2015 - Irish celebs give their highlights from the year gone by
Pat Kinevane actor
Seeing my son in New York.
I was working out there in October and I brought him out for his 15th birthday.
I never thought I’d be able to do something like that.
It was great just to be able to see his face and hang out.
Straight Outta Compton about the rap group NWA in the 1980s.
I didn’t realise there was such a movement happening in Los Angeles at the time through music.
I loved it.
I was on a lot of the water marches in Dublin.
I thought a lot of the coverage on TV — for the first time in a long time —was really representative of what it was like to be on the street in those democratic marches.
I re-read Anthony De Mello’s book Awareness.
He has an understanding of the human condition.
It’s very enlightening in its candour.
How can someone be so awake to things when other people are walking around asleep?
‘Elastic Heart’ by Sia, crazy video to go with it as well.
I was in Ballina one night and I went to a local music venue-lounge and saw this acoustic couple play, and their name was ‘Niamh and David — Music’.
I remember getting their card. I still have it. I couldn’t get them out of my head.
They blew my mind.
I was shocked one day looking at the television to see in Dáil Éireann Enda Kenny putting Mick Wallace down because he couldn’t speak Irish as well as him.
He wouldn’t speak English across the floor.
He started to take the mick out of him.
I felt ashamed.
This is the leader of our country and he’s using our language as a weapon against one of our own.
Where I live in Santry, it’s lovely — we have a great community spirit.
I’ll end up doing what I do every year. Everyone goes out on the street, the whole neighbourhood, maybe 50, 60, 70 people.
Someone goes out with a bell and we hold hands and sing and hug.
Karen Koster TV presenter
Watching my little boy Finn’s first year — and all his milestones, watching him say, “Mama”, “Dada”, crawling — has been a privilege.
We’ve heard the artificial intelligence narrative before but I thought Ex Machina was an interesting twist on it, with a dramatic end and Domhnall Gleeson is very watchable on screen.
I really enjoyed Sky Atlantic’s The Affair.
It’s interesting the way they tell the story — it’s told from four different points of view, and it’s kind of a cautionary tale.
Even in the happiest of marriages, small cracks appear.
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, which is about a girl who works for a magazine in Manhattan.
She appears to have it all.
She wants to marry into this great family and shed her less- salubrious past, but everything catches up with her.
The narrator’s voice is really witty and sarcastic.
‘I Don’t Like It, I Love It’ by Flo Rida featuring Robin Thicke.
It’s really upbeat.
Get to a gig? Not a hope. I’m due my second baby in March.
That I’m actually a better mum than I thought I would be.
My mum said it to me and I thought I was just winging it.
I’ll be celebrating my baby Finn’s first birthday.
He was born on New Year’s Eve. We’ll have family around. He’s Cousin No 10 on one side and Cousin No 4 on the other side.
He’ll have tons of company.
Claudia Rose Long singer
The secret coming out that I was going to be on The Voice UK because since April 2014 I’ve had to keep it a secret until February of this year.
It was such a relief. I remember my nana ringing me and saying: “You little snake. I can’t believe you would keep this secret from us.”
Southpaw.
It’s about a boxer who had a wife and a daughter.
His wife ended up getting shot and she died.
He went off the rails. He became an alcoholic and his daughter was taken off him.
I cried the whole way through.
Empire, it’s a new music show.
It’s fab. It’s about a big record label.
It shows you the bad side to the music industry, how sneaky people are, and how hard it is to make it.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn about a man’s wife who goes missing.
I didn’t enjoy it at all but I couldn’t put it down. It was so compelling.
Justin Bieber’s new album Purpose is incredible. His comeback has made me a believer. Even my dad is becoming obsessed. He said: “If he comes to Ireland we’ll have to get tickets.”
I didn’t get to any gigs — I’ve been so busy!
But the best bit of advice I got this year was when I was doing my gig on The Voice.
Before I went on to sing I was backstage and will.i.am approached me. He said: “Are you nervous?” I said: “I’m extremely nervous. I’m shaking and everything.”
He just said: “Why?” I said: “I thought it would be obvious.” He said: “I can’t understand why you’d be nervous.”
I thought he was annoyed with me but then he said: “You know you can sing. Every person in this competition can sing. That’s what your talent is. That’s what you are best at in life.
‘”It’s one thing you shouldn’t be nervous about. If you had to make a speech maybe you should be nervous but singing shouldn’t be something you’re nervous about.”
Whenever I’m doing a performance that conversation stays in my head.
The controversy after I was eliminated from The Voice. It was so overwhelming. It was all over the Mirror. “Did Ricky make the right choice?”
My mind didn’t settle for three or four months.
The phone was going all the time.
I was getting messages at six o’clock in the morning, people asking for advice, sending me videos.
I couldn’t have relaxed without the support from my family and my school (Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphehane).
I’ll be singing at a family wedding in the church so I’ll be celebrating the night at the wedding.
Blindboy Boat Club - Rubberbandits
I started opening bananas from the bottom part rather than the top part. It’s how monkeys open bananas. I estimate that it’s saved me several hours of time in 2015.
I can’t remember the name but it was brilliant. It was set on Mars. Tom Hanks was in it. His best friend was a soccer ball, and he had to talk to it to stop himself going mad.
