26 June 2025

My maiden voyage on Substack. I plan to travel on this route weekly.

Painting of the Week

Michael Hartnett by his good friend and fellow Limerick man John Shinnors.

A Brief Introduction

On the basis of T.S. Eliot’s dictum about bad poets copying and good poets stealing, I should begin by admitting that I’ve been influenced in the structure of this initial stab at a Substack posting by the format employed by Observer writer and Cambridge academic John Naughton, my former class-mate at CBC Cork. I like his eclectic mix of interests - the denser stuff leavened by musical interludes and amusing quotes. My main focus will be on art and literary matters but I will not be ignoring the parlous state we’re in both at home and abroad.

Current Bedtime Reading

Ellman’s Joyce - The Biography of a Masterpiece and its Maker - by Zachary Leader

Previous Bedtime Reading

Christopher Isherwood - Inside Out - by Katherine Bucknell

I’ve read most of Isherwood’s work and have always enjoyed his writing - about his Berlin period in particular. Also, these books gave us an early insight into the mind and modus vivendi of a gay man - before the likes of Edmund White and Alan Hollingshurst provided a fuller picture. Bucknell had access to his voluminous diaries so we get far more depth than the camera-view that he employed in his own books. We also get references to almost every sexual partner he ever had which makes one wonder how he managed to write the impressive number of book that he did. I found his later-life adherence to a Hindu guru a bit tedious and a bit confusing - especially when it came to the celibacy it required but which he blithely ignored. His application and productivity as a writer was impressive and he lived a full and interesting life. I suspect, however, that you would need to be an enthusiast before tackling this impressively detailed biography.

From my Johnnysull Spotify Playlist

Sporting Highlight of the Week

The beating of J. P. McManus United (or Limerick as they used to be) by Dublin in the All-Ireland Hurling Quarter Finals was one of the biggest shocks in GAA history - think Offaly against Kerry in 1982.

Artists I have Known

Let’s start with one of the great characters of 20th Century Irish Art - Camille Souter