling. Him bought them? For Her?

A veil of tears for the virgin's birth

Has Her no shame?

The ability to hold all the world together in a brazen, bare-faced, shameless assertion of the current order is a miracle, a Christmas miracle, that lasts the whole year round.

What use is shame at this or any at any other time of the year?

Newspapers like The Irish Times have a powerful capacity to hold a compartmentalised range of material together and present it to readers as if it were all of a piece, as if this is the only reality that counts and that nothing jars. The ability of a newspaper to encompass such a variety of stories and promotions is evidence of its quality. It is how it is.

It is the mechanism of the watch, complicated and complex, difficult to unravel, a marvel to behold. It simply ticks along as Him would have it.

The use of the word 'we' is an essential element. We are all part of it. There is no shame in wanting a five grand watch or a ten million euros house or a four grand pair of shoes. There is no hypocrisy in such wants and, at the same time, the impulse to feel bad about poor people who go hungry at Christmas.

It is just the way things are. As told to us by Him.

'till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn

And I saw Him and through his disguise

The readers of The Irish Times, including this writer, are brazenly capable of holding an image of a five grand watch together with images of business corruption, banking collapses, flood devastations and war catastrophes amidst rising profits for arms' manufacturers, whilst not feeling the slightest degree of shame.

It's Christmas.

I believe in Father Christmas; Emerson, Lake and Palmer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm6CheT6rs

The Irish Times; newspaper, Dublin, 19^th December, 2015

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BLOG POST SPECIAL: PORTRAIT OF A MOTHER

BLOGPOST SPECIAL: PORTRAIT OF A MOTHER

The text delivered by Dave Duggan at the Portrait of A Mother event, organised by WoW Derry Londonderry, at St. Augustine's Church, 10.12.2015.

I’d like you to meet my mother, Margaret Spillane. But she died in 2001, so we’ll have to rely on some memories and a film clip or two. I invite you to visualise. You might want to close your eyes, every now and then. And pardon a smidgin of false memory and a leavening of poetic licence.

There she is, in this first clip. Margaret Spillane, just seventeen, a robust girl, born in 1936, there, on the quayside in Waterford, beside her father, Jack. The steel wall of a ship rises behind them. Funnels belch black smoke. The quay is thronged with families. Cattle slither up a gangway. My father, Eddie Duggan, ten years older than Margaret, stands off. He is afraid of Jack Spillane. Jack's a War of Independence veteran. Margaret and her ten siblings are alive only because her father's death sentence was commuted with the signing of the Treaty. He's the Sergeant of the Guards and a noted pugilist.

Margaret isn't afraid of him. She is not pregnant, despite what he might think. She is set for London. For betterment. When I come along, 2 years later, Margaret and Eddie are married and making their way among immigrants, despite the signs reading

No Blacks, No dogs, No Irish.

Three words outline the portrait of my mother:

working; laughing; singing.

See her skip up the gangplank. She's crying, but she's seventeen and she is Ava Gardner, in the musical Showboat. She waves to her father and climbs aboard her future.

(Sings) Fish gotta swim

Birds gotta fly

I gotta love one man

'til I die

Can't help loving that man a' mine.

My first memory of my mother shows her lifting me to safety. Another film clip. We are in a basement flat. Our neighbours are Cypriots, Hungarians, Windrush Jamaicans and Irish. There is a glass door leading to a patch of scrubby grass. My uncle Donal crashes through the door and deadly diamonds scythe the air. My young mother sweeps me out of harm's way.

I see my mother working. Close your eyes and you can see her in a gingham shop-coat. She has previous retail experience. Here's an earlier photograph of her and another girl, aged fourteen, both auburn-haired, even in black and white. The shining black of the spaniel Margaret is holding. The gleaming white of their dairy-girl coats. Margaret parlays this dairy experience into the shop job in London, where she recites this rhyme for a forgetful shopper:

bread, brown or white;

sugar, brown or white:

tea, butter, milk or marg

rashers of bacon; slices of ham

bread soda, caustic soda

liniment, ointment; unguent

toothpaste, blades, bars of soap;

bars of chocolate

Margaret laughs.

I have more of it forgotten than I have remembered.

Her real party pieces are songs. A common phrase around Margaret is

Go on Margaret, give us an aul' song.

She gives a little half-cough of self-deprecation.

Ah, I don't know. I have a bit of a tickle.

See the rapt faces of the men and women ….

Go on Margaret, girl. The Harbour Lights.

… as Margaret picks the song of her choice.

(Sings) They tried to tell us we're too young.

Too young to really be in love.

She's a life-long romantic. She carries a fierce commitment to the idea of betterment. An experience in a hospital, aged nineteen, when she didn't know the word 'urine' sees her vow

that no child a' mine will never not know the words.

