Hailed as one of the UK s hottest young talents, and having appeared in such successes as Michael Collins, The Magnificent Abersons, and Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys-Myers is in fact Dublin-born and raised in Cork. OLAF TYARANSEN met the rising star. Thesp Behaviour: Peter Matthews
Tabloids, those small, square, screeching newspapers in which England in particular specialises, have never really caught on in Ireland, certainly not in the same way that they have across the water. It’s certainly not because we don’t have the shock! horror! scandals needed to feed their hungry maw. In fact, some of the stuff that goes on in this country is actually too sensational for the sensational press.
Below, Liam Fay looks at some of the secrets in the lives of four famous Irish figures from the past hundred and fifty years or so and attempts to reinterpret them as a modern day tabloid would.
All of the ‘scandals’ alluded to are factual. Joyce was a coprophiliac, Yeats did have sheep glands inserted into his body, James Clarence Mangan was a phenomenal dipso and Michael Collins was, well, inordinately fond of wrestling.
AIDAN KELLY’S latest stage role in blasted, as a psychotic soldier, is a far cry from his last TV role in the RTE sitcom 'TheCassidys'. Interview: JOE JACKSON
These days he may be more famous for his movies than his prose, but in conversation Neil Jordan remains linguistically precise as he dissects the Hollywood machine, reveals his love for Lord Of The Rings and discusses his latest movie The Good Thief, starring Nick Nolte.
The Irish star opens up on sex, drugs, racism, crime, acting, actors and actresses, as well as slamming the Irish film industry and RTE.
Text: JOE JACKSON. Portraits: CATHAL DAWSON
RTE is often, and rightly, castigated by the print media for sub-standard productions, but its new comedy-drama series Bachelors Walk is already being heralded as one of the station’s best ever projects before it's even half-way through its eight-part run.
STEPHEN ROBINSON goes on location to discover the secret of the show’s success
Massage parlours? Escort agencies? The sex industry is nothing new in Dublin – once upon a time, in one small part of the city, there were over 1,500 “poor, unfortunate girls” servicing clients (including King Edward and James Joyce) and being terrorised by madams. Until, that is, the Legion Of Mary came along. Billy Scanlan investigates the history of the battle for the soul of the city’s once infamous red-light district
Dutchy Holland, currently serving an eight-year sentence in Wandsworth Prison, gives a remarkably revealing interview where he discusses all aspects of his life as a career criminal.
Having been returned triumphantly to office in 2002, Bertie Ahern might have expected things to rock gently along this year. But instead, he’s been through a mincer and it’s not over yet.
Plans for a film based on the life of Republican figurehead and Labour party founder James Connolly have received a boost with SIPTU agreeing to help finance the project.
She may have a reputation as an actress who has a penchant for getting romantically involved with many of her leading men, but Julia Roberts is guarded about her personal life. She has been romantically linked to Matthew Perry, Daniel Day Lewis and Pat Manocchia, a friend of the late John F Kennedy Jr. among others, but she is constantly surrounded by a loyal staff, whose job it is to preserve her privacy. However, she has been involved in some very public liaisons,
as Stephen Robinson reports.
There is no doubting that politics is a dirty game. Everywhere. People here may sniff their superiority over the sleazebags in England and America, and how we don’t dump on a cabinet minister for bonking five secretaries and getting caught. But in truth it’s just as dirty on this island as anywhere else.
Frank McBrearty Jnr. is the victim of what may well be the greatest miscarriage of justice ever in the Irish State. However, having been exonerated by the Morris Tribunal, he has more on his mind than mere compensation.
Incendiary Irish-American rabble rousers black 47 are coming to town for a couple of Irish shows later this month. liam fay talks to band mainman larry kirwan about those two eagerly-awaited dates, as well as their new album, Green Suede Shoes.
As Gerry Adams and friends bask in the glory of another public relations triumph, EAMONN McCANN analyses the historical context of the current ceasefire, and assesses the scepticism surrounding the IRA s motives in calling it.
Why did RAY BURKE receive #30,000 from a construction firm eight years ago? And what on earth did he spend it on? These were just some of the many questions awaiting answers in the Dail last week. Our man in the public gallery: LIAM FAY.
It’s been ten years since his last novel, but Neil Jordan has now reprised his role as one of Ireland’s finest contemporary prose writers with the dark gothic drama, Shade. In a wide-ranging interview with Olaf Tyaransen the Oscar-winning writer/director discusses the challenges of literary craftsmanship, swimming with sharks in Hollywood, working with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, his disinterest in celebrity and why Ireland continues to be his preferred place of residence.
For over three decades, the political agitator and columnist Eoghan Harris has been the focus of abundant controversy, consistently raising hackles with views that are seldom less than heretical.
