On The Town:It was a case of old and new at this year's Corona Cork Film Festival opening party on Sunday night, with new sponsors Corona coming on board for the first time and many old friends of the festival turning up to enjoy the evening and lend support.
Pride of place in terms of support must go to 94-year-old Kay Delaney who, accompanied by granddaughter Susan Spillane and her friend, Aidan Healy, was enjoying the evening.
So was Vida Breen, widow of Der Breen, who established the film festival in 1956. "This is the 52nd film festival, but I had been living with it for two years before the first one, so this really is my 54th film festival," quipped Vida, who was there with her granddaughter, Aisling, a former volunteer with the festival.
Dentist Liam O'Sullivan and his wife Chris also seem to have passed on the love-of-film gene to their daughter, Sarah - currently working on a PhD in UCC comparing Canadian and Mexican film - and they were both looking forward to the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men.
Chris had just seen Earth, the acclaimed documentary on the challenges for survival facing animals, and she was hugely impressed; she was also looking forward to seeing again Rachid Bouchareb's drama about African colonial soldiers in World War II, Indigènes.
Among the many other familiar faces at the party was former festival chairman Charlie Hennessy, Gerry Barnes of Cork Opera House, William "Hammy" Hammond of the Cork Folk Festival, and Cork County Council arts officer Ian McDonagh and his wife, Damhnait Sweeney.
Also present were lord mayor of Cork Cllr Donal Counihan and his wife Breda. Michael Barry of Barry Fitzwilliam Maxxium, importers of Corona Extra, said how delighted he was to be able to sponsor what has become a cultural institution in Cork.
From the world of politics, Cork South Central was particularly well represented, with Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, Fine Gael's Deirdre Clune, Labour's Ciarán Lynch and the Green Party's Sen Dan Boyle all enjoying the evening.
Solicitor Catherine Kirwan had already been hugely impressed with the international shorts shown in the Triskel. "They were excellent and I'm really looking forward to the features in the Opera House - it's the best line-up in years." . - BR
A family hang up their swords
Most writers surely see the publication of a book as a delight or in some cases relief, but for Eliza Pakenham, author of Soldier, Sailor: An Intimate Portrait of an Irish Family, finishing the work that had taken her several years of research and writing was a sad occasion. "I'm sad now that I've finished it and left those characters behind, because they're always going to be in my thoughts," said the granddaughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, whose book chronicles the fortunes of a generation of her ancestors, who lived through Napoleonic wars and Irish revolutions in a castle in Co Westmeath.
Eliza's first book launch coincided with that of her father's fifth, with Thomas Pakenham's In Search of Remarkable Trees: On Safari in Southern Africa also hot off the publisher's press.
Michael Dover, of publishers Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pointed out that "Eliza's book is about three generations of Pakenhams wielding the sword - and now three generations are wielding the pen".
For Thomas, the metaphor called to mind a Chinese inscription he had placed in a pagoda garden he created on the grounds of Tullynally Castle.
"The heavenly pen is sharp, the earthly sword is blunt," he quoted, before joking: "It's really a dig at my ancestors."
The dual launch was attended by Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin, and Desmond Guinness, author and conservationist, who owns Leixlip Castle in Co Kildare. Art historian Paddy Bowe, and Dr Anthony Malcolmson of Northern Ireland's Public Record Office were also at the launch. ... FMcC
A glance towards the east
To cries of "Sláinte! Nostrovia!", Polish vodka was drunk and art appreciation enhanced at the National Gallery of Ireland this week for the launch of a major new exhibition, Paintings from Poland: Symbolism to Modern Art. The atmosphere was convivial as the gallery's Millennium Wing filled with Polish and Irish voices, while Minister for Arts Seamus Brennan officially opened the show.
"We can use art for our countries to understand each other," he told the assembled guests, "and to pay tribute to the enormous contribution the new Polish community has made to Ireland." And the Polish community was out in force to see the 74 works, which had been transported from their homeland for this special event.
Artist Bartosz Kolata said he was delighted with what he described as an "excellent" exhibition, and said he hoped it would encourage some of his countrymen to come and see art that they might never have taken the time to visit at home. "I hope that many people who don't go to museums in Poland will come here, because there's a motivation, a new opportunity now," he said.
As he took to the stage to introduce the evening's speakers, Raymond Keaveney, director of the National Gallery, said the exhibition of paintings, selected for the most part from the National Museum in Warsaw, was "a very historical event". With much talk of the growing Polish population in Ireland, Mateusz Morawiecki, president of the management board of the AIB Group in Poland, quipped that "in Poland, many people complain that most of the best contractors went to work abroad, and I'm saddened to see now that Polish art has followed in their footsteps".
The opening was also attended by the Polish secretary of state for foreign affairs Karol Karski, who said he hoped that some day he would get to see a similar exhibition of Irish art in Warsaw. For Dr Dorota Folga-Januszewska of the National Museum in Warsaw, who helped curate the exhibition, watching people's reactions to the works was what made all the effort worthwhile. "It's a great pleasure to perceive that," she said. Also at the opening, Fionnuala Croke, the National Gallery's head of exhibitions, said she was delighted to see Polish people seeing some of their country's finest paintings in their new setting. "We're getting a wonderful response from our Polish visitors," she said.
Student Adriana Wolksa from Lublin had extended her stay in Ireland to work with the National Gallery as the exhibition was launched. "I'm so pleased, I'm so glad, I'm so proud," she enthused. "As a Polish person, it's really nice to be here, and it's very nice to see Polish art in Ireland." - FMcC
• Paintings from Poland is in the Millennium Wing of the National Gallery until Jan 27
Designer dresses from the attic
There was a fashion flashback at the National Museum of Ireland in Collins Barracks this week at the launch of its latest exhibition, Neillí Mulcahy - Irish Haute Couture of the 1950s and 1960s. The models, who had first worn Mulcahy's garments back when she reigned as the queen of couture, here donned them again, all lovingly preserved and a testimony to their timelessness. Grace O'Shaughnessy, Liz Willoughby and Rosemary Mulcahy, who first wore the stunning designs some four decades ago, had slipped effortlessly back into the clothes. "Forty-two years ago was the last time I wore it," said O'Shaughnessy of the Mulcahy coat that was keeping her warm in the wintry weather. "It feels as if time stood still."
The exhibition, officially opened by Kathleen Watkins, includes some of the clothes, photographs and drawings that made Mulcahy such an icon of Irish design, among them a dress worn by Mrs Seán T O'Kelly on the first State visit by an Irish president to the US.
But the octogenarian designer, who was accompanied by her seven daughters, each bedecked in their mother's creations, was determined that her return to popularity would not precipitate a return to the work that made her famous.
"I won't do it in this life!" she laughed.
Also in attendance was Liz Clery, whose master's thesis for the National College of Art and Design had inspired the exhibition. "It was like a treasure trove," she said, describing her discovery of so many original garments and designs in Mulcahy's attic. "I realised this was too important to be just left up there."
Mulcahy was particularly celebrated for her focus on Irish fabrics, and many of the team who helped her mould them into the clothes that hit the headlines were reunited at the opening.
For Alex Ward, the exhibition's curator, the opening was a wonderful opportunity to see how old trends can return to become current again. "Fashion revisits itself all the time," she said. - FMcC
The exhibition is in the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, Dublin