Theatre is a business where work can be infrequent at the best of times, and non-existent at the worst.

By that standard, Kimberly Rampersad has had an astonishing couple of seasons. In her Winnipeg hometown alone, she directed the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre production of Intimate Apparel. She choreographed Matilda: The Musical on the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre mainstage. Further afield, she was made an intern artistic director at the Shaw Festival, where she directed an epic, six-hour production of Man and Superman this summer (and earned herself a profile in the New York Times in the bargain). She also directed a production of the hit musical The Color Purple at Neptune Theatre in Halifax before being asked to direct an all-new production of the same play, a co-production of Edmontons Citadel Theatre and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, opening at the Royal MTC mainstage on Oct. 24.

Its not over. The 40-something Rampersad, fiercely proud of her North Kildonan roots, is still based here, but is talking on the phone from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. where she is only two-thirds through her Shaw Festival internship.

Im also co-starring in their winter production of Holiday Inn, she says. Im in rehearsals for that right now.

Theatre is a business where work can be infrequent at the best of times, and non-existent at the worst.

By that standard, Kimberly Rampersad has had an astonishing couple of seasons. In her Winnipeg hometown alone, she directed the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre production of Intimate Apparel. She choreographed Matilda: The Musical on the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre mainstage. Further afield, she was made an intern artistic director at the Shaw Festival, where she directed an epic, six-hour production of Man and Superman this summer (and earned herself a profile in the New York Times in the bargain). She also directed a production of the hit musical The Color Purple at Neptune Theatre in Halifax before being asked to direct an all-new production of the same play, a co-production of Edmontons Citadel Theatre and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, opening at the Royal MTC mainstage on Oct. 24.

Its not over. The 40-something Rampersad, fiercely proud of her North Kildonan roots, is still based here, but is talking on the phone from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. where she is only two-thirds through her Shaw Festival internship.

"Im also co-starring in their winter production of Holiday Inn," she says. "Im in rehearsals for that right now."

"I didnt see it coming," she says of this golden year. "All things being equal, I dont think this will happen again in my career and Im OK with that.

TARA WALTON PHOTO

Kimberley Rampersad says shell look back fondly at her busy 2019. Its been exhausting and thrilling.

"When I get to the end of this year, Im going to be exhausted, but so filled with gratitude that I got through it. Its been exhausting and thrilling."

FP: Directing The Color Purple for the second time in a year could be redundant. Did you look at it as a do-over?

KR: In a sense yes. I had the opportunity to improve what had been presented. But because MTC and the Citadel have contracted me for a new show and a new production, I have a lot of new artists and collaborators, because I wanted to be able to be accountable to them to not (just do) a remount.

So you create a team in terms of lighting designer, set and costume, musical director and about half of my cast.

I think its new. I wanted to be able to do that because I wanted to respect the contract that I was given and I also because I wanted to make sure that I challenged myself to not do the same thing again.

Once you have new collaborators, if youre an artist, you should be able to create something new, because theres new voices in the room."

Ian Jackson / Epic Photography

A scene from The Color Purple during its run at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

FP: What is the draw of the material for you?

KR: Alice Walkers book has always captured a special part of me because it reminds me so much of my mother and my mothers family. When you read the book, there are images of trees and of nature. The tree is ever-present and its like a female (presence) in the trees. Theyre rooted in the ground and reaching for the sky.

Sometimes it feels like some characters are chopping down the tree, but the tree always perseveres and even though it might be barren, there is still life in it and it still holds a community together.

The strength of the tree really reminds me of my mother and my mothers family. Theyre an incredible group of matriarchs and so Im just fascinated with it because I feel I feel my mothers wisdom in the play and it really just calls out to me. My mom is still alive and around so honestly, to do a show which is really a little a love story a love poem to my mom and to the women of her family its just important to me on that really personal level. We get to tell that kind of story at home in Winnipeg. It moves me."

FP: When you start out as a dancer, it might be assumed your subsequent work in theatre might be limited to choreographing or directing musicals. How did you break free of that to get the job directing the six-hour George Bernard Shaw drama Man and Superman at the Shaw Festival this summer?

KR: That was a thrill. It was so unexpected in the way that people were curious about us and our work and that our play got a feature in the New York Times. It was surreal.

Ian Jackson / Epic Photography

A scene from The Color Purple during its run at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

I can appreciate when people believe that I have a skill set that leads to musical theatre, because I do... and I love the form. But I think being a dancer or coming from a dance background actually prepares you for any and everything in terms of the discipline, the rigour, the self-assessment, seeing text as movement, being able to analyze, being able to deconstruct, to reconstruct, to work from the classical structure and technique. Theyre actually incredibly transferable."

I just appreciate and really thank my parents were giving me such a beautiful dance education because I think it leads me to my natural curiosity... and hopefully success in being a director.

FP: Youre best known for your work in arts, but you have a degree in political science from the University of Manitoba. Has that served you in your theatre career?

KR: Directing plays and how theyre programmed is a political act. Directing for me is where my art meets my politics. We all have agency to tell stories and thats why am interested in artistic direction.

FP: Given there have been two major Canadian productions of The Color Purple, does it feel the timing must be right for this musical?

KR: Its a great time for The Color Purple. We are ready and looking for and needing strong female narratives. Its a good time because were speaking about so many inequalities. There are so many massive themes that are represented in the play. We have a same-sex love story at the centre of it between Celie (Tara Jackson) and Shug (Karen Burthwright) and we frame it as a holy love, as sacred a love as any other kind of love.

