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3 days ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
Those Passions: On Art and Politics Author: TJ Clark ISBN-13: 978-0500025260Publisher: Thames & HudsonGuideline Price: £40Writing about art and politics is, according to TJ Clark, “hell to do”. The acclaimed art historian certainly makes reading about them hard at times. So is it worth persisting with his latest doorstopper of a tome? Those Passions is an essay collection, many of which were published in the Times Literary Supplement over the past 25 years. That timespan is important.
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1 week ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
There are so many myths about how successful artists live and work. Almost all of them are entirely untrue. That lone genius conjuring up something glorious from a fever dream in his chilly garret? He’s more likely to be stuck in the supermarket queue. The fabulous phenomenon, plucked from obscurity to international fame by a billionaire patron? She will have been working away on group shows, solo shows, hope and rejection for years before becoming an overnight sensation.
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1 week ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
The renowned garden designer Gertrude Jekyll once said: “a garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust.” Jekyll’s Irish gardens include Lambay and, reputedly, Heywood in Co Laois, but there are ways to enjoy the glories of a great garden without all that industry, thrift and patience.
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3 weeks ago | 
image.ie | Gemma Tipton
Many New York visitors don’t make it out of Manhattan, but there’s a lot more to explore. Wind down in the Hamptons for the ultimate city break with a country escape.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
Peat bogs may not be unique to Ireland, but their place in the Irish cultural imagination certainly is. Against the drama of our mountains, and of the waves shaping our rugged shores, peat bogs seem to feature less prominently in internationally Instagrammable ideas of Ireland. And yet, as the Royal Hibernian Academy’s BogSkin exhibition shows, if you wanted to come up with a geographical feature that best represents the national psyche, it could well be the bog.
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1 month ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
An Egyptian mummy used to live under the floorboards at University College Cork. Dorothy Cross first heard of it from her Aunt May. It was 1983, and the pair were sharing stories in May’s Victorian house, which was full of treasures, Cross says – “a doll’s house, a rocking horse, X-rays, damask and china, bones and intelligence”. The artist, who had recently returned from studying in San Francisco, lapped it up.
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1 month ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Gemma Tipton
Getting the gang together for a minibreak is what memories are made of, but getting it right is all about coming up with the ideal ingredients. You need the right people for the right spot, and you all need to agree on the kind of beak you’re having. Managing the desires of a city lights lover at the same time as those of your favourite lazy introvert can be a recipe for disaster, unless you’ve made a live-and-let-live pact in advance.
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1 month ago | 
ourwindsor.ca | Gemma Tipton
A pair of horses are getting restless as they queue at Shirley’s for fish and chips. Seeing riders out and about is common in Ireland, although they can still be an unexpected sight waiting in line for supper. Now, the sun is setting over the harbour, the bobbing masts of yachts are glinting, and the salty aroma of vinegary chips mingles with sea breezes. It’s hard to picture a more perfect spot.
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1 month ago | 
thespec.com | Gemma Tipton
A pair of horses are getting restless as they queue at Shirley’s for fish and chips. Seeing riders out and about is common in Ireland, although they can still be an unexpected sight waiting in line for supper. Now, the sun is setting over the harbour, the bobbing masts of yachts are glinting, and the salty aroma of vinegary chips mingles with sea breezes. It’s hard to picture a more perfect spot.
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1 month ago | 
irishtimes.com | Gemma Tipton
“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not,” said Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. Always a man for a pithy quote, apparently Clemens liked to try out his latest one-liners on dinner guests. He even had a faithful manservant on hand to note what got the best laughs, which sounds either tedious or brilliant, depending on your point of view.
