>Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 05:23:36 -0700
>To: raudra9@hotmail.com
>From: elisa vandernoot <elisav@wiesenthal.com> (by way of Jack Kolb 
<KOLB@ucla.edu>) (by way of Jack Kolb <KOLB@ucla.edu>)
>Subject: Hip to be Irish
>
>The Irish Times                 
>Saturday, June 20, 1998
>
>'It's hip to be Irish'
>
> The Druid Theatre has stormed Broadway; Nuala O'Faolain's memoir has 
sold
>75,000 copies; Angela's Ashes has been on the US bestseller lists for 
90
>weeks. Anna Mundow on the vogue for all things Irish.
>
>
>It seems to have been raining for weeks - no, forever - in New York 
City.
>"Real Irish weather," drenched New Yorkers remark when they locate the
>accent. "Must make you feel at home." But an Irish person doesn't need
>record-breaking rainfall to feel at home in New York these days.  As 
the
>city marks its centenary, it is looking greener than ever, in a 
cultural as
>well as a horticultural sense.  The Irish came here over a century ago, 
but
>only now - scooping up armfuls of Tony awards and literary prizes - 
have
>they really arrived.  "It's hip to be Irish," the New York Times  
recently
>announced - again - and even those who winced at the idea could not 
disagree.
>
>The current infatuation may have been sparked by Riverdance and fuelled 
by
>Angela's Ashes, but a sublimely different production marked its
>consummation.  It took over 50 years for theatre professionals and
>journalists to present their first Tony award for direction to a woman.
>When they did so earlier this month, that award went to Garry Hynes of 
the
>Druid theatre company for her staging of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty 
Queen
>of Leenane. The play was also tipped to win the best play award, but 
lost to
>Art, a comedy about Parisian men whose friendship suffers when they 
disagree
>over a Minimalist painting.  You can see why McDonagh might seem like 
light
>relief.  The Irish play also won Tony awards for best actress, best 
featured
>actor and best featured actress.
>
>The road to such success on Broadway had, of course, been well-paved.  
Years
>after its successful run here, Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa 
remains the
>standard for many New Yorkers assessing the city's latest Irish 
theatrical
>offering.
>
>More recently, in February 1997, Donal McCann's performance in 
Sebastian
>Barry's The  Steward of Christendom had the usually reserved theatre 
critics
>scrabbling for superlatives as they shamed audiences into admiring a 
play
>that many theatre-goers found inaccessible, even incomprehensible.  "He 
can
>come here anytime and do anything he likes," Newsday's theatre critic,
>Aileen Jacobson, concluded of McCann.
>
>Irish writers could hardly be blamed for expecting a similar reception 
in a
>city that leads the world in literary fashion, if not substance.  After 
all,
>hadn't Angela's Ashes sold four million copies worldwide, spent 90 
weeks at
>or near the top of the bestseller list and won Frank McCourt a Pulitzer
>Prize? And hadn't a book called How The Irish Saved Civilisation,  
written
>admittedly by an Irish-American, become another New York Times 
bestseller?
>Weren't people queueing for tickets to Seamus Heaney and Roddy Doyle 
readings?
>
>"I think there's always been a very deep current of affection for the 
Irish
>in American culture," Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved
>Civilisation  recently remarked, "but Ireland was too oppressed and
>bedraggled and concerned with its own troubles and inferiority complex 
to
>take advantage of it."
>
>Now that oppression, bedragglement and introspection has become a 
selling
>point, particularly in the increasingly popular genre of literary 
memoir. 
>
>  "She tells of the terror of being a young woman in an Ireland without
>contraception," Publishers' Weekly  wrote of Nuala O'Faolain's highly
>successful memoir Are You Somebody? which quickly entered the 
bestseller
>list here and caught the imagination of readers primed by McCourt's
>nightmarish recollections. Her book has been warmly reviewed and 75,000
>copies were sold in a remarkably short period.
>
>Ethnicity is not, however, a guarantee of success.  Seamus Deane's 
novel
>Reading In The Dark was praised by New York critics last year but 
eclipsed
>by the McCourt memoir while Anne Haverty's novel One Day As A Tiger was
>largely ignored despite rapturous reviews in Newsday and The Boston  
Globe.
>Even Malachy McCourt's A Monk Swim- ming,  for which Hyperion paid a
>$600,000 advance, is sinking under the weight of bad reviews. ". . 
.what he
>thinks he is doing on his pages never becomes particularly clear," Paul 
Gray
>recently wrote of the younger McCourt who has thanked his brother for
>"opening the golden door".
>
>Back on New York's streets, the craving for anything Celtic produces 
some
>odd alignments.  On Second Avenue near 49th Street, for example, 
flanked by
>two Chinese restaurants, Thady Con's advertises itself as the city's 
first
>Irish village theme bar.
>
>Opened three years ago by O'Sullivans from Cork and Healys from 
Leitrim, the
>bar has a bicycle leaning against the wall, hobnail boots on the hearth 
and
>serious set dancers.  "It is as if you have been transported to a 
corner of
>rural Ireland," Dan Barry wrote of Thady Con's in the New York Times, 
"one
>frozen in the distant and sanitised past."  In a less nostalgic 
tradition,
>the long established Sin n Cafe in the East Village continues to 
attract
>celebrity walk-ins while An B&eacute;al Bocht in the Bronx provides a
>similarly fashionable venue at the other end of the city.<p>
>
>Irish neighbourhood bars, with their gigantic televisions and Bobby 
Sands
>posters, still exist in Irish-American enclaves on Long Island, Queens 
and
>throughout the five boroughs, but the new generation of Irish cafes and 
bars
>serves the market not t he parish. "The Catholic Church was the total 
centre
>of Irish life here," novelist Peter Quinn remarked in the New York 
Times,
>"But it has lost that position and that space is now being filled by 
this
>great cultural energy."
>
>That energy was particularly evident last week at the Guinness Fleadh 
on
>Randalls Island in New York, where performers like Los Lobos and Patti 
Smith
>shared the stage with Sinead O'Connor, Mary Black and others.  Billed 
as
>"the Ultimate Irish Music And Culture Festival," the huge, eclectic
>gathering demonstrated that there is infinite room under the 
ever-expanding
>green umbrella.  The only entry qualification seems to be enthusiasm 
and
>marketability.
>
>"Sheer bloody genius," Seamus Heaney quipped when asked to account for 
the
>recent success of the Irish.  If some observers detected a note of
>irritation in the poet's reply, it was because they knew how he felt.  
There
>is a growing sense, particularly among some Irish writers in New York 
City,
>that it has all become a little too easy.  "We have to remember the 
writers
>who really had to struggle," novelist Colum McCann recently remarked, 
"like
>John McGahern, Edna O'Brien.  Writers who wrote to break their hearts, 
not
>just to get the next advance."  It is ironic that this increasingly 
vocal
>concern about the state of the Irish soul is regarded in this 
materialistic
>city as the surest proof of its authenticity. 
>
>Copyright The Irish Times
>
>
>


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com