Definitely Celebrity Big Brother.
It was very clever of them to have a large piece of melting Antarctic ice with sunglasses on it as a contestant.
It really caused us to appreciate how celebrity culture can distract us from important global issues.
It was so funny too when Peter Andre had an in-house relationship with the piece of glacier, no doubt egged on by his clever agents.
I’m not into books. They are very frightening things. Inanimate objects full of ideas that cause people to kill.
Kicked out of Portugal by Sammy Fanta and the Salamander boys. A seminal piece in the Glosh music genre.
We’re begrudgers so we don’t go to other artists’ gigs.
That there’s probably an alternative universe where people’s legs are on the backs of their knees like ostriches and bicycles were never invented.
RTÉ have decided to put our documentary about 1916 on RTÉ 2 at 11pm on New Year’s Eve. So I plan on proudly being one of the 10 people watching it.
Camille O’Sullivan singer/actress
We sold out 10 nights at the Sydney Festival. It was my own show and we won a Helpmann Award, which is the equivalent of a Tony, for that performance. It was a big thing for me.
Blue Jasmine. Cate Blanchett was extraordinary in it.
I’m a big fan of Woody Allen’s early stuff. It was a great insight into a mind that’s losing it a little.
I thought the Amy Winehouse documentary was a harrowing look at someone who was an incredible singer but was also very fragile.
You felt you lived every bit of the film with her through the media. You could tell where you’d been when you read certain things about her.
When you saw the documentary you wondered why couldn’t anybody see that person wasn’t going to make it?
Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone about John Lennon’s island, how he captures his voice, his archaic way of speaking.
Also, there’s a point two-thirds of the way through the book where he stepsout of it, which is a new way to approach writing. He took a chance.
It’s a song that made me laugh. I got so into it — Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’.
Every time it came on the radio I had to keep on dancing.
It makes me feel like a 15-year-old again.
I was watching Martha Wainwright performing on stage while touring in Australia. She gives 150% on stage.
There’s a wildness and fragility in it.
She has a freedom as a performer. It is inspiring.
Being asked to do The Roundhouse in London next month was a nice surprise.
It’s a big venue.
I’ve played it before and it was where Pink Floyd first played.
I’m doing two things. Prior to New Year’s Eve I’m doing La Clique and I’m getting New Year’s Eve off so I’m flying home to do the Mixed Tape with the wonderful Lisa Hannigan, Gavin Glass, and 70 other people on stage.
Panti Bliss entertainer
The same-sex marriage referendum passing — we’d worked so hard for it. It felt like the culmination of a 40-year campaign for LGBT rights.
I probably should say The Queen of Ireland.
My guilty pleasure is The Apprentice.
I don’t know why. I’ve never liked them and they’re all terrible business people. It’s a terrible way to try to get funding for your business idea.
They’re definitely not picked because they’re the best business people but because of their personality clashing.
I understand I’m falling for things I shouldn’t be but it’s just a mindless hour.
I finally got to read a Neil Gaimon book, Neverwhere. All the nerds love him. I loved it. It’s about a magical world underneath London.
A new album by a young American singer Remmi called New America.
I’m really enjoying that at the moment.
Definitely the U2 gig. Seeing them in Dublin is always fun and getting to get up there on stage and dance with Bono was super fun.
They called me up a week before it and asked me if I’d do it. I said, “Sure, that sounds like loads of fun,” and it was.
At 5 o’clock the whole band arrived and we did two rehearsals for just a little thing. You don’t get to be U2 without being hard workers. I was reminded of that.
I’m really surprised how much horrible racism against Muslims is around at the moment, and how it’s acceptable by so many people.
I’ll be in Panti Bar in Dublin playing some records ringing in the New Year with all the regular customers.
Sinead Moriarty - author
Winning the Irish Book of the Year award after eight nominations! That was great. It was lovely.
I took my kids to Inside Out.
I have a tendency to fall asleep when I go to the cinema but I loved this movie.
It was a really clever premise.
There was a nice little moral to the story and very endearing characters.
Catastrophe.
It’s very edgy. There are times when I’m watching it when I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe she said that.’
It’s searingly honest and really funny.
I’m delighted too to see an Irish writer Sharon Horgan doing so well.
All My Puny Sorrows by a Canadian writer called Miriam Toews.
The book is about two Mennonite sisters, one of whom is very depressed and keeps trying to commit suicide, which doesn’t sound remotely funny but it’s a very charming, funny, bittersweet, heart-breaking book.
I’ve been recommending it to everyone.
This is really embarrassing but I really like Taylor Swift. I find her really cheerful.
That’s what I play in the car.
A couple of days after Brian Friel passed I went to see Dancing at Lughnasa in the Gaiety. Maybe it was all the more moving and poignant because he had just passed away but it was a gorgeous production.
My dad died very suddenly this year of a heart attack while he was abroad so I’m reflecting at this time of year on what really matters in life — family.
It’s lovely to have Santa- believing children in the house because it keeps the magic alive.
What we do now amongst a group of pals is go out on the 2nd of January — you can get any restaurant you want and there’s no problem getting taxis and babysitters.
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