PortiaCommunications

'A House of Cards' review in SHJ: praise for MacDonald's 'finely-crafted stories' bit.ly/1NORhc5 #fiction

#Otd 1924: 1st Olympic medal won by the Irish Free State was a silver medal, in Paris, awarded to Jack Butler Yeats for 1923 painting 'The Liffey Swim'! Entered as 'Swimming'. 1912-48 there were arts events (5 categories: architecture, literature, music, painting & sculpture)!

Rare copy of oldest poem in English language discovered by TCD researchers irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/0…

Skerries Mills at sunrise. I've captured a similar shot many times hoping for the mist and fog coming out to create a very mythic scene. I could have gotten it on Friday if I didn't head to Louth.. seen the fog on the motorway. I've had this on the bucket list since 2022.

“Perfection itself is imperfection.” -Vladimir Horowitz

We won Bookshop of the Year & immediately thought: yes, but what if there was wine? Join us for a Rioja Night with Lorcan O’Brien. Taste, learn, meet lovely people & leave with 2 bottles chosen by an actual sommelier! Wed May 13th, 6.30–8.30pm eventbrite.ie/e/rioja-tastin…

Puente Nuevo in Ronda, Spain 🇪🇸

Rome's Open House event opens the doors of 220 of the city’s most fascinating buildings. wantedinrome.com/whatson/open-h…

A City Ablaze Haunting view looking south on Sackville Street shows a city illuminated by fires, consuming the GPO and other buildings. Nelson’s Pillar rises in silhouette. Rare long-exposure taken in near-total darkness, captures the scale of the devastation.

Soline Humbert felt called to ordination. This Irish priest paid a price for supporting her. ncronline.org/node/329336 via @NCRonline @CampaignWOW @HolmesColm, @GerryO_Connor, @dearmisskate, @OrdainWomen, @MiriamTDuignan, @luca_badini #priesthood @ACPInIreland #womenpriests

A cousin of Edmund Burke, who supported her work ...

Etruscan Terracotta Sarcophagus of the Spouses (520-510 BC) - Musée du Louvre 🇫🇷 One of the distinguishing features of Etruscan society, and one that caused much shock and horror to their Greek neighbors was the relative freedom enjoyed by Etruscan women. Unlike women in ancient Greece or Rome, upper class Etruscan women actively participated in public life—attending banquets, riding in carriages and being spectators at (and participants in) public events. Reflections of such freedoms are found throughout Etruscan art; images of women engaged in these activities appear frequently in painting and in sculpture. Sarcophagus of the Spouses was found in Cerverteri, a town in Italy north of Rome, which is the site of a large Etruscan necropolis (or cemetery), with hundreds of tombs. Sarcophagus vividly evokes both social visibility of Etruscan women and a type of marital intimacy rarely seen in Greek art from this period. In sarcophagus (and another largely identical example at the Villa Giulia in Rome), two figures recline as equals as they participate in a banquet, possibly a funerary banquet for dead. In contemporary Greece, only women attending public banquets, or symposia, were courtesans, not wives. The affectionate gestures and tenderness between the Etruscan man and woman convey a strikingly different attitude about status of women and their relative equality with their husbands. Aside from its subject matter, the sarcophagus is also a remarkable example of Etruscan large-scale terracotta sculpture (terracotta is a type of ceramic also called earthenware). At nearly two meters long, object demonstrates rather accomplished feat of modeling clay figures at nearly life-size. Artists in Etruscan cities of Cerveteri and Veii in particular preferred working with highly refined clay for large-scale sculpture as it provided a smooth surface for application of paint and inclusion of fine detail. Handling such large forms, however, was not without complications; evidence of this can be seen in cut that bisects the sarcophagus. Splitting the piece in two parts would have allowed the artist to more easily manipulate pieces before and after firing.  If you look closely, you can also see a distinct line separating figures and lid of sarcophagus; this was another trick for creating these monumental pieces, modeling the figures separately and then placing them on top of their bed. A really lovely characteristic of this sculpture is preservation of so much color. In addition to colored garments and pillows, red laced boots, her black tresses and his blond ones, one can easily discern gender specific skin tones so typical in Etruscan art. Man's ochre flesh signifies his participation in a sun-drenched, external world, while woman's pale cream skin points to more interior, domestic one. Gendered color conventions were not exclusive to Etruscans but have a long pedigree in ancient art. Though their skin and hair color may be different, both figures share similar facial features archaic smiles, almond shaped eyes and highly arched eyebrows, all typical of Etruscan art. One of the great puzzles of the sarcophagus centers on what the figures were holding. Etruscan art often featured outsized, expressive hands with suggestively curled fingers. Here the arm positions of both figures hint that each must have held small objects, but what? Since the figures are reclining on a banqueting couch, objects could have been vessels associated with drinking, perhaps wine cups or representations of food. Another possibility is that they may have held alabastra, small vessels containing oil used for anointing the dead. Or perhaps, they held all of the above food, drink and oil, each a necessity for making the journey from this life to next. Whatever missing elements, conviviality of moment and intimacy of figures capture the life-affirming quality often seen in Etruscan art of this period, even in the face of death. © Dr. Laurel Taylor #archaeohistories

Palermo, Sicily 🇮🇹

Florencia. Foto: @MozartCultures

A Soft Day in Lahinch, County Clare, painting by Letitia Marion Hamilton, Irish artist (1878-1964).

Whitebells 🤍💙🤍 It is thought that these native white bluebells occur only once in every 10,000 flowers💜 These albino versions are much more common in the Spanish variety familiar in UK gardens💙💜💙 #FlowersOnFriday

Two Irish Volunteers inside barricaded GPO during the Easter Rising 1916. It became symbolic headquarters of the self‑proclaimed Irish Republic. Amazingly, the Volunteers would hold the GPO against British forces, artillery & machine-gun fire, for the better part of a week.

In a letter Pádraig Ó Conchubhair recounted a visit to Marsh's in 1924 when he was blocked from entering by a woman cleaning the steps. Wearing a fedora & trench coat he looked like a gunman. #census1926 has possibly given a name to our defender, library caretaker Mary Ann Gwynne

Killiney Hill sunset

'Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not' (Coleridge) The deep yellow ring at the centre of a forget-me-not signals that it has nectar💙 When the flower has been pollinated, this fades to white to save bees' time💙🐝💙 #BlueMonday

The first full census made in 1926 in the newly independent Ireland is being released online tomorrow (Saturday 18th April). Ahead of that my friend Professor Ciara Breathnach has written a wonderful and informative piece on the richness to be found in this census. I, for one, will be diving in over the weekend to check up on where my ancestors were at in 1926 theconversation.com/80-million-peo…