If there is one lesson that Lord Mark Malloch-Brown has learned in his years as a globe-trotting humanitarian and development specialist, it is that “democracy does not flow easily from the barrel of a foreigner’s gun.” An understandable sentiment from the man who founded the International Crisis Group and whose classic memoir The Unfinished Global…
The librarians of Dublin, the city associated with so many great writers, celebrate one book every year – Dublin, One City, One Book. These have included James Joyce’s Dubliners, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Roddy’s Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy, and Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. This year they have chosen a modern day classic, Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey,…
The renowned war correspondent Patrick Cockburn who forecast the rise of ISIS in 2014, will provide the GLAS Hour with a first taste of his new book War in the Age of Trump this Thursday evening at 20:00 CEST. The book is due out in July and promises to be a fascinating on-the-ground account of…
Could the US and China end up going to war? That is one of the questions we will put to the distinguished author, academic and former President of the UN Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, when we talk to him about his fascinating new book Has China Won? during this week’s GLAS Hour, which comes to…
“If Roddy Doyle and Nick Cave could procreate, the result would be something like Kevin Barry,” according to one critic. The Limerick-born author exploded onto the international literary scene with his firecracker collection of short stories, There are Little Kingdoms, in 2007, and soon became a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Kevin Barry is…
The GLAS Hour presented viewers with a world exclusive last Wednesday when our guest Colm Tóibín read an extract from his work in progress, The Magician in which he promises to do for the life of Thomas Mann what he did so successfully for Henry James in The Master. Watch the interview in full here.…
Colm Tóibín is an award-winning author. He is also a professor of the humanities at Columbia University, New York. He was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, the setting for several of his books. His novels include The Master, Nora Webster and The House of Names. The film adaptation of Brooklyn earned three Oscar nominations in…
“Ultimately there rises the familiar suspicion that, for a country in love with the future, it’s always yesterday in America. Among all the fine words currently being spilled examining the American mess, James Shapiro has outshone many of our best political pundits with this superb contribution to the discourse. He upped the wattage simply by…
Anyone cocooned, marooned or feeling like some diversion can tune in to a conversation with one of Fleet Street’s finest foot soldiers next Monday. John McEntee’s devout mother once spent EUR 1,000 on having masses said in Catholic churches throughout Ireland for his salvation and the Hollywood actor Richard Harris sued him for libel following…
We hope all our supporters, families and friends are staying healthy and well. Physical distancing should not mean social distancing, so we’ve decided to run an occasional series of online Meet the Author interviews over Zoom. Much depends though on the response to this first one and whether there is sufficient interest. It is intended…
Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell shot to movie stardom after they featured in the cult hit, Intermission, written by Mark O’Rowe. O’Rowe’s masterpiece for the stage, Howie the Rookie, has been revived and is now on tour from Glass Mask Theatre in Dublin. It stars Stephen Jones and Rex Ryan, two of Ireland’s most outstanding…
There are not many times in a professional singer’s life when she spontaneously yields the stage to a member of the audience. It happened Friday night when Lisa Lambe called young Molly O’Sullivan up on to the stage to sing the chorus of her song Hazelwood with the support of John McLaughlin on guitar and…
For this year’s GLAS Christmas Concert, we are delighted to host Lisa Lambe, one of Ireland’s most sought-after performers. Lisa regularly works with Ireland’s national RTÉ Concert Orchestra. For several years she toured the world as one of the lead singers with “Celtic Woman”, playing such venues as Carnegie Hall and Radio City, New York.…
In the 14 years of GLAS, most people seem to recall one production more than others and that is Donal O’Kelly’s masterpiece Catalpa; so good we staged it twice. GLAS has also hosted his Fionnuala, Joyced (performed by his daughter Katie O’Kelly), and Little Thing, Big Thing. Donal’s return to the Geneva stage was long…
Many GLAS supporters will remember the tour-de-force that was Catalpa, performed by Donal O’Kelly, and so popular that we have staged it twice. Donal is coming back to Geneva next month with another celebrated work, The Cambria. The Cambria was a trans-Atlantic paddle-steamer. In August 1845 among the passengers on board out of Boston was…
