The Anti Room

Like many women, on an average day – in other words, pretty much every day – I don’t bother wearing make-up. I turn up for work with my blemishes unconcealed, my cheekbones uncontoured and my eyelashes unlengthened. I do the school runs and the supermarket slogs with unglossy lips and without any light reflecting off [...]

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One of the guests on the Sean Moncrieff radio show recently was an Irish woman living in Osaka, Japan. She spoke about the recent earthquake and tsunami, and how she was sufficiently moved to raise money for a charity to help the victims – the animal victims. In the wake of this devastating event, biblical [...]

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Recent tragic events in Norway brought to mind a wonderful holiday I enjoyed there a while back and just how amazing, resilient and heroic the Norwegian people can be. Here are some of my impressions of Oslo and her heroes. If you get the chance I urge everyone to travel there and enjoy this beautiful, peaceful [...]

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Occasionally, my father wrote a note on a torn-off corner of newspaper and placed it onto the open page of the book I was reading. See you quietly, frequently at the end of the field, drinking this? (3, 2, 3)** Once I’d solved it, I’d earned what he was offering me. Five hundred and it [...]

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Down These Green Streets is a new collection of short stories and non-fiction from Irish crime writers, edited by Declan Burke. In this extract, Anti-Room writer and crime novelist Arlene Hunt talks about her own relationship with crime. A Shock to the System: Irish Crime Writing and the Personal in the Political When I was [...]

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All the talk of Obama’s visit to Ireland today, brings me back to the evening of his inauguration, January 20th 2009, when Himself came home to find me on the kitchen floor. On my knees. Surrounded by the usual mish-mash of baby changing paraphernalia – sudocreme, wipes, tiny nappies and – ahem – masking tape. SKY [...]

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I can now confirm from personal experience that Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl, but she didn’t have a lot to say. Well, that’s not entirely fair. She didn’t say a lot to me individually, but the fact that she took time to stop to talk at all was remarkable.  I was lucky enough [...]

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Quick: where were you when the Pope came to Ireland? Me, I’ve got no idea. Before I’m excommunicated, I should point out that’s because I’m not Irish, and wasn’t living in Ireland at the time of the papal visit. Ask me, though, where I was for the Queen’s Silver Jublilee (two years before all Irish [...]

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There is one question regarding the Libyan crisis that the Irish media so far fails to ask: what will the downfall of the Gaddafi regime imply for De Shinners? Barring the Evening Herald during the election campaign virtually none of the news organisations in Ireland (electronic and print) have raised the issue of Sinn Fein [...]

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We have one of the lowest percentages of forest cover in Europe (and it’s mostly Sitka spruce, though broadleaf trees now make up 20 per cent of new planting) though we’re supposed to be increasing from the current 7 per cent to 17 per cent cover by 2030. What we do have is owned and [...]

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