Ian Jackson / Epic Photography

A scene from The Color Purple during its run at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

I think its so important that these stories are told. I think its important because in many communities and, unfortunately, in the black community in the black diaspora, we still have so many homophobic points of view in our community.

I think it is so important that in a space as large and secular as the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Citadel that we are able to represent a love story like this as such a sacred thing.

I think its so important that we talk about normalized domestic violence against women in particular in this play.

And I think its important because were talking about feminism. We have many women in the play, each fighting for space in this world, each a different aspect of what it is to be a woman.

Its a beautiful musical and the music is outstanding the voices and these actors are just... I know Im a little biased... but theyre just extraordinary they make my heart fly.

FP: Being a performer too, does it ever make you want to be on stage with them?

KR: I think I know what my wheelhouse is. I am so happy to watch people who are excellent do their thing and to support them.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing

Randall KingReporter

In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.

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Hitting the mother lode - Winnipeg Free Press

Creativity is a highly desirable and yet widely elusive attribute in both personal and professional spheres. A generally accepted definition of creativity is to come up with ideas that are both useful and novel. If an idea lacks utility, its nothing more than a daydream, whereas if its not novel it is all but common sense. Balancing, or rather striving for, the dual requirements of novelty and utility calls for specific thinking paradigms and temperaments, and even some physiological traits.

Here are the three quintessential characteristics that can possibly raise your creative yield and, hopefully, have a rub-off effect on those around you. The attributes are having a clear head, a deep heart and honing a thick skin.

Staying original

First up, the imperative of thinking clearly. We are surrounded by more noise than probably at any time in history, and yet we manage to distil the signal from the noise. The creative types are far more adept at it. Research suggests that clear decision-making stems from a well laid-out set of rules, or rules of thumb. Such heuristics help think through complex contexts with ease.

The ensuing clarity of thoughts helps you focus on the precious few and keep distractions and temptations at bay, much needed for producing anything remarkable. Thats what Steve Jobs referred to when he observed that innovation is saying no" to 1,000 things. A clear head help both conserve and converge energies, and hence, help thing through problems for longer periods of time, which is essential for complex problem-solving.

Creativity is not just about thinking though. A genuine sense of creativity calls for empathy, and your ability to put yourself in other persons shoes and look for solutions. Studies on emotional intelligence, mindfulness, meditation, empathy and social intelligence show emotions play an important role in problem-solving, for you must feel about the problem and not just think about it.

In fact, leaders such as Satya Nadella and Anand Mahindra, are very vocal about the importance of cultivating workplace empathy and its impact on creativity and employee well-being.

While you need to have a clear mind and empathy for the cause and the potential users, you must also demonstrate high levels of conviction and drive, which means being thick-skinned. In the words of George Bernard Shaw,The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Being unreasonable necessitates you not getting too much perturbed by what people say about you, for any original idea would disturb the status quo. The key is to persist against the odds because every new idea looks ridiculous in the foresight, but obvious in the hindsight.

There is a sufficient research to indicate that creativity has little correlation with intelligence, unless one has low latent inhibitions. Those with low latent inhibitions are not too much concerned about what other may think of them, as much as they can learn from a new situation. They are more adept at making newer connections across contexts and domains, and as a result, have a greater ability of associative thinking, a quintessential trait of creativity. You ought to be sensitive towards what other feel (read a deep heart), but not too sensitive about what other feel about you (read a thick skin). Amazons Jeff Bezos once famously said, If you cant tolerate critics, dont do anything new or interesting."

Pavan Soni is the founder of Inflexion Point, an innovation and strategy consultancy.

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A clear head, a deep heart and thick skin will help raise your creativity - Livemint

Photo Credit: Jewish Press

Harry Houdini (1874-1926), undoubtedly the greatest showman of his age and probably of all time, was an awe-inspiring escape artist and the undisputed master of his craft.

He was the first superstar to manipulate the media to gain broad mass acceptance, and his fame was such that George Bernard Shaw quipped that Jesus, Sherlock Holmes, and Houdini were the three most famous people in world history. Even almost a century after his death, his name is synonymous with magic, and he remains a renowned cultural icon.

Houdini was particularly important to American Jews, for whom he came to embody the idea that a Jew could achieve success in an anti-Semitic world. For Jews who had a long history of fear and vulnerability, Houdini was the ultimate contemporary symbol of strength, and the renowned escape artist became the paradigm of the Jewish immigrants belief that he could escape the metaphorical shackles of Jewish history.

Even after achieving great success, Houdini maintained his ties to Judaism and his loyalty to his Jewish family, saying: I never was ashamed to acknowledge that I was a Jew, and I never will be. He recited Kaddish for his mother every day for the entire year after her death; dutifully marked his fathers yahrzeit throughout his world travels; and made a point to repurchase the family Bible that his father had sold when the family was struggling financially. He apparently studied it as evidenced by the notes he wrote in the margin of the sefer.

During WWI, Houdini founded and presided over the Rabbis Sons Theatrical Association (1918), a group consisting of sons of rabbis and Jewish scholars (Al Jolson served as its vice president and Irving Berlin as second vice president) that raised funds for Hebrew associations helping military families.

He was also a great American patriot who supported a variety of American causes, including the American Red Cross, and was also a major supporter of Zionist institutions. Throughout his life, Houdini performed great acts of charity, but insisted upon anonymity because the Jewish way is to give charity quietly.

