The inaugural talk is The Responsibility of the Individual, by Professor Ivor Browne

These conversations are contemplative in nature and attempt to understand the dynamics behind the upheavals in our current culture. The format uses silence and reflection as a sympathetic cocktail for exploring an appropriate spiritual response to the dilemmas we collectively face.

The Taking Ownership series begins on 7th May, 2010 from 7.15pm – 9.15pm. Refreshments will be provided. Admission free. (The Living Room is a money-free zone!)

@Philip_Casey

Christopher Nolan's novel The Banyan Tree

IT ALL begins with words. Words that teem and toss about, they stream and eddy. They’re torrential and pressing and insistent. They are lovely to hear inside, they talk to you; they are a delight to hear coming in, hovering, banking, waiting to land – that tree, sitka but call it evergreen, the flowers “sweet william” but who is he to be so sweet as to be like raspberry curdling and bleeding into cream?

Tribute to Christopher Nolan by his sister Yvonne in The Irish Times

Update: the article referenced above is now behind a paywall (August 2010).

This is from Christopher Nolan’s Wikipedia Entry

Christopher Nolan (6 September 1965 – 20 February 2009) was an Irish poet and author, son of Joseph and Bernadette Nolan. He grew up in Mullingar, Ireland, but later moved to Dublin to attend college. He was educated at the Central Remedial Clinic School, Mount Temple Comprehensive School and at Trinity College, Dublin. His first book was published when he was fifteen. He won the Whitbread Book Award, for his autobiography in 1988. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in the UK, the medal of excellence from the United Nations Society of Writers, and a Person of the Year award in Ireland.

to highlight the ongoing destruction of the Tara Complex by the Irish Government. The Feis was

addressed by Pulitzer prize winner Paul Muldoon and Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney .

The event was organised in the open air of the Tara Churchyard and included the songs of

Susan Mc Keown and the harp of Laoise Kelly.

updated link
see report at Google Docs

Paul Durcan, Harry Clifton, Kit Fryatt, Luis de Paor, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Philip Coleman (the main organizer), Michael Augustin, Sujata Bhatt, MacDara Woods, Vincent Woods, Ciaran O’Driscoll and Michael O’Dea among other writers and academics will read from, discuss and lecture about Hutchinson’s life and work.

By the by, the Provost of Trinity College hosted a reception to honour past alumna Anne Enright last night in his fine residence at No 1 Grafton Street. It was touching to see her former tutor the distinguished Professor Nicholas Grene so chuffed at her Man Booker success and he gave a simple but affecting speech on her career both as student and author. It’s so nice to see writers honoured, even if it might never have happened but for the fame of the Man Booker, rather than the sustained quality of her work. I’ve heard different opinions of her winning novel The Gathering, all of it trenchant, and for my part I think it’s wonderful – alive in every line.

Finally, my old friend Jim Greeley is a year dead today. It doesn’t at all seem like a year, hardly even a few months, but he’s gone and his family and friends, not least his partner Richard Lewis, miss him badly. I know I do. Peace to your ashes, Jim. You were a great pal.

She’s hosting the inaugural celebration of Spirituality at the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, a festival that’s been running since 2002. Different world cultures have their own religions, right? So it’s a natural step.
This celebration will invite practising Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, Druids, Buddhists, and Shamans, to explore and explain their beliefs and how they relate to the earth, to Festival Visitors, with time in between for revellers and the plain curious or dedicated alike to take time out.

It’s on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, a free event at Newtownsmith Green.

This is what is says on the Festival of World Cultures Website

And this is Christine’s website where you can find a timetable, and a downloadable/printable poster, which boasts a photo by Ged Barrow.