That a bonefide Irish film industry actually exists is no small achievement, but with a new Minister For The Arts now in place, this is hardly the time for complacency. To ascertain how best the industry can be maintained and developed, Hot Press film critic, cathy dillon, canvassed the views of a number of key players.
Every loser wins on patrick kielty s new Channel 4 show, Last Chance Lottery , and for the 26-year-old comedian, presenter and former germ , things have never looked so good. Interview: barry glendenning.
He may have an image as a political bruiser, but even if he is prepared to engage Bertie in a head-butting contest, Michael Noonan would rather win over the electorate by the more gentle art of persuasion. Joe Jackson meets the Fine Gael leader to discuss public issues and personal traumas, and discovers why he's partial to drink and Bill Clinton but opposed to Sinn Fein, the Bertie bowl and tax breaks for sports stars.
He is the grandson of Éamon De Valera – one of the founding fathers of the State and a former Taoiseach and President. So has his unique lineage had anything to do with the success of EAMON Ó CUÍV? These and other issues are teased out in a remarkable interview with Ireland’s Minister for Community Affairs.
owen O Neill almost drowned a promising comedy career in drink. Now, with the bottle firmly corked, his harrowing experience of alcoholism is fuelling his most powerful one-man show to date. Interview: barry glendenning.
On the release of a double CD retrospective of his forty years as a performer-songwriter, Johnny McEvoy talks to Jackie Hayden about his early days as Ireland’s answer to Bob Dylan, meeting the great man himself, supporting and introducing The Rolling Stones, defending The Wolfe Tones, not apologising for the troubles in the North, U2 and the key albums that have inspired him.
. . . Here’s T.P. McKenna, one of Ireland’s most eminent actors – and a punk at heart. In an outspoken interview he savages Marlon Brando, Joseph Strick, Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher – and talks about his desire to be held in the arms of young girls again . . .
Interview: JOE JACKSON
Barely had the new smoking legislation been put in place than the law was broken – in the Dail Eireann bar, by a TD. John Deasy, who subsequently lost his position as fine gael spokesperson on justice, reckons his crime was minor compared to the “criminal excesses” of some of his political colleagues. and he won’t guarantee that he won’t break the law again.
Best known for his Irish Times column An Irishman s Diary, KEVIN MYERS has been denounced as arrogant, bigoted, pompous and prejudiced. And those are just the people who like his witty writing! On the occasion of the publication of a collection of his writings, the journalist they either love or loathe talks to JOE JACKSON about class, prostitution, drugs, relationships, the North, Mary Ellen Synon and more. Photography: CATHAL DAWSON
A defining personality of the seismic changes in Northern Ireland, Billy Hutchinson is a paramilitary turned politician, a convicted UVF murderer who spent 16 years in the Maze and who will now represent the PUP in the new Assembly. But if Hutchinson has abandoned violence, it hasn’t altogether abandoned him. As he reveals in this interview with niall stanage, there have been three attempts on his life by the INLA in the last 18 months.
Pics: Michael Taylor.
He’s been many things: a roadie with De Danann, a carpenter with Druid, a founder of the world-famous Macnas theatre group and, not least, a six-foot four-inch Connemara man in a skirt and self-styled “cranky fuck”. But now Paraic Breathnach spends a lot of his time crying tears of rage. Olaf Tyaransen finds him down but definitely not out. Portrait Aengus McMahon
Thirty years ago Neil Armstrong took that famous first step on behalf of all mankind. That means me and you. But wait a minute wasn t it also supposed to be a giant leap? So what happened next? And what went wrong? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
brian hayes is a 28-year-old Fine Gael TD who represents the constituency of Dublin South West. At the last general election, he virtually tripled Fine Gael s vote in the Tallaght area. He opposes the legalisation of cannabis, claims that feminists need to have a fundamental re-think on their current position, feels guilty about not attending Mass regularly, and reckons that You need order in society . . . you need people who know what they re about . Is this the face of young, politically aware Ireland? Interview: liam fay.
Pics: colm henry.
Every bit as haunting and entrancing as the Big O's ballad of the same name, but nowhere near as enjoyable, the truly terrifying In Dreams seems to finally mark the end of Neil Jordan's flirtations with anything resembling commercial mainstream cinema.
Gothic, brooding, malicious and deeply disturbing, the film is a dark-beyond-description thriller-chiller which heralds an apparent return to the more fevered style of Angel and Company of Wolves.
It s not only the presence of the country s hottest publication that makes Trinity Street one of the coolest in the capital. Street scenes: Sasfi Hope-Ross
They say that he was among the most powerful – and the most ruthless – Republican activists of them all. Here the legendary Bobby Storey, reputed to have been Director of Intelligence for the IRA, talks for the first time about his role in the struggle, and about some of the critical events that led to the IRA ceasefire and the Peace Process.