Although it is the subject of some dispute, some of Houdinis friends said that he carried his tefillin with him while on tour, regularly putting them on in the morning, and that he carried mezuzot with him, which he nailed to the doorpost of his hotel room during his travels.

Nonetheless, he became the first person in his family to intermarry, which caused a rift with his family that never healed completely, although his parents eventually came to terms with his marriage. He was greatly devoted to his Catholic wife, Bess, but Houdini insisted that he be buried in a Jewish cemetery near his parents despite knowing his wife could not be buried near him.

Houdini was shocked by his first exposures to anti-Semitism during his performances in Germany. He wrote, [T]here is a secret feeling among Europeans against Jews. It surprised me greatly to think that such things exist in this country. It is awful what I hear from people who are Jew haters. When he performed in Russia soon after the notorious Kishinev Pogrom (1903), when Jews were not permitted to remain in Moscow overnight, he muted any reference to his Judaism, but he was deeply affected by what had happened, and what was happening, to his fellow Jews there, and he wrote critically about Russian anti-Semitism.

* * * * *

Houdini was born Ehrich Weisz (later Weiss) in Budapest, where his father, Rabbi Samuel Weisz, Ph.D., L.L.D., was a great scholar. Seeking a haven from rampant anti-Semitism, Samuel immigrated to America in 1876, where he quickly discovered that the streets were not paved with gold. After a two-year struggle, he managed to barely save enough to bring his family to the U.S., including four-year-old Ehrich.

The Appleton, Wisconsin Zion Reform Jewish Congregation retained Samuel as its first rabbi, but it paid him a pittance and, four years later, he was dismissed because his immigrant English was weak and the congregation wanted a modern rabbinical leader.

Soon after losing his position in Appleton, unable to secure another rabbinical position, and virtually indigent, Samuel moved the entire family first to Milwaukee, where he also failed to support his family. To ease the financial strain on the family, Ehrich left home at age 12 to seek his fortune. He lived at a YMCA in New York City and, while still very young, supported himself doing elementary magic tricks as Erik he Great.

After Samuel moved to New York City, where he found a job working in a necktie factory, he was joined in that work by Ehrich. Soon after, Ehrich read from the Torah at his bar mitzvah, which was officiated by the Orthodox Rabbi Bernard Drachman, who reported that Ehrichs progress in Hebrew was extremely weak but that the boy had a profound reverence for the Jewish faith.

Shortly after his father died of tongue cancer in 1892, Ehrich, now Eric, got a job as a magician at Coney Island performing common card tricks, billing himself as The King of Cards. He was unsuccessful until he met and befriended Martin Beck, a fellow Jewish immigrant who advised Eric that he would never succeed as a card magician but could achieve great fame as The King of Handcuffs.

After Beck got him a job on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit as an escape artist, Eric adopted the stage name Houdini in honor of Jean Eugne Robert-Houdin, the father of modern conjuring whom he revered at the time. Houdini quickly gained celebrity for incorporating an audience challenge into his act: He offered to pay $100 (not an inconsequential sum at that time) to anyone who could lock him into a set of handcuffs from which he could not escape. No one ever earned the prize; he became known as Harry Handcuff Houdini, and by the turn of the 20th century, his fame took him on a five-year tour of Europe.

During his career, the great Houdini only failed to escape a pair of cuffs once when he was presented with a rigged set stuffed with buckshot, rendering the locking mechanism inoperative, even with the key. Houdini had to be cut out of them and, thereafter, all challengers had to demonstrate that the cuffs could be opened before he would permit them to be put on him. His reputation remained untarnished, however, as the media and the public deemed buckshot-filled cuffs to be a hoax and an exercise in dishonesty.

Houdini became one of the first early masters of self-promotion, planning carefully to ensure that his feats would be witnessed by the public and by the mass media. His fame and reputation were sealed with incredible stunts, including breaking out of various city jails including cells in Siberia and Scotland Yard; taking less than three minutes to escape from a water-filled milk can; freeing himself from a straitjacket while shackled at the ankles and dangling upside-down in midair; escaping from a crate thrown into New Yorks East River into which he had been locked and manacled; making an elephant disappear (1918); and escaping from a water-torture chamber in the famous Chinese Water Torture Cell trick (1913).

Houdini also performed the famous bullet catch trick which has killed at least 12 magicians in which a bullet would be fired at his head and he would catch it with his bare hand in mid-air. When the czar watched the trick, he was so impressed that he asked Houdini to repeat it with the czar himself firing the weapon and Houdini again caught the bullet.

As an interesting historical note, after the czars death, his family asked Houdini to serve as its spiritual advisor. When he declined the offer (on the grounds that he wanted nothing to do with Russian anti-Semitism), the position went to wait for it the infamous Rasputin.

In one of his most famous tricks, which turned out to be his final stunt, Houdini performed his underwater coffin trick on August 5, 1926 in the swimming pool at the Hotel Shelton in New York. With his hands cuffed in front and chained to his shackled ankles, his arms chained around his neck, and his torso bent over, he was squeezed into a 700-pound metal coffin that was lowered into the pool. Much to the astonishment of the journalists in attendance, Houdini emerged from the coffin some 91 minutes later.

Exhibited here is a remarkable August 28, 1926 correspondence written and signed by Houdini to Edwin A. Dearn in which he describes where he obtained the coffin for the underwater coffin trick:

A friend of mine Mr. John P. Spatz of the Boyertown Casket Company is going to Shanghai on business and have given him a letter of introduction to you. I know you will be interested to hear that he is the man to whom I am indebted for the use of the caskets while training for the under water coffin experiment. They have treated me very nicely in all of this and know you will be glad to meet him.

