SPOTSOLAS: SMASHING TIMES NEWS FEBRUARY 2026

Please see the following articles on Smashing Times news and events, as included in the February 2026 edition of the Smashing Times Newsletter

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Spotsolas Articles

Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal

Edition V

Every month, in addition to bringing you the latest updates from Smashing Times, we also highlight a specific element of our work. This month, we have two Spotsolas items. The first focuses on the recently published Edition V of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal, and the second on our new project The Art of Nature: Protecting Our Forests and Oceans.

‘In this edition, we include visual art by Fergus A Ryan (who is our Featured Artist) and Éabha Róis; short fiction by Johnny Roche; and poetry by Michael Curran-Dorsano.

This edition is unthemed, although a number of thematic bridges emerged between the successful submissions during the selection process. Fergus A Ryan’s contributions highlight the presence of the extraordinary in the ordinary, and the role art can play in reminding us of this, as he so eloquently explains in his article ‘Ordinary Magic’.

One of the primary sources of the sublime in the everyday is the natural world. No matter where we go, nature follows, like an indifferent but beautiful ghost. We so often look through nature, staring past trees and rivers and soaring birds as we pace about our manic lives, ignoring its vitality, its complex ecosystem and unrelenting purposefulness which are as much a miracle, as much a defiance of chaos, as the hearts beating in our chests. This natural environment is beautifully captured in the visual artworks of Fergus A Ryan and Éabha Róis below.

We might also describe familial relations as ordinary. We all have a family, in one form or another. And yet, consisting in this ordinary social unit is such a depth of emotion and compassion that we would put ourselves in harm’s way to protect our family, representing a transcendence of sorts.

How we remember our loved ones who have passed on is another form in which the ordinary becomes extraordinary. ‘We love people who have died,’ says Dr Brand in the Nolan brothers’ Interstellar. ‘Where’s the social utility in that?’ I could make a rational, evolutionary argument for why we continue to love the dead (a sort of afterglow of ‘social utility’, of interpersonal connection for the shared interest of survival), but I believe that the inherent good of love, of empathy, is its own justification. Here, the emotional calculus suffices.

Michael Curran Dorsano’s ‘The Forgotten War’ exemplifies the transcendent humanity of remembering our family members who have passed on, in this case a grandfather. Meanwhile, Johnny Roche’s ‘Name and Birth and Marriage and Death’ explores how someone can love a mother they have never met, even if it leads them to destructive behaviour.’

Click here to read Tintreach Edition V.

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The Art of Nature: Protecting Our Forests and Oceans

Creative Approaches to the Environment, Sustainability, and Social Justice

Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality presents The Art of Nature: Protecting Our Forests and Oceans,a unique year-long project using the arts, creative methodologies, and digital technologies in the Cahersiveen and South Kerry area to celebrate the beauty of forests and oceans, the importance of biodiversity and our deep connections to nature. The project uses the arts and creativity to promote practical awareness-raising and training in relation to environmental justice, with a focus on biodiversity, sustainability, and human rights.

The Art of Nature runs from August 2025 to July 2026 and is implemented by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality in partnership with Acard and The Barracks Heritage Centre, Cahersiveen, supported by South Kerry Development Partnership CLG, Leader Programme 2023–2027. The focus is on sustainable development for the rural environment.

Activities take place with schools, communities, and the general public to promote biodiversity, sustainability, social justice, and green spaces in South Kerry. The project beautifully intertwines live performance and creative science-based workshops with environmental themes, to promote biodiversity and sustainability linked to social justice. Artists working on the project include Mary Moynihan, a writer, poet, and creator of art and photography; Ciara Hayes, Arts Facilitator and Producer; and Freda Manweiler, Arts Facilitator and Producer.

Activities and Events

The Art of Trees by Mary Moynihan is an immersive performance blending theatre, poetry, and live music to celebrate the beauty of trees and forests, the importance of biodiversity, and our deep connections to nature. Live performances will be held, each followed by a town-hall style community meet-up to discuss creative approaches to environmental justice and human rights. Science-based creative-art workshops will take place with schools and communities to promote biodiversity, sustainability, and environmental justice.

A public performance of The Art of Trees takes place at Tech Amergin Further Education and Training Centre, Waterville, Co. Kerry (Eircode: V23 A243) on Friday, 17 April 2026, at 8pm. Booking: 066 947 8956. Admission Free. Booking Essential.

Smashing Times will conduct a Sustainable Event-Management Training Workshop to promote sustainable event management and to explore eco-friendly practices for organising a community-based arts event or festival. Places are limited to 20, on a first-come, first-served basis.

