Brandon Books to be pulped 

Posted on by Philip Casey

Baby Zero

Baby Zero by Emer Martin

Emer Martin quite accidentally discovered that the books published by the late and lamented Steve McDononagh’s Brandon Books are to be pulped on June 1st.

I’ve already retweeted Emer’s alarm on Twitter. I don’t use Facebook but Mannix Flynn sent me what Emer posted on Facebook and I’m reproducing it here for non-Facebook users who may be interested.

Steve MacDonagh the publisher at Brandon Books died in 2010. It was reported in the Irish Times that O’Briens Press bought the company. In fact they only bought the ten most lucrative titles. I am presenting awards for the SCC today and they requested 30 copies of my book Baby Zero as prizes. I tracked down the liquidator, who sent me to Gill and MacMillan the distributor. When I arrived at the warehouse the very accommodating manager brought me to the site of all Brandon Books and informed me that they would all be destroyed on June 1st. He was aghast that no author was informed of this. If you are a Brandon author, or know one, please alert them to the fact that all their books will be pulped in one month if they don’t contact the liquidator. (I thought I’d seen everything in Publishing)

You can search for Brandon-published authors on Irish Writers Online Note: not all are necessarily in print.

on Twitter: Emer Martin @emermartin ; Mannix Flynn @mannixflynn ; Philip Casey @Philip_Casey

The Oul’ Triangle 

Posted on by Philip Casey

It costs €90,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail. The Old Triangle is a fund-raising event for the Irish Penal Reform Trust. You might also want to read Prison should be last resort for all categories of offender, in which Liam Herrick, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust points out that

It is no coincidence that imprisonment for non-payment of fines has soared during the present recession, from 1,335 in 2007 to over 7,000 last year.

The Vicious Circle of Social Exclusion and Crime: Ireland’s Disproportionate Punishment of the Poor is available from the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

The Old Triangle

click to enlarge


The Old Triangle

A celebration for the benefit of the Irish Penal Reform Trust

Sunday, 26th February 2012 at 8pm

Abbey Theatre, Dublin 1

A celebration of music and words for the benefit of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, The Old Triangle seeks to raise awareness of the need for penal reform and the place of prison and prisoners in society. Many of the artists taking part in this celebration have worked in prisons, and we are mindful of the important role the arts and artists have to play in the life of our prisons.

The featured musicians and writers, all of whom are waiving fees for the night, are:

Christy Moore

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Peter Sheridan

Karan Casey & Niall Vallely

Tony Curtis

Shaz Oye

GREENSHINE

(Noel Shine, Mary Greene & Ellie Shine)

Leanne O’Sullivan

Jimmy Kelly & friends

The artist Eddie Cahill, introduced by Brian Maguire

The event is hosted by Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan.

We are all aware that there is a huge debate going on in Ireland right now about what kind of civil society we should be striving for. Artists are as much part of the
debate as anyone, and conscious of the need to make this debate as inclusive
and wide-ranging as possible.” – Paula Meehan, Patron of IPRT

Booking details

Tickets are €20 (standard) with a limited number at €40 (premium supporters).

Tickets can be booked online at www.abbeytheatre.ie or by calling the AbbeyTheatre box office on (01) 87 87 222. (The Box Office is open Mon – Sat from 10.30am – 7pm.)

IPRT is very grateful to Poetry Ireland and to Sheehan & Partners for supporting this event.

Ich am of Irlonde 

Posted on by Philip Casey

Ich am of Irlonde,
And of the holy londe
Of Irlonde.
Goode sire, praye ich thee,
For of sainte charitee,
Com and dance with me
In Irlonde.

Anon. (14th century)

It inspired Yeats, of course.

‘I am of Ireland’

I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,’ cried she.
‘Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.’

One man, one man alone
In that outlandish gear,
One solitary man
Of all that rambled there
Had turned his stately head.
That is a long way off,
And time runs on,’ he said,
‘And the night grows rough.’

‘I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,’ cried she.
‘Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.’

‘The fiddlers are all thumbs,
Or the fiddle-string accursed,
The drums and the kettledrums
And the trumpets all are burst,
And the trombone,’ cried he,
‘The trumpet and trombone,’
And cocked a malicious eye,
‘But time runs on, runs on.’

I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,’ cried she.
“Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.’

– W.B Yeats, The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933


Links:

Middle English lyrics Miscellaneous Texts
Inaugural Speech Given by Her Excellency Mary Robinson,President of Ireland,
in Dublin Castle on Monday, December 3, 1990

The Danger of E-books. Richard Stallman 

Posted on by Philip Casey
richard_stallman_at_marlboro_college

Richard Stallman at Marlboro College

In an age where business dominates our governments and writes our laws, every technological advance offers business an opportunity to impose new restrictions on the public. Technologies that could have empowered us are used to chain us instead.


Image: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

With printed books,

•You can buy one with cash, anonymously.
•Then you own it.
•You are not required to sign a license that restricts your use of it.
•The format is known, and no proprietary technology is needed to read the book.
•You can, physically, scan and copy the book, and it’s sometimes lawful under copyright.
•Nobody has the power to destroy your book.

Contrast that with Amazon ebooks (fairly typical):

•Amazon requires users to identify themselves to get an ebook.
•In some countries, Amazon says the user does not own the ebook.
•Amazon requires the user to accept a restrictive license on use of the ebook.
•The format is secret, and only proprietary user-restricting software can read it at all.
•To copy the ebook is impossible due to Digital Restrictions Management in the player and prohibited by the license, which is more restrictive than copyright law.
•Amazon can remotely delete the ebook using a back door. It used this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George Orwell’s 1984.

Even one of these infringements makes ebooks a step backward from printed books. We must reject ebooks until they respect our freedom.

The ebook companies say denying our traditional freedoms is necessary to continue to pay authors. The current copyright system does a lousy job of that; it is much better suited to supporting those companies. We can support authors better in other ways that don’t require curtailing our freedom, and even legalize sharing. Two methods I’ve suggested are:

• To distribute tax funds to authors based on the cube root of each author’s popularity.
(See http://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.html.)
• To design players so users can send authors anonymous voluntary payments.

Ebooks need not attack our freedom, but they will if companies get to decide. It’s up to us to stop
them. The fight has already started.

Copyright 2011 Richard Stallman
Released under Creative Commons Attribution Noderivs 3.0.

N.B. These are Richard Stallman’s ideas. I reproduce them here to stimulate debate.
Philip Casey