Interestingly, several authorities have insisted that Houdini used a 700-hundred-pound sealed tank, not a coffin, for this trick, but this letter, on its face, conclusively proves them incorrect.

Houdini corresponded regularly with Dearn (1892-1980), an amateur magician, during the 1920s. Dearn was also a popular ventriloquist who lived in England before spending 25 years as a regular performer in theaters in the Shanghai district of China, and he entertained many world-famous magicians in his home there.

He was also a passionate collector of magic memorabilia and books, including some 2,000 magic works and apparatus. Dearn was held captive for two years when Mao Zedong took over China in the early 1950s, but he ultimately escaped to Sydney, Australia.

Among other distinctions, Houdini became the first man to fly an airplane in Australia. He starred in silent films, founded his own film production company, and amassed an enormous theater archive, which he donated to Harvard.

After the death of his mother in 1913, Houdini became preoccupied with conquering death. Toward that end, he conferred with noted spiritualists, the result of which was what became a lifelong crusade against charlatans trafficking in the despair of the bereaved with fake sances and bogus raisings of the dead, including testifying before Congress against spiritualists and mediums in 1926.

Spiritualism to Houdini was little more than amateur magic clothed in the supernatural, and his close friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended when the creator of Sherlock Holmes refused to renounce spiritualism. He alienated Doyle further after Mrs. Doyle conducted a sance during which she claimed to have received directions from Houdinis deceased mother and drew a cross and transcribed a detailed message from her.

Houdini later publicly humiliated the Doyles by noting that the late Mrs. Weisz, a rabbis wife and a practicing Jewess her entire life, would not be drawing a cross nor would she be speaking English instead of her usual German.

Houdini offered a standing $10,000 reward for any supernatural manifestations that he could not duplicate (there were, not surprisingly, no takers), and he wrote several books about spiritualist fraud. Many of the charlatans whom he exposed launched anti-Semitic diatribes against him, calling him Judas and arguing that since his Judaism made him un-American, no one should pay any attention to him.

Houdini died of peritonitis, secondary to a ruptured appendix, sustained when he took punches to the stomach from an audience member. Significant mythologies developed regarding his death during a performance on Halloween and there are still some who argue that the man who regularly escaped death during his lifetime would somehow manage to escape it after his death.

Houdini vowed that, if at all possible, he would contact Bess from beyond the grave. However, to disprove any allegation by pseudo-mystics or the like that they had communicated with him after his death, he gave her a secret code known only to them (and to close friend and confident, mentalist Joe Dunninger), in the absence of which any alleged medium, channeler, or spiritualist could be shown to be a fraud.

Bess held a sance on the tenth anniversary of her husbands death, and Harrys bother, Hardeen, conducted sances thereafter, but Harry never did communicate with them or with anyone else.

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The Judaism Of Harry Houdini - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

The body of Kodie Healy, a Cork fisherman who has been missing since last Wednesday, has been recovered.

Naval service divers recovered the body on Sunday evening after the 24-year-old fisherman failed to return from a lobster potting trip in West Cork.

Civilian divers from the Blackwater Search and Rescue group from Fermoy located the body of Kodie Healy in the vicinity of Carbery Island in Dunmanus Bay on the Mizen Peninsula, Co Cork at about 4.30pm on Sunday afternoon.

They then identified the location to the Naval Service divers and his remains were brought ashore at Dunmanus Pier before transfer to Cork University Hospital for a postmortem.

The recovery of Mr Healys remains came on foot of a huge effort by both locals and statutory agencies including the Naval Service, which co-ordinated the search operation from the LE George Bernard Shaw.

Irish Coast Guard units from Goleen, Schull, Toe Head and Castletownbere joined with hundreds of locals to comb the coastline, while Castletownbere RNLI Annette Hutton also joined in the search operation.

Five separate civilian dive groups also assisted with the search at sea, while members of West Cork Civil Defence assisted with the land search from bases at Kilcrohane, Kiltimane and Dunmanus.

The late Mr Healy was one of five children of John Paul and Samantha Healy. It is understood he lived with his parents at the Durrus end of Goleen parish on the Mizen Peninsula.

Its an awful tragedy for the family but as often happens at times like this, people rally around and put in a huge effort to find Kodie and thankfully they were successful so at least its some closure for the family, said one local .

Continued here:
Body of missing Cork fisherman recovered at sea - The Irish Times

THE family of tragic fisherman Kodie Healy whose body was found at sea in Cork have made a touching request to thank the emergency services.

The 24-year-old was missing since Wednesday evening after he failed to return to port following his day's activities.

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Now the family have asked mourners to send any donations in lieu to the R.N.L.I or to L.A.S.T (Lost At Sea Tragedies) as they prepare to lay Kodie to rest.

His funeral will take place on Thursday at the Church of the Seven Sacraments in Lowertown.

The local fishing community from Goleen were out in force since Kodie, whose father John is also a fisherman, vanished last week.

His body was located at sea on Sunday and was brought ashore by the Naval Service.

The alarm was raised by his dad with Valentia Coast Guard launching a search at 8pm on Wednesday night.

On Thursday, wreckage was found on Carbery Island which was thought to be the vessel used by the young fisherman.

Other organisations who were part of the search team included the Gardai, the Naval Service and the RNLI.

The Coast Guard helicopter R115 and the naval ship LE George Bernard Shaw were both used in the search.

