Seamus Enright interviewing Bob Geldof after The Boomtown Rats played Cavan Calling.

Arts picks: Seamus Enright

Highlights of 2023

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Seamus Enright interviewing Bob Geldof after The Boomtown Rats played Cavan Calling.

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Seamus is a fan of Blindboy’s award winning podcast.

Seamus Enright

Published: Tue 2 Jan 2024, 2:13 PM

Last updated: Tue 2 Jan 2024, 2:32 PM

Best arts event: Dark Mountain Radio (Robbie and Rita Perry) provided a musical soundtrack to silent horror classic Nosferatu at Clones Film Festival. Emotive, perfectly balanced, and wonderfully performed. Memorable. The Rats at Cavan Calling was good too, and the success of Cavan Industry Music Week bodes well for the future.

One to watch: Lisa O'Neill- she's only getting better. And Finn Keenan. Also not 'new' but continues to do brilliantly creative things, as evidenced by his wonderful video for Declan McKenna's ‘Nothing Works’. I'm excited to see who and what project he next brings to Cavan. Lastly, quick mentions for Kojaque who released one the best Irish albums of 2023, and Theo Fitzgibbon- see his last track 'Jonah'. Mark my words.

Best film: Got round to watching Nicholas Cage's 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' (2022). A self-confessed connoisseur of schlock this ticked all the boxes. Delightful.

Best TV: Watched The Reckoning with Steve Coogan as Jimmy Saville and instantly regretted it. Coogan is skin-crawlingly uncanny in the role.

Best music: Mitski dropped 'My Love Mine All Mine' from her 2023 ‘The Land Is Inhospitable...’ and I instantaneously fell in love again with a singer I'd parked in the 'something something' pile for too long. Honourable mention for Cork's Pretty Happy and their epic Echo Boy EP.