This past Saturday I attended an Anti-Authoritarian Assembly at Seomra Spraoi. What's that, you ask? Well, it was really a meet-up for local political and social activisty groups to meet, check in with one another, share resources, and have a discussion about various topics.

It was nice to hear from groups that I was less familiar with. Clare from RAG put the whole thing together, and afterwards everyone had a cool togetherness vibe that, to me, felt energizing. I am looking forward to the next one in two months time. I'll post about it here in case anyone is interested in attending!

So much for posting more regularly. Of course I haven't stopped living, I have just stopped blogging so much about it. But I swear that things have calmed down now so I should be able to keep up! Now, I guess I'm a just gonna have to do a bit of a recap of the month...

Well, first of all, the Rag Issue 5 came back from the printer's! We are all very excited about this year's issue, and I can't wait for our launch party, to which all are invited, on November 20th. Here's the poster for it:

So please come on up to Seomra Spraoi, have a little food, be immensely entertained, dance, and then go home with a copy of The Rag#5 for your very own. It will be a ball!

The first couple of weeks of October were pretty intense, putting together the magazine, dotting our Is and crossing our Ts and making sure everything was more or less kosher. I think we have a great range of articles, two of which were written by yours truly! So look out for it, and if you can't make it to the launch party, never fear, the magazine will be in book shops around Dublin and will be available through Distros around the world. I'll keep you posted on that after the 20th!

I have been a blog neglecter. Well, it's been busy times for me lately! For the past couple of months, I was doing a little mini-internship twice a week for the very talented and very nice Dublin fashion designer, Sinead Doyle. It really got me thinking about fashion and what I'd like to work on next, and she also inspired me to do more hand work like beading and embroidery. So we'll see what I come up with! I still have some nice fabrics from my trip to Florida last year. I have been staring at them longingly for over a year, so I'd like to get through my stash.

It's also RAG season again! So we're making the final push to get the magazine out. Things aren't moving as swiftly as they should be, so I foresee a few sleepless nights ahead.

I think I may have written in February about going to Dublin Community Television to do a show called "Looking Left." We were featured as a comparison to the 1970s Dublin feminist magazine "Banshee." The show has finally been released. Admittedly, I don't say a whole lot. But Clare does an amazing job, and I excel at nodding and smiling.

Looking Left - Banshee Journal of Irish Women United from DCTV on Vimeo.

The other day, I felt like making brunch. So I made a ton of food, and was lucky enough to have a few friends come over and help me eat it. It was one of those days where you feel content and loved and all those nice things. But did I take a photo of us eating the yummy food? No. I took a photo of the plate though! Now, it doesn't look very appetizing, but I assure you, it was. Here is home made corn bread, tofu scramble, corned bean hash, and home made soyrizo. Yum!


A friend of ours was in town between traveling, and he put on a little fundraiser in Seomra Spraoi for a social center in Malaysia. I was supposed to DJ, but there wasn't really enough people. So we just put my ipod playlist on the stereo and had a nice relaxed time. But then, someone asked to turn the music off because some musicians wanted to play. It was magical, and such a pleasant surprise. I took two videos. The second one is haunting and maybe even other worldly. Sometimes I get these reminders at how different Ireland is than America, in a good way. You know those moments where you think, "This would *never* happen back home!" And I feel so lucky to have these moments, particularly when I am missing friends and family back in New England.




September 24th was Culture Night, "a night of entertainment, discovery and adventure in Dublin and across 20 towns, cities and counties in Ireland. Arts and cultural organisations open their doors until late with hundreds of free events, tours, talks and performances." I cycled over to IMMA to meet some friends. I wanted to take photos, but my camera is fairly useless at night. Here's one of Clare and her friend, looking festive!

As we were not so excited by the happenings there, a group of us continued on to some other galleries on Franklin Street. And I had a celebrity sighting! Tommy O'Neill, aka Detective John Deegan from Fair City! I was pretty pleased, but I didn't go up to him or anything.

It's hard to convey just how many times you see horses in Dublin. I don't mean the kind of horses like you see in downtown Boston that have fancy carriages that will take you around the Common. I mean just kids on horses, guys in little mini-carriages going down the road by horse. It's no strange sight to see horses used as regular transportation, and they usually go down the roads like cars. But the other morning, I caught a horsedrawn hearse in traffic, and I just had to take a photo. The horses in front of the bus really creates a contrast!


