GORDON PARSONS is bowled over by a skilfully stripped down and powerfully relevant production of Hamlet
Willow warbler
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
SUE TURNER is inspired by the example of a librarian’s struggle to confront the book-banning movement
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge
RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Hearing a Willow Warbler on Howth Head, April 2020
by Francis Devine
Half baffled by the wind,
there it is, first of the year,
the sallypecker’s trilling song,
flittering somewhere among
saffron whin, matted tangle
of bracken, couch and briar.
It is a thrilling, tonal emollient,
soothing lockdown despair,
lifting the spirit, a welcome
renewal, its first-thing-on-arrival
carnal clarion, unintended for us,
but a beautiful misplacement.
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1930-2024
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