SEVEN decades are celebrated in Robert Ballagh’s exhibition ‘Seven’, which opens next weekend at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork. UCD recently presented Ballagh with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature to celebrate his lifetime’s achievements in the arts, and the exhibition of 14 portraits coincides with his 70th birthday later this month.

Recovery Room, Maternity Ward (for Savita Halappanavar)

Writer and performer Aidan Dooley has reworked his show Our Last Chieftain: O’Sullivan Beara by tapping into what made Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer so successful.

JULIANNA Barwick is contradictory. Her music is esoteric, often eerie. In person, however, Barwick is chatty, upbeat. and sociable, so the isolation of Iceland, where she recorded her new album, Nepenthe, drove her to distraction. She would sit in cafes, watching the world pass. The loneliness worsened as the weeks passed. She worried for her sanity.

ONE of the strangest sights at the recent Electric Picnic festival was the mass exodus from the main stage ten minutes into the swoonful noise-rock of My Bloody Valentine.

Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks

Gulliver’s Travels, Everyman, Cork

DO you want to be a writer? Novelist AL Kennedy’s book, On Writing, might be a guide. Kennedy will appear at next week’s Mountains to Sea book festival in Dublin.

Twin sisters Ellie and Louise McNamara of Heathers came to prominence with the Bord Fáilte ad, and have since been writing for David Guetta.

Live music: James, The Olympia, Dublin

Inspired by a real-life encounter, The Woolgatherer, a play about two neurotic people looking for love, runs at the Cork Arts Theatre from September 2-7.

Giles Norman has produced a new book of images of the Irish countryside, and has an exhibition at the Kinsale Gallery at the end of September.

JOHNNY MARR has stopped running from the past. Ten years ago, the ex-Smiths guitarist refused to play his old songs on tour. When he visited Dublin’s Academy, last March, he led his band through half a dozen Smiths standards; for his encore rendering of ‘How Soon Is Now?’, grown men were hugging.

Versatility in the performing arts is essential in the current economic climate, says Chris Ahern, head of the performing arts department at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa (CSN) in Cork.

Carl Dixon on how Cork Craft Month showcases local talent and initiative

The Yeats festival is much more than an attempt to cash in on the artistic brothers’ association with the area, writes Alan O’Riordan.

The Yeats festival is much more than an attempt to cash in on the artistic brothers’ association with the area, writes Alan O’Riordan.

‘World View of an Oyster’ is this year’s summer show in the Town Hall Gallery, Macroom. The show is annual, organised by Cork County Council and Norah Norton.

MUSIC NEWS: Nile Rodgers seems to be in so many places at the moment you shouldn’t be surprised if he pops his head out of your fridge when you reach for that cold drink later today.

Patrick Cooney spent a decade “dropping in and out” of the lives of four members of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy for his documentary, The Raj in the Rain, which will be screened on Sunday during the Kinsale Arts Festival.

Somali writer Nuruddin Farah has faced numerous death threats since he first crossed his country’s regime. He tells Jo Kerrigan about life outside his homeland.

IT is appropriate that West Cork and its annual literary festival should provide a platform for arts writer, cultural historian and biographer Nicholas Fox Weber to talk about his subjects — after all, he’s been coming to this section of craggy coastline for 40 years, and it has played a seminal and supporting role in more than a few of his 14 books.

When the graphic novel, Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes, won the Costa Biography Award for 2012, it was overdue acceptance of comics’ literary value.

Additions to Clay Bodies is a guide to ingredients one can mix through clay to achieve interesting finishes. This is the first book written by Kathleen Standen, a ceramicist who uses experimental techniques in her own practice.

Former ‘South Bank Show’ presenter Melvyn Bragg’s latest novel delves into his past, writes Carl Dixon.

Ciarán Foy’s first film was inspired by assault, says Pádraic Killeen.

CHARLIE Connelly, author of self-deprecating, quirky travel books, is the host of this year’s literary breakfast at the Immrama festival of travel writing in Lismore, Co Waterford, on Jun 16.

Poet, Leanne O’Sullivan, will read from her latest collection, The Mining Road, at the Allihies Arts Week, in Beara, West Cork on Saturday.

A year after his cartoons hit the web, Jason Sullivan has big career plans, he tells Carl Dixon.

Also: The Odd Life of Timothy Green, All Things to All Men, Spring Breakers.

The Lion King has been seen by 65m people in 16 years. It opens in Dublin in April, says Jo Kerrigan

WHILE most of us were holidaying in August, in Wexford they were building the sets for this year’s Festival Opera.

The IFI celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend. Padraic Killeen talks to director Ross Keane

A new documentary on Michael Collins: The Musical will be premiered at Cork Opera House tonight, says Colette Sheridan

SATURDAY

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

SATURDAY

Matthew McConaughey has a well-deserved reputation for being a beefcake who likes to take his shirt off in front of a camera, but his role as Killer Joe (18s) suggests that he has much more to offer than pecs appeal.

THERE HAVE been gender happenings in my home.

Parallel Cities takes its audience into functional spaces around Cork, reports Colette Sheridan

Richard E Grant was given just four days to get ready for his part in a new TV drama, writes Pádraic Killeen

Set for the most part in — and over — Italy during WWII, Red Tails (12A) concerns itself with a crew of African-American pilots who are considered inferior to their white peers when it comes to engaging the enemy in battle.

SATURDAY

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