Category Archives: Ireland

Monday ReformCard Meeting

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Warning, NOT PUBLISHING RELATED

So it’s election time in Ireland. One of my friends, Johnny Ryan, is one of the bods behind ReformCard.com an interesting experiment to rate and rank Irish political parties’ plans for political reform. They are having a meeting at lunchtime on Monday where the parties will get a chance top respond to their assigned rank. It should be fun! See Johnny’s note below:

Re: Meeting – Monday

Hi!

Joe and I are hosting a Reformcard event on Monday that we would like to invite you to. Attendance is free, and all are welcome.

We’re bringing representatives from all the major political parties to the Sugarclub at lunch time on Monday 21st, and they are going to respond to their Reform Scorecards and to the crowd.

This will be the last opportunity for most people to directly engage with the political representatives before the election – which will be only 4 days away by Monday.

Details: Monday, 21 Feb, at 1.00 at the Sugar Club on Lesson St. Dublin 2. The event is a Reformcard public forum, and Pat Leahy of the Sunday Business Post will be moderating.

Pat Rabbitte, Labour Party; Eamon Ryan, Green Party; Phil Hogan, Fine Gael; Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein; and Averil Power, Fianna Fail; will be speaking.

Admission is free – Transparency International are covering costs.

Full details are on the event’s Facebook page (you can RSVP here too):
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198142726878511

Poster + map are at
http://www.reformcard.com/realreform

To see recent media coverage about Reformcard seehttp://www.reformcard.com/media

Please pass the word around – the more the merrier.

Johnny

Folks Quoting Me | Final chapter for much-loved Dublin bookstore – The Irish Times – Thu, Feb 03, 2011

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I’m quoted (wearing my IPN hat) in the Irish Times today about the Waterstone’s closures in Dublin. Real shame those stores are closing:

Eoin Purcell editor of Irish Publishing News says the Dublin closures are particularly unfortunate given the city’s new title of Unesco City of Literature. “I think there is great sense among readers, writers and publishers that we are losing something. It is a real shame. People will miss it. The Dawson Street branch is a fantastic store with enormous range. Some books there you wouldn’t find in most stores. It has an amazing military history section, for example. You can find these books online but going to the shelf and browsing and looking through books – there’s nothing like it.”

via Final chapter for much-loved Dublin bookstore – The Irish Times – Thu, Feb 03, 2011.

Florence MacCarthy, the last MacCarthy Mor, 1560-1640 | The Irish Story

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John Dorney has a really excellent article over on The Irish Story today about Florence MacCarthy. if you ever wondered about the complexities of Irish 16th and 17th Century history (and if not why not? it’s a fascinating period that shows the best and worst of human nature), this is one for you.

Florence MacCarthy, the last MacCarthy Mor, 1560-1640 | The Irish Story.

Listowel Writer’s Week, Blogging & Paul O’Mahony

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First things first, everyone should read Paul O’Mahony’s description of recent events at the Listowel Writer’s Week over at the excellent blog of the festival which he runs in conjunction with Patrick Stack: Listowel Writers’ Week Fringe

The core of his narrative is this section:

I was on my way out of the Michael Hartnett memorial event at about 2.15pm on Sunday when a cross woman came up to me. She demanded ”Have you recorded that session?”

“Yes”, I replied gently – but my heart was starting to beat strongly as I experienced the woman’s anger, the rage on her face.

“Who gave you permission?”

“No one.”

“You are a disgrace. You had no right to do that” – the woman was very agitated and I was nervous.

She reached over and gripped my arm. “How dare you.” Her grip felt fierce. This was in front of at least twenty people including Christopher Reid & Anthony Cronin. I had never met the woman before.

“I’m from the Writers’ Week Committee for 23 years. You are a disgrace. You are not welcome in Writers’ Week.” I felt in a difficult situation: she would not let go of my arm.

Paul is calling for an apology and an assurance that non-one else will be treated in such a fashion again;

I do want an apology. I feel I’m entitled to a public apology from the whole Committee of Writers’ Week – because I want to be assured that the official view and style is completely different from what I was subjected to. I ask the Chairperson of Listowel Writers’ Week Michael Lynch to make this clear in public not for my benefit but for the sake of others in future.

