Above: Some photographs sent on from daily life at the front. Jamie Goldrick chats to an Irish volunteer who traveled East to volunteer with the YPG in the fight against ISIS. He chats about his motivations, life in Rojava and the realities of day-to-day life on the front-lines in Syria. Can you describe your immediate surroundings right now as you type this? I’m sat on the veranda of a building … Read More
Hold The Line.
Author Enda Brophy has spent the past decade researching call centres. His book Language Put To Work chronicles how the industry has transformed the world of communications and looks at how workers fight back within it. Paul Dillon took his call.
We Speak In Code #7
Paddy Lynch continues his epic emotion tinged comic about lost youth…
The Chemical Generation.
Niall McCann is making a name for himself as a documentary maker that looks at creativity under neo-liberalism. His feature on Luke Haines got rave reviews from those lucky enough to see it at film festivals. His recent Lost in France is about the seminal Glasgow record label Chemikal Underground. Martin Leen sat down with him to chat about making art in these market-driven times.
Simms City.
The history of public housing in Ireland is, in many ways, a history of failure. Donal Fallon takes us for a trip in his De Loreon and introduces us to a champion of social housing who designed beautiful European art deco buildings for the city that still stand out as visionary models today. Regarded as a legacy of British rule, slumdom still defined much of the heart of inner-city Dublin … Read More
Taking On The Vulture Club.
Above: Illustrartion by Holly Pereira. Check out more of her amazing work at Hyperpictures. Last January, the Master of the High Court Edmund Hanahan warned that over the next five years home repossessions were to increase five-fold. Already this year there have been 517 cases lodged by companies affiliated with vulture funds against debtors, that’s a tenfold increase from the 53 cases recorded in the High Court last year. Sean Finnan looks at … Read More
Gombeen #14: The Regime’s Regina.
Who is the regime’s Regina? A blueshirt politician, a landlord, and a failed en-tra-pra-nure – she couldn’t be more the elite’s own if she tweeted where she was when Princess Diana died in a week when three homeless people died on the streets. Her failed consultancy firm Enhance Solutions didn’t keep its books in proper order – a criminal offence in itself. When it went into liquidation it owed over … Read More
The Estate Of That.
Above: Photos from the production. First the Red Road flats in Glasglow, and then the famous Balfron Tower that inspired JG Ballard’s High Rise.. As Ireland scrambles to get to grips with its housing crisis, director Paul Sng turns in a blinding exposée of the deliberate dismantling of social housing in the UK. It’s called Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle. Rashers Tierney caught up with him to hear … Read More
Scratch That Itch.
Above: Patrick O’Brien captures the masked hip-hop crusader in his natural enviroment. From co-founding Galway’s Community Skratch games, being a member of the Vince McMahon scratch super-group to making some seriously innovative music as one half of one man duo Deviant and Naïve Ted, Andy Connolly has been a cornerstone of Irish hip-hop and electronica for over a decade. Martin Leen took the brave step and left Dublin for the … Read More