Eoin Butler

Finito

This is a piece I wrote about The Devil’s Double for The Guardian last weekend. I’m flattered someone took the time to set up, not one, but two comment accounts to defend Latif Yahia and his Walter Mitty-esque memoirs. But most of all, I’m glad that this is the last time I’ll be mentioning his name, here or anywhere else.

“Readers will have to live without his thoughts on the the retirement of Micheal O’Muircheartaigh and the suspicious longevity of Fungi the Dolphin…”

It is a bright, clear morning in mid-September. Aidan Gillen’s battered BMW rattles along one of the bumpy backroads that snake across the sun-kissed Dingle peninsula. To our right stands Mount Brandon. Ahead, the Atlantic Ocean sparkles in a summer’s last hurrah. But the driver is ill-at-ease. I’m a journalist. He doesn’t like journalists. You can tell. Read the rest of this interview here.

Alex And Liam Do Walmart

My first time in America, in 1998, I visited Walmart and was as flabbergasted as these guys. There was one section where they stocked nothing but piles and piles of awful romance novels. (You know the ones with, like, a topless Fabio lookalike on the cover.) The press quote on one said: “Marks the arrival of a major new talent.”

The store was about the size of Colorado. I almost made it the entire way across before this one nagging thought got the better of me. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Hold on, what newspaper could possibly have given that review to a trashy romance novel? I turned around and marched the entire way back.

That newspaper? The Romantic Times. God bless Walmart! God bless America!

This is funny

In honour of Comic-Con, which gets underway in San Diego today, here’s maybe the funniest ten minutes of television I’ve ever seen. “Here’s a spoiler… you will die alone.” I’m not a big fan of science fiction myself. But I have had some fun at it’s expense it in recent years…

Who will watch The Watchmen? No, seriously.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
Q&A with Pat Mills, the ‘Godfather of British comic books’

The Imelda May story: Irish media still seeking that elusive second angle

Published: Irish Times, July 3 2011

A little ray of sunshine…

They say that, into each life, some rain must fall. Here in the Glasnevin Barber Shop, on a warm summer’s day, Arthur McGuinness is gleefully talking up a monsoon. The McGuinnesses have been cutting hair at this location, just opposite the National Botanic Gardens, since 1910. And mine are about to join some pretty illustrious floor sweepings.

Matt Talbot and Brendan Behan were both customers. Ditto Eamon De Valera. “He was bald on top,” recalls Arthur. “So he’d have had it very short.” The former Taoiseach’s family were also patrons. “The son was a lovely fella. Used to drive a pale blue Mercedes. He was a gynaecologist, big long fingers he had on him.” Read the rest of this entry »

Get well soon, Ollie!

Tripping Along The Ledge offers its most sincere best wishes to singer-songwriter Ollie Higgins, who was involved in a serious accident earlier this week. I know many of you will remember Ollie’s band the Kill City Snowmen, who were big favourites at the Sound Cellar and Baggot Inn back in the day.

Legends of Irish rock, the Snowmen were tipped in Smiley Bolger’s annual Ones To Watch list a record-breaking five times (1987, ‘88, ‘90, ‘91 and ‘93!) One of the industry’s true gentlemen, Ollie fell fifty feet onto concrete while attempting to rescue a kitten from a tree. Read the rest of this entry »

The House of Dolls

“Weird. Freaky. Scary… Freaky and scary are the two you’d get most often. People tend to either like the dolls or hate them. There’s no in-between.” Read the rest of this article here.

“I keep a careful record of these, since they might one day provide the basis for a plea of Guilty But Insane…”

Dear John Paul,

It is with considerable confusion that I acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 21st.

I am aware that you are the Supreme Head of the Roman Catholic Church and that I write album reviews. What I fail to understand is how this makes us rivals. Read the rest of this article here.

Published: Unpublished, June 2011

The anatomy of a Twitter gaffe

“How do you wake up the President?” asked the online magazine Slate’s official Twitter feed earlier this year. The tweet linked to an old article, describing the elaborate protocols governing when and how a U.S. president is roused from his sleep for an emergency briefing.

It was an interesting piece. Who knew that prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Situation Room was once the Whitehouse bowling alley? On a whim, I retweeted the original question (“How do you wake up the President?”) along with my own tongue-in-cheek suggestion. (“SUPERSOAKERS!!!”) Read the rest of this entry »