The Media thrives on bad or sensational news, that how they keep us coming back for more…it has always been so and this last year there has been glut of bad news, largely dominated by Covid. There is a ray of hope on that front, now that we have the vaccine and we in the Western world can look forward to better days. Heaven only knows what is going on with the pandemic in less fortunate parts of the world and my heart sinks when I think of the refugee camps in Syria and the like. The tragedy there is unimaginable and now they have Covid to deal with. According to UNICEF and the BBC, the numbers are rising and people are dying. Think of the children – heartbreaking. So it is depressing that the news dwells so much on the Sussex interview and its fall-out, when there is so much more to think about. Bad timing!! (I didn’t watch it). And upsetting too, to know that the interview was really all about money and the money made from it, by various individuals and news channels. It would be wonderful if those people and organizations could turn it all around, by donating the money to the children of those refugee camps and mitigate the tragedy a little. Wishful and naive thinking I know, but that’s my thought for today.
Martello Tower – the James Joyce Tower.
It’s St Patrick’s Day today, so I am wearing green. I love Ireland, although I know only the South, never been to the North. I spent many happy summers there with my cousin, splashing about in the Sandymount rock pools, just outside Dublin. My aunt and uncle were living there at the time in a rented house and in the garden was the James Joyce Tower, what a thrill. I was eight at the time and did not really know who James Joyce was, but others did and they would turn up all the time to take a look and climb to the top of this Martello Tower, in which he wrote. I was a willing guide, until my aunt put a stop to me going up there with strangers, hinting at dark things that might happen to me. In fact I was really much more interested in the Dublin Horse Show. I adored horses, still do and it was one of the thrills of my childhood to be taken to this amazing event, full of those gorgeous creatures.
Of course my other momentous time in Ireland or Eire as it should be called, was the interior filming of THE LION IN WINTER, at Ardmore studios. The studios are close to Dun Laoghaire, place of those childhood days…so my memories are sweet.
I am beginning to sound like a travel guide for Eire, but I loved my time there and hope to return one of these days, if nothing else to meet two new friends, with whom I have been connecting, courtesy of social media, one Jimmy Keary, a writer of plays, soon to be produced in Canada (his St Paddy’s card is facing me as I write) and Michael Feeney Callan, an artist and writer of books and plays. His biography of Robert Redford is the best I have read.
Be well friends and safe ….till next time.