Early on during his gig in Geneva last night, Luka Bloom said he was more inclined towards sad songs and somewhat suspicious of happy ones. That may be true, but the songs he sang for us filled the room with warmth and joy, albeit with a few bittersweet moments along the way. From the wry…
“I used to worry a lot about songs, my career. I’ve stopped that now. I believe genuinely if I try to be true to myself and write my songs with a good heart, and sing them with a good heart, then I’ll be taken care of.” It is ten years since GLAS had the pleasure…
From Denis McClean, in Darjeeling When I look at this photograph, it makes me think of a life-boat crammed with children. Watching and listening to them playing marbles or throwing a ball around, you would never guess the heartache and suffering that many have endured. Some had been sold into virtual slavery by their impoverished…
Irish songwriters must be forming a disorderly queue to have Lisa Lambe record their offerings. Last night in Geneva she sang a song Paul Brady left unrecorded for thirty years before he offered it to her. She had to find one of those funny old cassette player things to listen to his rough cut of…
GLAS is honoured to host “Songs from Ireland: Old and New 2019” featuring seven outstanding singers and musicians from Ireland whose work is inspired by the Celtic tradition. The show blends the traditional and the contemporary in an evocative and captivating performance. The show will take you on a musical journey featuring the expressive play…
“There was a touch of magic here tonight.” That’s how one smiling punter summed up our evening last night with the great John Spillane in the simple setting of the Lutheran Evangelical Church in the heart of Geneva’s old town. The acoustics were great and you could savour every chord of his beautiful guitar playing,…
For more than 35 years, the songs of John Spillane have provided a musical background to life in Ireland. They have been performed by such luminaries as Christy Moore, Sharon Shannon, Sean Keane and Mary Black, but it is John himself who brings these special songs to life in his memorable and moving live performances.…
GLAS suppporters got a real treat last night as Sharon Shannon and her band made their Geneva debut to a packed house at the Centre des Arts, on Ecolint’s La Grande Boissière campus. She surrounds herself with great musicians: Jim Murray (acoustic guitar), Sean Regan (fiddle, percussion and beatbox) and Jack Maher (electric guitar and…
Sharon Shannon has music at her fingertips….literally! The accordionist from Ireland has achieved legendary status throughout the world and has made the much-maligned accordion ‘cool’ in her home country. She is renowned for her collaborations, not just in Irish traditional music, but through all musical genres, hip-hop, cajun, country, classical and rap. The Geneva Literary…
Luka Bloom’s agent in Switzerland told me that in all the Swiss German towns Luka performed in before coming to Geneva last Saturday his songs were met with polite applause but an uncomprehending silence greeted his stories about the songs. Saturday night’s sold-out show for GLAS, packed with Irish and other anglophone expats, must have…
“A fabulous songwriter, deeply rooted in his homeland and always looking for more.” Irish folk legend, Luka Bloom is back in Geneva on Saturday, April 1. It’s four years since GLAS brought him to Geneva for the first time and he is a crowd favourite wherever he goes around the world, thanks to the quality…
New Road turned the GLAS Aula venue into a steamy swamp of deliriously joyful music on Saturday night. Not since the heyday of the Bothy Band and Planxty have I been so mesmerised by a group of Irish musicians revelling in the tradition but mixing it up with something else. That something else was partly…
“…a musical experience full of passion and exhilaration, depth and beauty.” For Christmas this year GLAS gives you the gift of music from five outstanding musicians. The legendary interpreter of Celtic song, Cathy Jordan (pictured right), will accompany the New Road ensemble: a unique blend of the plaintive Irish uilleann pipes, fiddle, harmonica, whistles, 5-string…
In the year of the hunger strikes in 1981, I spent a month travelling through Palestine and Israel. I made my way to the Gaza Strip though it was under lock down and no journalists were allowed to enter. I joined several people in the back of a spacious Arab taxi leaving from East Jerusalem.…
“We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.“ Rafeef Ziadah is an acclaimed Palestinian refugee spoken word artist and activist. Her poem ‘We Teach Life, Sir’ – an impassioned attack on media misrepresentation of the Palestinian cause – went viral within days of its release. This live show…