The Spoken Word element of Metropolis should be something really special and Hot Press is all over the RDS conversational action this weekend.
One panel we're very much looking forward to is 'What The Fuck Is Irish Culture?', which will find Hot Press founder and editor Niall Stokes asking that very question to a quintet of big names.
Taking place between 17.45 and 19.00 on Sunday November 8, Joe Caslin, Sarah Glennie, Garry Hynes, Aodhan O Riordain and Jim Sheridan will all take part.
Illustrator and street artist Joe Caslin gained international renown with his gay marriage mural, installed at South Great George’s Street, Dublin in the run up to the marriage equality referendum and based on Frederick William Burton’s Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs.
Sarah Glennie was appointed director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2008. She previously served as director of the Irish Film Institute (as it was then called). Glennie was born in the UK and studied art history at the University of Bristol, before taking an MA in museum and cultural studies at the University of Manchester. She’s been in Ireland since 1995, when she took the position of curator at IMMA. She curated Dorothy Cross’s popular Ghost Ship project in 2001.
The co-founder of the Druid Theatre Company, Garry Hynes also enjoys international fame as the first female to win the coveted Tony Award for direction of a play. She served as the artistic director of the Abbey as well as helming productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court Theatre and the Kennedy Center.
Labour Party TD Aodhan O Riordain was elected to the Dublin
North-Central constituency in 2011. He previously served with Dublin City Council. In 2014, he was appointed Minister of State at the Departments of Justice and Equality, and Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. He has special responsibility for “new communities, culture and equality”. He took on further responsibilities when additionally appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Health with responsibility for National Drugs Strategy.
With no less than six Oscar nominations to his name, Wicklow-born director Jim Sheridan would be one of the first faces carved into a Mount Rushmore of Irish cinema. His works include My Left Foot and In The Name Of The Father, widely recognised as some of the finest films this country has produced.