Notes on "Ireland" (Oxford Bookworms)

Contents

1. A strange and interesting country
2. Around the island
3. The Irish church and people
4. The English come to Ireland
5. Death from hunger
6. Fighting to be free
7. Northern Ireland
8. Dublin
9. Stories, music and dancing
10. A country for young people

Chapter 5: Death from hunger

1795–1798: Irish and English fight. French help Irish, but English win.

1801: "Act of Union": England and Ireland become one country. Protestants are happy; Catholics are not.

Most Catholics are small farmers and quite poor.

1840s: "Potato blight": the potatoes die, and thousands of farmers die. Many flee to America to make a living. Most of the Irish who arrived safely lived in New York and other big cities.

Chapter 6: Fighting to be free

1914: Ireland gets its own Parliament. Catholics happy, Protestants not.

1916: Patrick Pearse forms a group of Irishmen to demand independence from England.

1918: The political party Sinn Féin was formed to fight for independence. Its military wing was the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA, with its leader Michael Collins, killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and policemen and soldiers killed hundreds of IRA people.

1921: England agreed that Ireland could have its own government and president. But one part, Northern Ireland, remained part of the UK.

In 1968, the IRA started fighting for a better life for the Catholics in Northern Ireland, so I have many memories from my childhood of bombs in London and other cities in England. But during the Tony Blair administration, peace came.

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Spotlight, and other matters…

Today we saw the trailer for Spotlight, a movie starring Stanley Tucci, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, and Michael Keaton, about a scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston. The movie focuses on the Spotlight team's investigation, starting from 2002, of the scandal. The Spotlight team is a real investigative team. The movie has a 97% positive rating.

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Spotlight, and other matters…

Today, we watched the trailer for Spotlight. It is based on a true story about the Catholic Church in Boston. The movie focuses on the work of a team of reporters at the Boston Globe, a well-respected newspaper in Boston, to uncover a conspiracy involving many priests in the church. It appears to be in the best tradition of movies based on true stories about newspaper reporting of real events, perhaps rather similar to All the President's Men. I recommend that you also see All the President's Men.

In the Premier League, both Arsenal and Manchester United are faltering, while Liverpool and Manchester City seem to be doing better. All the British teams in the Champions League are having problems. It looks like the Champions League is between Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

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Suffragette, and other matters

Today we watched the trailer for Suffragette, as well as a featurette about the film. There were interviews with Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, and Helena Bonham Carter, who play the main roles in the film. Meryl Streep plays Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the suffragette movement, Helena Bonham Carter plays an activist in the movement, and Carey Mulligan plays a laundry worker who is influenced by Helena Bonham Carter's character to start participating in the movement. The producer and director of the film are women and some of the people interviewed mentioned that the people making the movie felt like a sisterhood.

Some movies playing today are The Clouds of Sils Maria and A Most Violent Year. And The Assassin is playing until this Friday! It's a very unusual film, nominally a martial arts film but mainly about the feelings of the assassin and human relationships. The biggest martial arts scene is filmed from a distance.

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Suffragette, and other matters…

Today, we watched the trailer for Suffragette, a movie starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Meryl Streep, about the fight for women's equality in early-20th-century Britain. I haven't heard so many details about the movie but the argument about whether to argue peacefully for change or to fight for it seems to be at the centre of the movie. It looks like it's a powerful movie about an important event not too long ago, and I like all three actresses, so I hope it will come to Japan before too long. Ben Whishaw also features in the movie.

Talking of movies, the final Hunger Games movie is here! And American Dreamer has also started.

Barista, The Assassin, and other matters…

Today we saw two trailers, Barista and The Assassin. The Assassin is directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), the famous director from Taiwan, who was born in Guangdong. Some of his other films are A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster, Daughter of the Nile, and Flowers of Shanghai. Some directors and critics consider him one of the greatest directors ever. Here is a picture of the poster from Flowers of Shanghai, which starred Tony Leung. He is well-known for the beauty of the images in his films.
One of his western films is Flight of the Red Balloon, made in France and starring Juliette Binoche.

Barista, The Assassin, and other matters…

Today we saw two trailers: Barista and The Assassin. Barista is a documentary about a barista competition. The contestants have to make three rounds of drinks (four cups of each one) for seven judges. As far as I remember, in addition to a head judge there are four sensory judges and two technical judges. The three drinks are espresso, cappuccino, and an original drink of the contestant's creation. For the cappuccino, it is said that the main challenge is getting the balance right, making sure that the coffee taste is at the front rather than being overwhelmed by the milk.
The Assassin has now started playing at Denkikan. It plays twice a day, at 11:10 and 16:10. It is a movie directed by the famous Taiwanese director, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The critics I listen to most often said that it is very "cinematic" and also "painterly" at the same time, and judges at the Cannes Film Festival said it was one of the most beautiful movies they had ever seen.
Changing subjects, did you hear about Aston Villa's most recent match? Under their new manager, they drew with Manchester City, the league leaders!