And she has her own words. That's her with her dog, Archie.

Get offa tha' sofa Archie or I'll give you a verk.

Her voice is enough for Archie, who is so much part of her life that some of her grandchildren name her ….. Nanny Archie.

When a film I write, Dance Lexie Dance, goes to Hollywood, Margaret goes to Derry, for the local celebrations. She has a ball, possibly better than we film makers in Tinsel Town.

She's a romantic. A working woman. A singer. And a babe. She puts the razz into razzamatazz. She enjoys a bit of glamour. Showbiz! That's part of her portrait.

We can watch another film clip. See her, singing in the Theatre Royal in Waterford. Not from the stage. Rewind a bit. There. Margaret, Chrissie and Hannah are in the front row of The Gods, for the inter-factory variety shows competition, The Tops of the Town. Tonight, the Glass Factory faces The Chipboard Factory, where my father works.

He says Dem fellas? Shur they can't work, no mind dance.

Margaret agrees. Ah, God love 'em. They're not really front row material.

Disappointment strikes when the on-stage electrics fail. You can see steel toe-capped boots dashing under the fire-curtain. The packed house grows restive. There's some gentle barracking from The Gods.

A performer calls from the stage

Are ye up there, Margaret? I can't see ye, ye're that high up. Go on, Margaret, give us an aul song.

See her laugh, Chrissie and Hannah pinching her until she stands, grasps the metal rail in front of her and charms her audience with song, as they crane their necks upwards from the dress circle, the stalls and the stage.

(Sings) I was born one morning when the sun didn't shine

I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine

I load sixteen tons of number 9 coal

And the boss man says wella bless my soul

Here's a video of me and Margaret on a road trip. I'm her white-headed boy: a man or boy, who is highly regarded or favoured; a pet; a darling. Ask my sisters. See Margaret in this video still. It's a mid-shot, taken at Gougane Barra, in west Cork. Margaret is half-turned to the tungsten corrugations of the water and the shimmering drapes of the cliffs that ring the coum, cupping the lake.

We drive on to Killarney and hire a jaunting car. The jarvey is a pipsqueak Margaret describes as scrawnier dan your father. She urges him to speed up. He's soon galloping like Barry Fitzgerald in The Quiet Man.

Back in town, Margaret waves at everyone. So do I. Everyone waves back. Margaret often says:

Remember the day the Yanks all waved at us in Killarney. God love their innocence.

I have a photo. It's framed in blue, like her life. We perch on a rock beside the lake. Killarney's hills undulate behind us. There are trees, dense upon a crannóg. A red boat, The Eanna, lifts its prow. It could be Irish, but it is the ancient Sumerian name for the temple of the Goddess Ishtar. Heaven, you could say.

Margaret's earthly concerns find her working in the laundry at Waterford Regional Hospital. If we edit some clips from the film Suffragette, we portray her ankle-deep in water, hauling sopping sheets from cavernous machines.

As a perk, Margaret and her colleagues provide a laundry service for their families, and many others, from their 'one woman, one bag' allowance. Here's another film clip. See that red car. Yeh? But you can't see the women, such is the pile of black bags on top of them.

She lives a tempestuous relationship with my father, Eddie Duggan. He's a well-read, factory-working intellectual and, as they say in Waterford, a martyr to the drink. He's mercurial and melancholic. She's robust and romantic. They have six children, a white-headed boy and five strong women. Listen ... the wheels of a pram clatter up the wooden stairs of the Housing Office, as Margaret pulls her family with her, presenting her demand to be re-housed.

She meets Bill. He's widowed then, like herself. My sisters name him Sailor Bill, a retired steward from the Rosslare-Fishguard ferry. She brings vivacity and gregariousness to his life. He brings a gentlemanly demeanour and a well-kept car to hers. Here's a film clip, as they set off on a weekend to Clonakilty. See my sisters banter with her.

You and Bill are off to Clon? For the weekend? What's the set-up exactly?

See Margaret grinning, girly once more, the perennial seventeen year old.

Dat's for me t' know and ye, ta never find ouh.

She loves Christmas because of what she calls the bit a' plenty.

Margaret and her work colleagues have a Diddly, a small, weekly savings club that pays out at Christmas. So with the bit a' plenty my mother enjoys Christmas, giving generously to all her friends and family.

She loves us all, to this very day. One of her catch phrases, one I use with my own children, is to shout Up our House. She doesn't just mean our house. She means everybody's house. Your house too.

Another song then. They all sing it. Forever. Ella. Lena. Billie. Margaret.

(Sings) Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky

Stormy weather

Since my man and I ain't together

Keeps rainin' all the time.