I'M ON THE DART*


*thanks to the Little Museum of Dublin

Tá mé ar an DART, buíochas le Músaem Beag Bhaile Átha Cliath

And I’m on the wireless, in this short documentary about the Presidential poster image.

The Poet

Wonderful news today about poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin being shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize

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Three Nicoles

  1. My portrait of writer Nicole Flattery, whose new book “Nothing Special” has just been given a rave review in the The New Yorker.

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Michael by me, me by Michael

Michael Snoek and his wife Dorothee have been family friends since I was a small boy. He was working as a geophysicist in Hamburg when I passed through as a teenage runaway, and he was kind enough to get me a life-changing job with the Max Planck Institut that took me off to live and work in Greece and Morocco as a geo-electrical surveyor. Some years later they moved to Ireland and Michael became very involved with photography and was one of the founders of the Kamera 8 gallery in Wexford. He’s just launched his fantastic new site, link here.

Much like myself, Michael is not half as stern as he sometimes seems in photographs.

Michael Snoek, photographed at home in Wexford, July 2020.

I think I was about nine when Michael took this picture of me.

You can see more of my portraits of friends and family here.

Jonathan

Jonathan Philbin Bowman ( 1969-2000) photographed for Harpers & Queen magazine, mid 90’s.

My friend Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist and broadcaster, who died on this day twenty-two years ago.

He was such great company - precocious, quick-witted, argumentative, hilarious and utterly original. I’ve never met anyone quite like him, and still miss him a lot.

You can hear his voice in this beautiful, moving tribute by Roger Doyle, who took an answering machine message Jonathan had left him and set it to music.

Coat-Hanger Kisses

The portrait was made for a profile in Harpers & Queen magazine written by Sean O’Hagen, and you can see a print of it in the Little Museum of Dublin’s collection.