On Wednesday, 22 April 2026, Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality published Edition VI of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal. In this edition, we include poetry by Richard W. Halperin (our Featured Artist) and a Featured Artist Interview with Richard, visual art by Martina Furlong and Julianna Sabitova, short fiction by Neil Flynn, and an article by Mary Moynihan.
Although this edition is unthemed, the artworks below share certain preoccupations. Prime among them are the overlapping themes of memory, grief, and time. As Tintreach Editor Féilim James writes in his introduction to the edition:
Grief is explored with devastating subtlety in Featured Artist Richard W. Halperin’s poem ‘The Arcades Project’. Meanwhile, Mary Moynihan’s article, ‘The Joy and Sorrow of being Alive’, in reflecting on John Koenig’s book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, addresses sadness, a cousin of grief (or perhaps not, as argued in the article). Martina Furlong’s colourfully expressive paintings depict the untainted, and often mysterious, beauty of the Irish landscape through varying degrees of abstraction. Neil Flynn’s ‘Land’s End’ constitutes a sort of two short stories in one, either side of a kind of philosophical interlude which again draws on the symbolic depth of landscape. The story is also a hymn to things that could have been, all the while demonstrating our capacity to mourn things that never were.
Artistic discipline and control are also hallmarks of this edition’s artworks, an excellent example being Julianna Sabitova’s precisely detailed and expertly crafted artworks. They take an already striking element of the natural world – flowers – and elevate them to new heights through the catalytic powers of artistic imagination and technique.
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Contributing Artists
Richard W. Halperin (Featured Artist) is a US-Irish dual national whose poetry has been published by Salmon Poetry and by Lapwing. Click here to purchase Richard’s All the Tattered Stars: Selected & New Poems.
Martina Furlong is a visual artist from County Wexford, using the medium of paint to tell the stories the land holds, and to celebrate the connection between us, the earth, and life beyond. Click here to visit her website and here for her Instagram profile.
Neil Flynn is a writer from County Kerry who writes fiction, poetry, and for stage, radio, and screen. To visit his website, click here.
Julianna Sabitova – who is originally from Kazakhstan, but has lived in Ireland for the past seven years – works with acrylic paint, textured painting, and mixed media, while exploring tactility and the sensory perception of surface. Click here to visit her website and here for her Instagram profile.
Mary Moynihan (she/her) is an award-winning writer, poet, theatre, and filmmaker, and a 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 Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival.
More Information on Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal
Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal is a new publication in the Irish arts scene. Published quarterly online, it features works from across the artistic spectrum and combines up-and-coming voices with those of more established artists. Each edition of Tintreach includes three or four artworks by a Featured Artist, a Featured Artist Interview, work by three other artists (usually with multiple artworks by each), and occasionally an article contribution by Mary Moynihan, Smashing Times Artistic Director and a writer and creator of art and photography. The journal appears in January, April, July, and October, reaching around 1,500 people, including a range of major organisations in the areas of arts and human rights across Europe. Tintreach is edited by writer Féilim James.
Tintreach was established as a continuation and major expansion of the Tintreach section of the monthly Smashing Times Newsletter. Previous contributors to Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal and the Tintreach section of our newsletter include poets Jessica Traynor, Mary O’Malley, and Annemarie Ní Churreáin; Senator Lynn Ruane; 2023 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Narges Mohammadi; director and playwright Dijana Milošević; rapper-singer Saint Levant; and many more. (Please click here to read past editions of the newsletter. Click here to view every edition of Tintreach.)
‘Tintreach’ is the Irish word for lightning, which for us symbolises the spark that animates art, making it striking and engaging. What sets Tintreach apart as a publication? Firstly, we are open to all artforms that can be read or viewed in page format. Secondly, each artist selected for publication will have multiple pieces included, unless their contribution is a short story, non-fiction essay, or novel extract. The purpose of this is to offer artists, especially emerging artists, more exposure than a journal publication would normally offer.
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