Kieran Beville

  The Stony Thursday Book Golden Jubilee By Kieran Beville When a small poetry journal outlives governments, economic booms and busts, and whole movements in literature, something extraordinary has occurred. This November marks the publication of the fiftieth-anniversary edition of The Stony Thursday Book, a Limerick-born poetry journal that has quietly, doggedly, and with admirable grace become one of the longest-running literary publications in Ireland. Fittingly, its founders, John Liddy and Jim Burke, have returned as guest editors for this golden jubilee edition, closing a remarkable circle that began in 1975 when they first decided that Limerick deserved a literary voice of its own. Fifty years on, that voice still rings — sometimes softly, sometimes with a rougher edge — but always with sincerity. The story of The Stony Thursday Book is one of perseverance and poetry, of civic imagination and cultural stubbornness. It is also, as its title hints, a story of Limerick ...

  Great Gig Ignites Musical Memories By Kieran Beville There are few things more reliable than the cathartic power of a great guitar riff. On Thursday, 30th October, at the University Concert Hall in Limerick, that truth was on full display when Rock Rising: The Supreme Classic Rock Show rolled into town. The audience was a cross-section of generations: grey-haired veterans in tour t-shirts from the 1980s sat beside students who might have first heard these songs through Spotify algorithms rather than vinyl sleeves. But once the opening chords tore through the hall, it didn’t matter who was from which decade. The music — the eternal language of melody, and shared memory — levelled everyone into a single, roaring congregation. The Concept Behind the Sound Rock Rising isn’t a band in the conventional sense, but a curated collective of top-tier Irish rock musicians dedicated to resurrecting the spirit of the greats. Conceived as a live theatre production rather than a mere co...