No doubt it was a better St Patrick’s weekend than Bill Cullen had originally anticipated as the High Court on Friday agreed to remove a bank appointed receiver from the Muckross Park Hotel that he runs with his wife Jackie Lavin.
No better time than a Bank Holiday Monday to have a look at what’s happening in TV, John Boland, television critic with the Irish Independent and broadcaster and author, Sinead Gleeson were in with us a short time ago previewing some of the new series that were coming in from the US. Well they are a few weeks in watching these series now and came it to give us a review rather than a preview of House of Lies, House of Cards, Nashville Justified and Game of Thrones.
The Cypriot parliament will hold an emergency debate this afternoon on the terms of Cyprus’ bailout deal amid news that ordinary savers will have a tax imposed on their deposits as part of the arrangement...
Journalist Matina Stevis from the Wall Street Journal joined Pat this morning.
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton - like the rest of the Cabinet - is out of town at the moment selling Ireland around the world on this St Patrick’s weekend and he joined me from Germany.
Some books, almost overnight, reach a huge and varied audience. Some books are read by young and old, rich and poor, university professors and ordinary Joe and Josephine Soaps and one such book is James Plunkett’s magnificent Strumpet City, first published in 1969. It’s a “Dub” novel with a universal appeal and the 1980 RTE dramatisation was shown in over 30 countries worldwide.
Next month, Strumpet City has been chosen as the One City, One Book title by Dublin City Libraries and Dublin, UNESCO City of Literature. And to celebrate this event and to discover more about the novel, Pat was joined in studio by actors Cathy Belton and Barry Barnes and by Niall MacMonagle.
Eleanor McEvoy was born in Dublin , began piano lessons at age four; she took up the violin two years later, and as a teen joined the Junior Irish Youth Orchestra. Upon graduating college, McEvoy was tapped for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, but after four years she quit to pursue a career as a pop performer; in 1992, her "Only a Woman's Heart" highlighted the anthology A Woman's Heart, which went on to become the best-selling album in Irish chart history. She has just released a cracking new album ‘If You Leave’ – it’s our Album of the Week’ here on Radio1 – so you will be hearing plenty of it over the next week but we thought on this Bank Holiday Monday we would get the woman herself to come in and sing a song or two for you live.