The producers of The Pirate Queen, husband-and-wife team Moya Doherty and John McColgan, talk to Cahir O’Doherty. Between the first draft and the opening night the challenge of mounting a Broadway musical on the scale of The Pirate Queen is a high-wire act of artistic daring that few of us will ever have the courage or good fortune to make in our lives. Prior to the show’s … [Read more...] about The Pirate Queen
Interviews
Mother, Life, Landscape, and the Connection
Edna O’Brien returns to world of The Country Girls in The Light of Evening, with the mother-daughter relationship as the main theme. "A writer’s life is like an athlete’s life. You train every day of your life and even then it may not be as good as one had hoped,” says Edna O’Brien, who has written 20 books. Her latest, The Light of Evening, tells the story of Eleanora, a … [Read more...] about Mother, Life, Landscape, and the Connection
Imagining the Unknown
In his latest novel, Zoli, Dublin-born Colum McCann proves that part of his talent as a writer lies in his ability to imagine and capture the lives of the forgotten and oppressed. Colum McCann doesn’t write about what he knows. That, he insists, would involve sitting in the study of his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, surrounded by books and family photos, … [Read more...] about Imagining the Unknown
Man at Work
Lauren Byrne talks to Brendan Gleeson, one of Ireland's most prolific actors, about his varied career. In real life he’s trimmer than his oversized movie presence, but at over six feet and with his thatch of red hair, several heads turned as actor Brendan Gleeson strolled into the lounge of Jury’s Hotel in Boston, the rain beating against the windows as if to make him feel … [Read more...] about Man at Work
A Southie Homecoming
Michael Patrick MacDonald talks to Lauren Byrne about growing up in South Boston. The last time I saw Michael Patrick MacDonald an air of tension swirled about him. It was 1999 and All Souls, his wrenching memoir of life in the notorious Irish enclave of South Boston, had just been published. The book had taken off like wildfire and Hollywood was calling, but in Boston it was … [Read more...] about A Southie Homecoming