A Project Information and Biodiversity Leaflet will be distributed to share information on biodiversity, connections between the forests and the ocean, and the magic of local biodiverse green spaces, and ways to protect those spaces into the future.

For full details of all the events to be announced shortly join, please click here to join our mailing list.

Open Call: If your school or group would like to join the project and take part in the activities (free admission), please get in touch. Schools, youth and community groups, and the general public can attend live performances, post-show environmental talks, science-based creative-art workshops, and a sustainable event-management workshop. If you want to take part in any or all of our activities, please get in touch. Contact Freda Manweiler at 087 221 4245 or email admin(at)smashingtimes.ie

Open Call: Join our network for the Arts and Human Rights and contribute ideas, proposals, and solutions for the protection of the environment, biodiversity, and sustainability, linked to social justice for all. Click here to sign up.

Open Call: If you or your group or community are involved in action for climate justice and the celebration and/or protection of nature and biodiversity, do get in touch. We want to hear from you and would be delighted to feature the work you are doing in the monthly Smashing Times Newsletter. We are planning a podcast for Creative Arts and the Environment; if you want to be involved, please get in touch. Contact Freda Manweiler at 087 221 4245 or email admin(at)smashingtimes.ie

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Smashing Times Arts and Human Rights Radio Show: 21 & 28 January

This episode’s Featured Artist interview is with Avril Murphy Allen, a visual artist and interior designer. Avril had a solo exhibition, Alleyways, running at Smashing Times Visual Art Gallery, 30 Sandycove Road, Dublin, from 5–8 February 2026. (For more information on this exhibition, see News From the Network below.)Click here to listen to the episode. The Smashing Times Arts and Human Rights Radio Show is broadcast every Wednesday 6–7pm on Dublin South FM, with each episode also available as a podcast. Tune in to Dublin South FM 93.9 or listen online at www.dublinsouthfm.ie. All past episodes can be listened to here.

There are growing calls for artists – especially those with large public platforms – to speak out against violent oppression, rising dictatorships, and attacks on equality, freedom of expression, and democracy. This episode of the Smashing Times Arts and Human Rights Radio Show explores the call to speak out and examines the power of protest songs. Protest music is a powerful way to raise awareness, express opposition to injustice, and build solidarity. Themes range from environmental issues to women’s rights, workers’ and labour rights, anti-racism, and resistance to fascism, highlighting the importance of democracy and human rights. Often serving as rallying cries for non-violent resistance, protest songs can inspire hope, courage, and action. Enjoy the story of the protest song ‘Which Side Are You On?’, originally written by Florence Reece, an American poet, musician, and social activist, in the 1930s, to support the miners of Kentucky. The song has been re-recorded and adapted by numerous artists since.

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Submissions Call for Edition VI of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal

Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality would like to invite submissions to Edition VI of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal, which will be published on Thursday, 16 April 2026. Tintreach publishes creative work from across the artistic spectrum. Submissions are open until we reach capacity, or until midnight on Saturday, 28 February 2026 – whichever comes first. This edition is unthemed. Successful artists will receive a small fee (see guidelines for details). Artists may submit 2-4 short-form pieces, 1 long-form piece, or a combination made up of 1 long-form and two short-form pieces. Click here for the full submission guidelines.

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Mapping the Future: Symbols of a Feminist Shared Island

Arts-Based Workshop

Mapping the Future: Symbols of a Feminist Shared Island was an arts-based workshop conducted by Mary Moynihan with members of the All-Island Women’s Forum, and facilitated by the National Women’s Council, on Wednesday, 28 January 2026 at IHREC. The arts-based workshop was conducted by Mary Moynihan, a writer, poet, and creator of art and photography. Mary is Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and Artistic Curator for the Annual International Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival.

This one-hour creative arts workshop brought participants from across the island of Ireland together to collaboratively create a digital mural on the theme of a ‘Feminist Shared Island’. Participants generated text in response to what a feminist shared island might look like, reflecting on themes including equality, peace-building, healthcare, and an end to violence against women and girls. The workshop began with fun name games, followed by arts-based facilitated sessions reflecting on shared visions for a feminist shared island. 

The All-Island Women’s Forum, of which Mary is a member, is a cross-border initiative established in 2021 by the National Women’s Council. Its purpose is to bring together women’s groups and activists across the island of Ireland, in order to foster cooperation, dialogue, and inclusion. The Forum represents a contribution by the National Women’s Council to the Irish Government’s Shared Island initiative in the Department of an Taoiseach, by enhancing civil society links and supporting engagement by women, across communities and traditions on the island, on issues of common concern. 