A post on RIP.ie read: "On October 9, 2019, tragically, following an accident, Kodie, beloved son of John Paul and Samantha loving brother to Patrick, Finnian, Suannie and Eden, grandson of the late Paddy and Annie Francis Healy.

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"Lovingly remembered by his heartbroken family, grandparents Terry and Su, uncle Zeik, aunts Mary and Geni, uncles-in-law Brendan and Eamon, aunt-in-law Margaret, cousins Diane, Marie, Brendan, Caroline, Vincent, Evelyn, Damien, Bethany, Devlin, Turlough, Brianna and Ruairi, relatives and friends.

"Reposing at Arundel's Funeral Home, Schull on tomorrow, Wednesday, from 5pm, followed by removal at 7.30pm to the Church of the Seven Sacraments, Lowertown.

"Requiem Mass on Thursday at 3pm. Funeral afterwards to Schull Cemetery. Family flowers only. Donations in lieu to R.N.L.I or to L.A.S.T (Lost At Sea Tragedies)."

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Family of tragic fisherman Kodie Healy make touching request to thank emergency search teams after body find - The Irish Sun

Kevin Doyle: 'Why we should aim to heal rifts with the UK after years of turmoil'

Independent.ie

It's fitting that the final hours of Brexit negotiations were hit by delay, confusion and a DUP wobble.

https://www.independent.ie/business/brexit/kevin-doyle-why-we-should-aim-to-heal-rifts-with-the-uk-after-years-of-turmoil-38603591.html

https://www.independent.ie/incoming/article38603644.ece/98abe/AUTOCROP/h342/EU-SOCIAL-11.jpg

It's fitting that the final hours of Brexit negotiations were hit by delay, confusion and a DUP wobble.

For three years, these have been the symptoms that have consumed British politics.

Boris Johnson's efforts to finally 'rip the plaster' brought him back towards a long identified cure: a border down the Irish Sea.

Senior Irish politicians, at home and abroad, pointed to the remedy long ago - but it's clear the British establishment does not like to be told what to do by its insignificant neighbour.

But as George Bernard Shaw said: "If you injure your neighbour, better not do it by halves."

That's exactly what the UK did with Brexit. It didn't give a whim of thought to the impact on Ireland and when our politicians tried to tell it, it didn't listen.

It's not that 'our crowd' are brilliant or had all the answers, but they did see the danger.

Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and several ministers, including Paschal Donohoe, had taken part in low-key events during the referendum to ask Irish citizens in the UK to vote Remain. In hindsight, they could have been more vocal but the government feared Irish 'interference' would only spur the Brexiteers. When the vote came, Mr Kenny noted that exit negotiations would not start for some months. "We must take this breathing space... and use it wisely," he observed.

I recall Fianna Fil leader Michel Martin looking particularly shell-shocked when he appeared before the media at Leinster House to provide his assessment.

At that stage, he hadn't helped Fine Gael pass a single budget. Now he has allowed four through the Dil with limited fuss.

The UK didn't use the time well but Mr Kenny did. He took off on a tour of European capitals, telling horror stories about Irish history.

The fact we call what happened on this island over three decades 'The Troubles' suggests we like to play down the hurt and anguish - but on this occasion Mr Kenny talked about dramatic violence and bodies lying in streets. To this day, the conflict in Northern Ireland is the bloodiest in the history of the EU.

Five days after the referendum in June 2016, the Irish Independent's frontpage headline read: "Ireland demanding package from EU to stop Brexit damage."

The report outlined Mr Kenny's plan to tell EU leaders that Ireland had suffered the equivalent of a political and economic earthquake.

The next day's headline was: "Brexit showdown: Kenny banking on Merkel's support."

Getting the German chancellor onside was key to ensuring other countries joined our battle.

Of course, it wasn't all straightforward.

This was a time when the row over water charges was still raging, Mr Kenny's leadership of Fine Gael was under constant scrutiny and day-to-day politics was still a thing.

In early July, the Irish Independent was prompted to run a very rare frontpage editorial calling for stability.

"Now that the numb shock created by Brexit has abated, the pain it inevitably entails will be felt most acutely unless we keep our composure and protect our flanks," it read.

"There are more than enough external risks with which to contend without creating our own internal ones. In this time of crisis, we cannot afford an unstable government."

As a clearer picture of the Brexit threat emerged, the EU did back Ireland and in turn TDs found a way to work together in the national interest.

In many ways that ability of both the Irish political establishment and the EU to come together stunned the British.

Some tried to undermine it when Leo Varadkar took over as Taoiseach, saying he was inexperienced and much more aggressive to deal with than his predecessor.

It's true Mr Varadkar was catapulted onto the international stage and mistakes were made.

The most obvious one was in December 2017 when the Irish Government was preparing to declare victory.

A press conference was called and reporters huddled outside Government Buildings for hours before eventually seeing the sound system and lecterns being dismantled.

The original Irish protocol agreed with Theresa May back then is not so different from what is on the table now - but the DUP sensed the glee in Dublin and brought proceedings to a swift halt.

It was a sharp lesson in 'delay, confusion and the DUP' for the Taoiseach.

Over time Mr Varadkar became the 'Brexit bogeyman' for the UK press. 'The Sun' referred to him as a "dope" and advised him to "shut your gob". Now, many people at home might agree with that assessment but they don't like other people pointing it out.

And the Taoiseach's team was quick to realise that being called "Lenny Verruca" in the 'Daily Mail' was doing wonders for his popularity in Ireland.

Perhaps the key to the Irish success is that even when the players changed after Mr Kenny stood down, the plan remained consistent.