Well hopefully it won't be so long before my next update!

On Wednesday, I went with fellow RAGster Clare to the studios of Dublin Community Television (DCTV) to film an episode of a show called "Looking Left." RAG has previously done shows for DCTV -- you can see the show about DIY publishing HERE. The show has previously dealt with publications that have come out of lefty political movements, but this was the first show that dealt with publications that mix both the political and social, but aren't the product of a political party, namely the 70s Journal "Banshee" and RAG.

In preparation for the show, I downloaded pdf scans of issues of Banshee and was amazed at so many things. First of all, in 1976, when the issues came out, contraception was not legal in Ireland. Divorce was illegal. Women were being refused service in pubs (or else they weren't allowed to drink pints; they could only drink half pints at a time). And Ireland was the only country in the UN to refuse to ratify the equal pay for equal work law. And so much more...for example, if a woman had an affair with a man who wasn't her husband, her husband could sue the other man for compensation for lost services. I am not joking -- it actually happened! Women had almost zero rights and were literally the property of their husbands. Reading Banshee was both like stepping back in time, but also many of the articles reminded me of how much still needs to change here, and how behind the times it really is. And not just in Ireland, but in most of the world. Reading about the direct actions the Irish Women United took inspired me. I think they actually made a difference in the world they were living in.

Anyhoo -- it struck me how similar the subject matter was between Banshee and RAG. We also learned that their process of creating (editing, writing, publishing) the magazine was extremely similar to ours in its non-hierarchical, collaborative nature. So naturally, when given the chance to talk to Anne Speed, one of the founders of Banshee, Clare and I were pretty pumped.

The studio is in this big warehouse kind of building. Man it was cold in there. In fact I think it was colder in the studio than it was outside. I took a picture of the building:


Inside the actual studio, it was a little warmer, but they only can have the heater on between filming because of the noise it makes. So we started off toasty, and started shivering most of the way through. "Looking Left" is a panel show, so the host, Conor McCabe, started off by giving a historical context for Banshee, but the show was really run by Louise O'Reilly from SIPTU, who did a fantastic job keeping the conversation on task. Here's a photo I took of the set after we were finished filming:


All in all, we heard some compelling stories, both before and after the filming, and we made sure to get Anne Speed to agree to be interviewed for the next issue of RAG. Then she was kind enough to give me a lift home! I felt like I was driven home by Irish feminist royalty or something, haha. I will post the episode when it's available online! I hope they edit out all the parts where I sound like an idiot.

Rag are hosting a film screening and discussion in Seomra Spraoi on October 17th, at 8pm.


Two film makers are on tour with films they have made on the subject of abortion. The first one is called The Coat Hanger Project http://www.thecoathangerproject.com/
and the second is Abortion Democracy: Poland/South Africa http://www.abortion-democracy.de/
The film makers will be there to talk about the films so there should be some great discussion afterward.

This past weekend Mark and I went up to Belfast, Northern Ireland to attend the Warzone Fest and the Belfast Anarchist Book Fair. Belfast is only a two hour drive or so from Dublin, surprisingly.

We didn't see much of Belfast because we arrived past dark on Friday, went to the Warzone show, went to someone's house, slept, woke up and went to the book fair, went almost directly to the Warzone's second show, and then back to the house to sleep. We had to leave early Sunday morning, so no chance for sightseeing! So I have to officially reserve judgment on Belfast for now. But between you and me, I thought the city was kind of an armpit. The nicest part seemed to be where we stayed, but anything off the beaten path seemed like it was boarded up and covered in bad graffiti. I took a couple of photos, but not many considering that I was mostly indoors all weekend.

But the main point is that we had a great time! The bands we saw at Warzone were a lot of fun, and I will say that Belfast has its fair share of really friendly, warm, and welcoming punks. I don't think I could go out in Dublin and talk to that many strangers.

In the book fair, which was held in a kind of small room, with workshops going on in the next room. The dude on the left is maybe the nicest guy ever:


The RAG table, where I sat all day.:


Mark talks to two new friends at the Warzone fest. I think the guy in the middle looks like he could be his cousin or something:

I like the guy in the background to the left. He looks like he's picking his nose.

Damo's band, "Sort It Out":


Our hosts were gracious and generous. But I admit I was happy to sleep in my own bed Sunday night :)