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Mary Moynihan at Brigid’s Day Event for Peace

Mary Moynihan, writer, poet, and creator of art and photography, was delighted to be invited by Afri: Action from Ireland and by the anti-war alliance StoP (Swords to Ploughshares), to lead their Brigid’s Day event on Friday, 30 January 2026. In Mary’s own words, ‘It was a great honour to be invited by Afri and StoP to be involved in their Brigid’s Day event, calling for peace, an end to militarisation and the arms industry, and for the protection of human rights in the world today.’

Afri’s goal is the promotion of global justice and peace, and the reduction of poverty. StoP is a network of peace groups throughout the island of Ireland who are deeply concerned about Ireland’s ever-deepening involvement in the war industry and its devastating impact on people and the planet. They are concerned with the growing and sizeable arms industry in Northern Ireland, the increasing militarisation of the EU, and the recent heightening of tensions between Russia and NATO.

As part of the event, and on behalf of the two organisations, Mary presented a letter, a copy of the Downpatrick Declaration, and a Brigid’s Cross to Minister Helen McEntee at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. This action, which represented an urgent call for peace and a firm rejection of war, two days before the feast day of Brigid the Peacemaker, took place as the world endures the horror of genocide in Gaza and the destructive impact of war in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, and many other conflicts around the world. After the letter, declaration, and cross were handed in, Mary said the following words:

‘Today StoP, Afri, and all of us are delivering a letter, a copy of the Downpatrick Declaration, and a Brigid’s Cross to Minister Helen McEntee at the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Downpatrick Declaration calls out the military industrial complex mindset which sends the message that peace can only be achieved by producing weapons of war. We stand against this. Our communities cannot be nourished or sustained by weapons. As Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

We are calling on leaders in Ireland and around the world to stand up for peace, not war, to convert swords to ploughshares, to work together and focus on international diplomacy, and to use peace and democratic means of resolving conflict as your choice of weapons. The time has come to stand up to dictators whose sole motivations are power and greed. We call on our leaders to act non-violently for the promotion of peace, equality, and human rights.

We call on the Irish government to stand up for our neutrality and to keep the triple lock. The triple lock means that for more than 12 Irish troops to be deployed abroad there must be approval from the Irish cabinet, Dáil Éireann (the government and opposition TD’s), and the UN Security Council or General Assembly. The triple lock is a way to safeguard and protect Irish neutrality. By removing the triple lock, future governments will be able to deploy Irish troops on EU and NATO war missions, which could lead to Irish participation in foreign wars and bring Ireland into direct conflict with global military and nuclear powers. We are calling on the Irish government to protect our neutrality and keep the triple lock, and to promote peace, not war.

I want to see governments tax wealth, and invest funding and time in housing, in social services, and in making our country a better place to live, where our young people can afford their own homes, and where the services that people are entitled to are freely available. Access to education, medical services, and employment are all human rights. To own your own home is a human right, a human right currently denied to people of all ages in this country. We want to see investment in people, not in weapons of war. 

We have witnessed a genocide in Gaza, the beginnings of a dictatorship in the US, and countless wars across Europe and the globe. The West is moving increasingly towards militarisation and war. Our message is clear. We are for peace and against any support for war or for the arms industry. We support Irish neutrality, meaning Ireland does not take sides in military alliances. We support an independent foreign policy focused on peace, diplomacy, and international law. Diplomacy works because it prevents conflict before things turn violent, it creates space for dialogue, and it promotes a belief in human rights as a core principle of peace. We must speak out against dictatorship, and against regimes that silence opposition, abuse human rights, and rule through fear. Staying silent in the face of oppression is not neutrality – it is complicity. By standing up for international law, human rights, and the dignity of ordinary people, Ireland honours its own values and reinforces a world order where power does not excuse injustice.

The ancient Irish figure Brigid of Kildare was both a patron saint of Ireland and a Celtic God. She was a woman leader who stood up for peace and compassion, who supported the marginalised, and who promoted education and the concept of an equal society. She spoke out and championed human rights. In line with Brigid’s actions for peace and social justice, we call on the Irish government to work energetically and unambiguously for disarmament, demilitarisation, and the de-escalation of conflict. In honour of Brigid and for all those suffering from war and a denial of human rights today, we remember you, and we call for peace, human rights, and social justice.’

As part of the event, StoP hopes that the presentations to the Minister on the eve of Brigid’s Day will contribute towards greater understanding, a lessening of tensions, and a re-commitment by Ireland to our neutrality, the pursuit of disarmament, and the promotion of peace. In particular, StoP calls on the Irish government to demand an end to Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza (despite a supposed ceasefire) and to break off all trade from Ireland with Israel involving military research, weapons production, and the development of Ireland’s weapons industry.