Their line about there being no hard Border was so definitive that it actually showed we were vulnerable to the lack of a plan B.

There can be no denying now that if the UK crashed out last March our economy was in no way ready for the impact.

The human impact would have been devastating and Fine Gael would almost certainly be out of government by now.

It's said you make your own luck and maybe that's the case, but it was definitely lucky that Theresa May sought an extension and that EU leaders saw fit to give it.

Ireland has used up massive political capital since the Brexit vote. In one way it suited the EU to use this country as a justifiable stick to beat the UK with.

However, you can be sure that we will be reminded of it in the future.

For now the narrative from French President Emmanuel Macron and others will be that the European project stuck by a small nation in a time of trouble. This is true.

Irish people are unlikely to ever forget the solidarity shown during our moment in the limelight. But likewise, EU nations are unlikely to forget the risks they took in standing up to Boris Johnson on our behalf.

One senior EU source said recently: "This will never be linked to tax rates but it would be nice if Ireland showed some similar solidarity on that issue."

In the meantime, we should use this breathing space to try to repair Anglo-Irish relations.

As has so often been said, there is no such thing as a good Brexit for Ireland.

Unfortunately, there are years of difficult trade talks ahead between the UK and EU.

Having fought a running battle over the past three years, now would be a good time to turn over a new leaf and be its guy on the inside.

The EU may not always be our friends, but we're stuck with the UK as neighbours.

Irish Independent

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Kevin Doyle: 'Why we should aim to heal rifts with the UK after years of turmoil' - Independent.ie

Sales

Red River Tea Holdings purchased a 23,493-square-foot property at 1416 Westway Circle in Carrollton. Nathan Denton of DFW Lee & Associates brokered the sale with Clay Balch of Holt Lunsford Commercial.

Florida-based Keating Resources bought a 136,400-square-foot distribution center at 1242 Regal Row in Dallas. The building was previously occupied by Mary Kay and has been leased to Lonestar Electric Supply. Bill de la Chapelle and Sharon Cramer of Rubicon Representation brokered the sale, and Mark Miller of NAI Robert Lynn negotiated the lease. Jeremy Mercer and Turner Peterson of Mercer Co. represented Keating Resources.

An investor purchased the Villas del Lago apartments, a 247-unit rental community at 2911 Clydedale Drive in the Bachman Lake area of Dallas. The new owners plan to renovate the property. Greystones Todd Franks and Sean Reynolds brokered the sale.

Randol Mill LLC bought a fully leased medical office property at 809 W. Randol Mill Road in central Arlington. The 13,382-square-foot building is next to the Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital. SkyWalker Property Property Partners Clint Holland negotiated the sale with Jeff Matulis and Toby Scrivner of the Stan Johnson Co. and Joel St. John of JLL.

Nickson Heritage Industrial LLC purchased a 9.3-acre development site on Mitchell Road in Mansfield. The buyer plans to build 100,000 square feet of speculative warehouse space on the property. Robert Miller and George Tanghongs of DFW Lee & Associates brokered the sale with Mansfield Economic Development Corp.

Property Materials LLC leased a 39,900-square-foot industrial space at 8600 N. Royal Lane in Irving. Adam Graham and Corbin Blount of Lee & Associates DFW negotiated the lease with Catherine Gibbons and Jim Hazard of ESRP.

Texas Health Resources signed a 25,000-square-foot lease for a Texas Health Family location at 4701 Boat Club Road in Lake Worth. Ludovit Zywczak of Texas Health negotiated the lease.

Ross Dress for Less leased 21,088 square feet of retail space at Addison Town Center at 3740-3850 Belt Line Road at Marsh Lane in Addison for a new location. Bernard Shaw of Weitzman handled lease negotiations.

Surface Preparation of Texas leased a 19,200-square-foot industrial space at 2450 114th St. in Grand Prairie. Colton Rhodes of DFW Lee & Associates negotiated the lease with Jim Ferris and Michael Spain of Bradford Commercial Real Estate Services.

Go Puff leased 4,491 square feet of retail space at Plano Crossing at 8900 Ohio Drive in Plano. Brian Sladek and Chris Flesner of Retail Solutions negotiated the lease.

Pura Vida Contracting leased 3,317 square feet of office space in Campbell Forum I at 801 E. Campbell Road in Richardson. Jared Laake of Bradford Commercial Real Estate Services negotiated the lease with Deborah Borum of Beltway Commercial Real Estate.

Real estate editor Steve Brown compiles this list.

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Texas Health Resources adds space and other top D-FW commercial real estate transactions this week - The Dallas Morning News

The Bernard Shaw in Dublin has announced that it will be closing its doors next month.

The pub made the announcement on its website, and shared a link on social media. They said that the decision was out of their hands, and they even tried to buy the premises but nothing worked out.

The statement said:

"Its with heavy hearts that we announce the end of our Bernard Shaw adventure. At the end of October 2019 we will close the Shaw, Eatyard, all organisational, art and performance spaces and everything else in the building and yards for good. Weve tried really hard over the last few months to renew the lease, stay on longer, or buy the place. A lot of things didnt go our way over the last 12 months either, but its out of our hands now unfortunately."

They went on to say thank you to everyone who helped them out and worked for them over the past decade.

"Wed like to say a huge thank you to everyone who was part of this 13 year adventure. Our landlord, our neighbours & the council were by and large all brilliant and very helpful & supportive. The artists, makers, designers, bands, DJs, promoters, hustlers and lunatics who did their thing at the Shaw we couldnt have done it without you. We have had amazing, loyal customers, many who came, and left, and came back again over those 13 years as life got in the way while we were busy making plans and being busy fools."

