What a treat to see this huge banner outside Crumlin Road Jail to publicise Eoin Mac Lochlainn's exhibition of haunting portraits Elegies.
Eoin's father was the first curator of Kilmainham Jail so he's familiar with the concept of a jail as art forum and in fact had a major selection of work Áiséirí in Kilmainham Jail a few years back.
There are about eight works in the exhibition, all occupying one of the murderously tiny cells in the Crum. The pieces are at their most powerful when viewed from the opposite cell on the wing....I've pictured Eoin in one of the cells with a work as viewed from the opposite cell.
Full credit to Tim Losty, who heads up the Crumlin Road Jail transformation project for his work in organising this exhibition as soon as I introduced him to Eoin. As I left the Crum tonight, a full tour group was coming in as part of a city tour of art galleries. Almost like a modern European city.
And speaking of modernity, I also was at the official opening tonight of the Ormo Bakery development. The apartment makeover for the old bakery was pioneered by businessman Barry Gilligan and to get the project over the line is some accomplishment in these turbulent times. The South Belfast News this week reported on vendors now trying to back out of the deals they signed up for as the prices of the apartments have tumbled since those first deals were signed.
As I left the impressive development (pictured from its first floor inner courtyard), a gang of loyalists was outside taking down 'Ulster flags' from the lampposts outside the bakery. I didn't stop to ask them — they were drinking, after all, and I hate to interrrupt a man at his sup — how they felt about the latest development. One thing's for sure, there'll be no Union flags flying from the balconies of the Ormo swish apartments.
Finally, I'm delighted that Michael Patrick MacDonald is going to join us at the Black and the Green in New York next Thursday night — our joint celebration of Irish America and African-Americans hosted by the Irish Echo and Amsterdam News — as his book All Souls is one of the most powerful and redemptive literary indictments of racism you're ever likely to have the good fortune to read (and it's ten years since All Souls was launched at the end of this month, an anniversary which will be marked in Boston where it's set).
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