Just to be clear, if Paul didn’t have permission to record the event then his actions, however well intended, were wrong. Both the poets and the owner of the property have the right to prevent him recording. He ought to have sought express permission.

But the reaction to his recording was hugely disproportionate. A quiet request to erase the file or to secure retrospective permission would have been more appropriate.

Paul has never and will never seek to profit from it, his goal is simply to share the experience and help promote the festival online. His fringe blog has been one of the few ways people could track what is a publicly funded festival on a daily basis without attending (something not everyone can do). It is manifestly A VERY GOOD THING for the festival, the poets, the writers, the attendees, those who couldn’t attend and the wider arts community in Ireland and online.

In an age where the greatest danger to artists is not piracy but obscurity, bloggers like Paul should be encouraged by festivals and supported by writers.

I’ll be sending an e-mail to the committee to that effect later today.
Eoin

A Quick Note On Media 2020

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qrcode Others have written decent summaries on what happened at Media 2020, a conference on the future of media in Ireland that was run by Media Contact in Croke Park Conference Centre yesterday. Blathnaid Healy has a blog summary using Twitter hastags [clever methinks] and Fin O’Reilly has an interesting round-up too. I wanted to add some thoughts on three things, one that struck me while I was listening to speakers and the others that became obvious as I digested the event.

we are behind our competitors
The first thought is that we are quite a ways behind our competitors. This became obvious when BBC Backstage producer Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) spoke. He had tried just about everything Irish media companies were thinking of or had just launched.

This came to a comical head when one of the mythic future techs mentioned, QR Codes, came up for discussion on a panel. He mentioned an experiment that the BBC had done in a zoo using, QR Codes, and almost casually mentioned that it was three years ago. I had a good laugh at that. Matt Locke (@mattlock) from Channel Four hit some similar notes too as did Jonathon Moore (@moorej) from Guardian Media.

The import of this was obvious to me. Ireland is behind other countries in digital change. As the world becomes more digital, our competitors become more global. Irish media companies need to start experimenting quickly and following the lessons learned elsewhere. They have an opportunity to jump ahead but I’d caution them to wait just a moment before they do.

no-one seems to have a coherent strategy
It was something of a relief coming from a seemingly rudderless publishing industry, to see that pretty much all content and media firms are as clueless about the future as publishers are. They are all distracted by the shiny toys, all entranced by the lure of easy profits in apps and downloads and all besotted with copyright protection and forcing the reader or the advertiser to adapt to their advantage.

The BBC, if I read their thinking correctly, at least seemed content to let innovation find a way forward but were not pushing for that to happen any time soon, The Guardian’s vaunted digital plan is at least clear, but I’m not certain it offers much more than a hope that their gamble on openness will be rewarded. They at least have not flip-flopped from tactic to tactics in the hope of stumbling upon a strategy by accident as others have.

It seems to me that following the trend is not the way forward. So experimentation is definitely a good idea, but with clear purpose and forceful reasoning.

where was book publishing?
There was not one speaker from book publishing and looking down the list of attendees, the closest one gets to a book publisher was me, Eason who had a representative and one or two PR Agencies that have been known to handle book publicity.

On the one hand it is a shame that the book publishers did not see the need to attend and on the other it says a lot about the perception of book publishing in Ireland that the organisers felt no need to include someone to speak to that market.

While much of the day did not specifically mention or reference books, there was so much potential on display for creators of quality content and new ways of thinking about content that not attending seems to me to have been a poor choice for book publishers.

final thoughts
I enjoyed the conference enormously and came away feeling refreshed and happy that there were people thinking deeply about digital change in Ireland, surprised that so many people hadn’t read The Cluetrain Manifesto and impressed by the openness to social media at the Abbey Theatre (@abbeytheatre) as traditional an icon of Ireland as they come.

Disclosure: I was given a free ticket for the conference by Media Contact after I retweeted a promotional tweet.