Above all we want to thank our crew. Past and present we have had incredible people work with us. Everything we do is about people. their ideas, trying things out, making a mess of it, trying again, getting it right, having fun, making memories, and when the partys over, lets plan another party. But parties werent meant to last"

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The Bernard Shaw pub has just announced that it's CLOSING ...

Google Maps The Bernard Shaw pub

Legendary Dublin pub The Bernard Shaw is to close its doors for good.

The Portobello establishment included a beer garden with a pizza restaurant inside a double-decker bus, as well as the adjacent Eatyard, which was host to a number of food outlets.

In May it was reported that the Richmond Street bar had been refused planning permission to keep its outdoor eating and drinking area.

Now it has emerged the cultural icon will close on October 31.

Pub owners said in a statement today on the Bernard Shaw website: "Its with heavy hearts that we announce the end of our Bernard Shaw adventure.

"At the end of October 2019 we will close the Shaw, Eatyard, all organisational, art and performance spaces and everything else in the building and yards for good.

"Weve tried really hard over the last few months to renew the lease, stay on longer, or buy the place. A lot of things didnt go our way over the last 12 months either, but its out of our hands now unfortunately.

"Wed like to say a huge thank you to everyone who was part of this 13 year adventure.

"Our landlord, our neighbours & the council were by and large all brilliant and very helpful & supportive. The artists, makers, designers, bands, DJs, promoters, hustlers and lunatics who did their thing at the Shaw we couldnt have done it without you.

"We have had amazing, loyal customers, many who came, and left, and came back again over those 13 years as life got in the way while we were busy making plans and being busy fools.

"Above all we want to thank our crew. Past and present we have had incredible people work with us. Everything we do is about people. their ideas, trying things out, making a mess of it, trying again, getting it right, having fun, making memories, and when the partys over, lets plan another party. But parties werent meant to last

"Dublin is changing, we can all see and feel it but we are going nowhere & we wont go down without a fight.

"Well start something else, somewhere else [ plans are afoot ] , and keep fighting the good fight. There are so many young creative, clever, smart people in Dublin & Ireland at the moment theres lots to be optimistic about but they need the spaces to meet each other, make plans, and make them happen!

"Well have more info, lineups, events, wakes, next steps out over the next few days & weeks. until the end of October were open as normal, were ready for yall and were gonna party like its.2019!

"Shaw & Shoddytonic Crew."

Excerpt from:
The Bernard Shaw pub in Dublin to close along with Eatyard

George Bernard Shaw, (born July 26, 1856, Dublin, Irelanddied November 2, 1950, Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England), Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, and socialist propagandist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.

Top Questions

George Bernard Shaw is famous for his role in revolutionizing comedic drama. He was also a literary critic and a prominent British socialist. Shaws most financially successful work, Pygmalion, was adapted into the popular Broadway musical My Fair Lady. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, as the youngest of three children. He was raised in genteel poverty, and his mothers career as a professional singer influenced his interest in music, art, and literature. He remained relatively impoverished throughout his 20s, trying his hand at novel-writing several times to no avail.

George Bernard Shaw wrote rather unmemorable fiction throughout his 20s and early 30s. In 1885 the drama critic William Archer recruited Shaw to write book, art, and musical reviews in various publications. In 1895 Shaw began writing for the Saturday Review as a theatre critic, and from there he began to write his first plays.

George Bernard Shaws plays are thematically diverse. He wove threads of humour and romance between analyses of contemporary hypocrisies and social tensions. About the beginning of the 20th century, Shaw began affixing lengthy prefaces to his plays that engaged more deeply with their philosophical foundations.

In the mid-1880s George Bernard Shaw joined the Fabian Society, a newly formed socialist club for middle-class intellectuals hoping to transform English society through culture. He remained a socialist for the rest of his life. He also became a pacifist and an antiwar activist, attracting much criticism during World War I.

George Bernard Shaw was the third and youngest child (and only son) of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw. Technically, he belonged to the Protestant ascendancythe landed Irish gentrybut his impractical father was first a sinecured civil servant and then an unsuccessful grain merchant, and George Bernard grew up in an atmosphere of genteel poverty, which to him was more humiliating than being merely poor. At first Shaw was tutored by a clerical uncle, and he basically rejected the schools he then attended; by age 16 he was working in a land agents office.

Shaw developed a wide knowledge of music, art, and literature as a result of his mothers influence and his visits to the National Gallery of Ireland. In 1872 his mother left her husband and took her two daughters to London, following her music teacher, George John Vandeleur Lee, who from 1866 had shared households in Dublin with the Shaws. In 1876 Shaw resolved to become a writer, and he joined his mother and elder sister (the younger one having died) in London. Shaw in his 20s suffered continuous frustration and poverty. He depended upon his mothers pound a week from her husband and her earnings as a music teacher. He spent his afternoons in the British Museum reading room, writing novels and reading what he had missed at school, and his evenings in search of additional self-education in the lectures and debates that characterized contemporary middle-class London intellectual activities.

His fiction failed utterly. The semiautobiographical and aptly titled Immaturity (1879; published 1930) repelled every publisher in London. His next four novels were similarly refused, as were most of the articles he submitted to the press for a decade. Shaws initial literary work earned him less than 10 shillings a year. A fragment posthumously published as An Unfinished Novel in 1958 (but written 188788) was his final false start in fiction.

