This Statue of the Labour leader James Larkin is on the side of the ICTU building which is in Donegall Street Place Belfast. It was jointly commissioned by The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Laganside Corporation unveiled on 8^th of May 2006 by David Begg the General Secretary of ICTU. The Artist was Anto Brennan.  I always felt that the statue would be better known if it had been erected on Donegall St itself because Donegall Street Place is hidden away down as narrow side street. CLICK HERE  to read more about James Larkin

I was in Belfast today and there seemed to be loads of street musician doing their thing. Most were young students but I recognised this guy as a veteran of the scene. You would normally spot him down on Fountain St but today he was entertaining the punters coming in and out of Victoria Square shopping centre on William St South.

It’s a bit of a cliche but the older you get  the quicker time seems to pass. I can’t believe it’s twenty years since the very untimely death of Ronan Molloy. I was on placement in Chicago from Magee college when I got the unbelievable news. Ronan was an enthusiastic member of Coalisland Health club based in the parochial centre and had gone out for a run on a summers evening 27th of july 1992. This year his family have organised a 5 and 10K run in his memory.  The event will take place on Saturday 28th July 2012 in Coalisland starting at the Parochial Centre on the Stewartstown Road.  Registration will take place from 10am. The event is to celebrate his life and in his memory but also to raise funds for a worthy cause and highlight the risk of cardiac problems in young active people. All monies raised will go to Cardiac Risk in the Young. CLICK HERE  for the Run For Ronan Facebook page. Pictured are Ronan’s mother Sheila his brother Kevin and sisters Fiona, Marian, and Aoibhean who are holding Ronan’s coalisland Health Club running vest.

I work in Monaghan Town in an office just across from the Market House arts centre. An new art exhibition has just opened called “Fetish”  by Monaghan based fetish artist Patrick J Martin who creates kinky imagery using Rubber Latex or PVC as a medium.  I guess there was a time when eyebrows would have been raised but not in the Ireland of 2012. All the same we were hoping that a couple of clergy would have chained themselves to the railings with placards proclaiming “DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING”!!

This is Lineside House the head office of a couple of local firms Clarman Architects and McWilliams Chartered Surveyors. The building is going to be demolished in the next couple of days despite the fact that the building  is less than ten years old. It’s to make way for a car park for a new supermarket which will be built on a site adjacent the Lineside House. Clarman Architects had earlier lodged a  twenty one point objection to the building of the supermarket  but now seem to have settled to move to another building in the town. Coalisland is changing and there is a division of opinion amongst residence here as to whether  this change is for the better or indeed in the best interests of the people who live here.

In Ireland the most common topic of conversation is the weather. However the weather here today is so bad for the time of year that it’s beyond talking about!! The wind and rain was just too much for the umbrellas.

This is my bodhran and that is me playing it back in 1978. (Click on photos to enlarge) I bought the bodhran in 1976 from a company in Belfast called William Hewitt Drum Makers. The Hewitt’s were famous Lambeg drum makers from Sandy Row and apparently they made their bodhrans out of busted Lambegs.

Famous drum manufacturer William Hewitt of Sandy Row, Belfast, additionally claims that his grandfather produced the first lambeg drum in 1870.  Author  and well known flute player and Church of Ireland minister Gary Hastings however, contradicts this tale, highlighting that ‘the oldest reference to them was when two were bought for an Orange Lodge in 1823.  They were called ‘lambegs’ as early as that and it is likely that they were made in the village of  Lambeg (County Antrim) as I am not aware of any other explanation of the name.’ There is also the renowned legend that the lambeg drum was initially brought over from Holland by King William’s troops during the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.  According to Fionnuala Scullion this theory could well be true, since a drum resembling the size and shape of the lambeg is displayed in Rembrandt’s 1649 painting entitled, ‘The Night Watch.’ Whatever about the Lambeg I have had this bodhran for 36 years and have recently started playing it again.  Any trad bands out there who need a “moron on the bodhran” I’m your man!

This is singer/songwriter and former Tyrone footballer Mickey Coleman from Ardboe who is now based in New York. Check out his Facebook page CLICK HERE 

These are members of “Sutemous Dance Company” based in Dungannon. Sutemos is a youth dance company comprising of 20 dancers representing eight different nationalities. Sutemos is run and choreographed by Sheena Kelly, who set out to run a project that would raise the confidence of the participants, bring other community groups together and create a performance that would represent the diversity of the group. They are currently fund raising to bring a group to a festival in Germany in July. You can get more information on the group on their Facebook page CLICK HERE

This is Cara Rose Coyle. I did a family portrait with Cara Rose and her brothers in the studio.