Nervous State - Issue 3

Nervous State returns to ddr this Sunday, delivering high culture for low lives in a radio magazine format.

While the new government has made it clear that their housing policy is to hurl deck chairs over the side of the Titanic, Nervous State is delighted to be having a chat about all things CATU (Community Action Tenants Union) with three union members - Aisling Hedderman who is one of the directors as well as on the National Committee, Michelle Connolly who is a local Branch officer, and Juliana Sassi who is a CATU member. They'll be telling Aisling Eliza why there is an urgent need for a national tenants union, how CATU is structured and why people should join!  

With anti-mask sentiment and COVID-19 denialism serving as a cover for far-right mobilising in Ireland, when does supposedly balanced coverage start working in favour of the nefarious? Patrick McCusker talks to Aurelian Mondon, co-author of Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Far-right Became Mainstream, Gavan Titley, author of the upcoming Is Free Speech Racist? and Eugenia Siapera, Professor of Information and Communication Studies at UCD and author of Understanding New Media about the current way the far-right have been able to emerge recently, why reporting matters so much when talking about them, and what can be learned from how it has been handled in other countries.

Sian Cowman talks commercial forestry in Co. Leitrim with Natalia Beylis, a sound artist who lives surrounded by monoculture Sitka spruce on all sides, and Sean McLoughlin from Aghavas parish, Co. Leitrim, a heavily afforested area. Sean is a member of the grassroots campaign group Save Leitrim. They discuss what it’s like to live surrounded by forestry, the differences between forestry and forest, and the government’s new forestry appeals bill.

Moving South West, Caitriona Devery talks to artist Eimear Walshe about their short film The Land Question: Where the fuck am I supposed to have sex? It takes a wry look at the impact of history, economics and ideology on our freedom to do what we want in our own bedrooms. The film is one of four projects that explore ideas of environmentalism, land use, and housing activism, as part of the EVA International art exhibition that runs every two years in Limerick. The Guest Programme this year, 'Little did they know', is curated by Merve Elveren who tells Caitriona about trying to address ideas of land and its contested values in Ireland today. 

Aoife Nessa Frances is a folk singer-songwriter who released her debut album earlier this year after perfecting it over the course of the past few years. She tells El Plelan about her creative processes she has now developed in her new work, through developing a routine to cope with these strange times - along with some insight into other passions she has developed alongside music and contrasting between her new work and the last album, with the impact of COVID-19.

Kicking everything off, Martin Leen and Stephanie Costello take us through the month's big stories in the Dublin Inquirer.

Until then.