Despite his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade. He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, and tentatively a playwright. He became the force behind the newly founded (1884) Fabian Society, a middle-class socialist group that aimed at the transformation of English society not through revolution but through permeation (in Sidney Webbs term) of the countrys intellectual and political life. Shaw involved himself in every aspect of its activities, most visibly as editor of one of the classics of British socialism, Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889), to which he also contributed two sections.

Eventually, in 1885, the drama critic William Archer found Shaw steady journalistic work. His early journalism ranged from book reviews in the Pall Mall Gazette (188588) and art criticism in the World (188689) to brilliant musical columns in the Star (as Corno di Bassettobasset horn) from 1888 to 1890 and in the World (as G.B.S.) from 1890 to 1894. Shaw had a good understanding of music, particularly opera, and he supplemented his knowledge with a brilliance of digression that gives many of his notices a permanent appeal. But Shaw truly began to make his mark when he was recruited by Frank Harris to the Saturday Review as theatre critic (189598); in that position he used all his wit and polemical powers in a campaign to displace the artificialities and hypocrisies of the Victorian stage with a theatre of vital ideas. He also began writing his own plays.

When Shaw began writing for the English stage, its most prominent dramatists were Sir A.W. Pinero and H.A. Jones. Both men were trying to develop a modern realistic drama, but neither had the power to break away from the type of artificial plots and conventional character types expected by theatregoers. The poverty of this sort of drama had become apparent with the introduction of several of Henrik Ibsens plays onto the London stage around 1890, when A Dolls House was played in London; his Ghosts followed in 1891, and the possibility of a new freedom and seriousness on the English stage was introduced. Shaw, who was about to publish The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), rapidly refurbished an abortive comedy, Widowers Houses, as a play recognizably Ibsenite in tone, making it turn on the notorious scandal of slum landlordism in London. The result (performed 1892) flouted the threadbare romantic conventions that were still being exploited even by the most daring new playwrights. In the play a well-intentioned young Englishman falls in love and then discovers that both his prospective father-in-laws fortune and his own private income derive from exploitation of the poor. Potentially this is a tragic situation, but Shaw seems to have been always determined to avoid tragedy. The unamiable lovers do not attract sympathy; it is the social evil and not the romantic predicament on which attention is concentrated, and the action is kept well within the key of ironic comedy.

The same dramatic predispositions control Mrs. Warrens Profession, written in 1893 but not performed until 1902 because the lord chamberlain, the censor of plays, refused it a license. Its subject is organized prostitution, and its action turns on the discovery by a well-educated young woman that her mother has graduated through the profession to become a part proprietor of brothels throughout Europe. Again, the economic determinants of the situation are emphasized, and the subject is treated remorselessly and without the titillation of fashionable comedies about fallen women. As with many of Shaws works, the play is, within limits, a drama of ideas, but the vehicle by which these are presented is essentially one of high comedy.

Shaw called these first plays unpleasant, because their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts. He followed them with four pleasant plays in an effort to find the producers and audiences that his mordant comedies had offended. Both groups of plays were revised and published in Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). The first of the second group, Arms and the Man (performed 1894), has a Balkan setting and makes lighthearted, though sometimes mordant, fun of romantic falsifications of both love and warfare. The second, Candida (performed 1897), was important for English theatrical history, for its successful production at the Royal Court Theatre in 1904 encouraged Harley Granville-Barker and J.E. Vedrenne to form a partnership that resulted in a series of brilliant productions there. The play represents its heroine as forced to choose between her clerical husbanda worthy but obtuse Christian socialistand a young poet who has fallen wildly in love with her. She chooses her seemingly confident husband because she discerns that he is actually the weaker man. The poet is immature and hysterical but, as an artist, has a capacity to renounce personal happiness in the interest of some large creative purpose. This is a significant theme for Shaw; it leads on to that of the conflict between man as spiritual creator and woman as guardian of the biological continuity of the human race that is basic to a later play, Man and Superman. In Candida such speculative issues are only lightly touched on, and this is true also of You Never Can Tell (performed 1899), in which the hero and heroine, who believe themselves to be respectively an accomplished amorist and an utterly rational and emancipated woman, find themselves in the grip of a vital force that takes little account of these notions.

The strain of writing these plays, while his critical and political work went on unabated, so sapped Shaws strength that a minor illness became a major one. In 1898, during the process of recuperation, he married his unofficial nurse, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress and friend of Beatrice and Sidney Webb. The apparently celibate marriage lasted all their lives, Shaw satisfying his emotional needs in paper-passion correspondences with Ellen Terry, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and others.

Shaws next collection of plays, Three Plays for Puritans (1901), continued what became the traditional Shavian prefacean introductory essay in an electric prose style dealing as much with the themes suggested by the plays as the plays themselves. The Devils Disciple (performed 1897) is a play set in New Hampshire during the American Revolution and is an inversion of traditional melodrama. Caesar and Cleopatra (performed 1901) is Shaws first great play. In the play Cleopatra is a spoiled and vicious 16-year-old child rather than the 38-year-old temptress of Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra. The play depicts Caesar as a lonely and austere man who is as much a philosopher as he is a soldier. The plays outstanding success rests upon its treatment of Caesar as a credible study in magnanimity and original morality rather than as a superhuman hero on a stage pedestal. The third play, Captain Brassbounds Conversion (performed 1900), is a sermon against various kinds of folly masquerading as duty and justice.

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George Bernard Shaw | Biography, Plays, & Facts ...