Frontlines

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

What Daphne did next

Tom Ford calls her the most stylish woman alive and the art critic John Richardson describes her as “her own masterpiece”. Style icon Daphne Guinness is to be the subject of a major exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York next month. The show will draw from Guinness’s huge collection of haute couture and directional fashion and will include many pieces from Alexander McQueen, including a jacket with solid silver epaulettes in the shape of eagle heads, and the famous – or infamous – armadillo shoes. Guinness is also the subject of a forthcoming book by Dr Valerie Steele, FIT’s curator, in which she talks about her peripatetic childhood and style influences, such as her mother and grandmother, along with her views on nannies, Biba and dressing up. She also reveals that her father, the brewery heir Jonathan Guinness “doesn’t really think about dress. If he can’t find a belt, he will tie his trousers with a piece of string”. The book will be published by Yale in October.

Deirdre McQuillan

An absolut must see

Celestine Cooney, the Irish stylist based in London, along with London-based Irish photographer Linda Brownlee (pictured here, left to right) are part of a group of 10 “creative visionaries” taking part in the Absolut Visions exhibition in the Laundry Room of South Studios in Dublin 8, on September 7th-12th. Art and alcohol – specifically Absolut collaborations – have a history going back to Andy Warhol in l985 and more recently have included well-known figures such as Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Ellen von Unwerth and Spike Jonze. The line-up in this show also features street artists The London Police from the UK, illustrators Ben Newman from the UK and BrendB from Ireland, and Creative Collective Rinzen from Australia, all of whom have been invited to use an 8ft-tall replica of the Absolute bottle as their canvas. The exhibition, which runs daily from 11am to 7pm is free, but on Wednesday, September 7th, members of the public will have the chance to meet some of the participants who will discuss the inspiration behind their pieces. See facebook.com/ABSOLUTIreland for tickets.

Deirdre McQuillan

Literary gems

It’s a glittering little literary line-up and make no mistake: on Monday night, the Young Hearts Run Free collective will be storming the gates of the Unitarian Church on Dublin’s Stephen’s Green to set up a night of praise for the greatest love a man or woman can have: football. Among those performing on the night will be Michael D Higgins, Belinda McKeon, Paul Muldoon and Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, and there will be musical performances from Margie Lewis, Barry McCormack and rising star Cian Nugent. It all kicks of at 8.30pm, admission is €10 and there will be tea and cake. It’s the little things that matter.

Laurence Mackin

Index

WHAT’S HOT

Elena AnayaThe name of Pedro Almodóvar's new muse is sure to become as familiar as, well, Penelope Cruz

RentingIt's the new buying

FringeIf you can't make it to the Electric Picnic, the fringe opens the following weekend with Neil Watkins's obscene heartbreaker, Fergal McCarthy on a desert island (in the Liffey), Katie Kim in concert and a celebration of Polish poet and author Czeslaw Milosz

The Fish HatchPosh fish and chips at the Imperial Hotel in Cork. Love it

Variety in the lunchboxWraps, crudites etc, instead of boring old reliables. Start as you mean to continue and stick a list on the cupboard of delicious nutritious things, with the odd surprise thrown in

The Hen HouseDún Laoghaire's new chicken restaurant does excellent buttermilk and thyme marinated chicken tenders, but the fish of the day roasted on a cedar plank steals the show

Dubliner cheddar cheeseA Cork export that's winning awards. Try the vintage variety

Sonya LennonHats off to the stylish presenter for bringing the not-for-profit Dress for Success initiative to Ireland, which supports disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and career-development advice

Linley HamiltonThe trumpeter's new album Taylor Made features a crack young band of Johnny Taylor, Dan Bodwell and Dominic Mullan, and it's a very slick affair

WHAT’S NOT

Voice messagesHave you noticed we've lost patience with anything but text?

Empty roadsOnce upon a time we would have thought this a good thing – driving from Cork to Dublin in a trice and hardly meeting any cars. But now that we've got the super roads, we can't afford to use them

Pippa MiddletonThere's a backlash going on. We're a bit bored of looking at all those blazers

A fine fair overlooking the Boyne

Pablo-Bruce, the pony, has been preparing for tomorrow’s Summer Fair at Rossnaree House, overlooking the Boyne, in Slane, Co Meath. He will be giving leisurely strolls about the lovely grounds. A story teller will pitch camp in a gypsy caravan complete with a magic store of tales. Wooden toys and children’s clothes from community-based African and Indian workshops will be on sale, along with an eclectic range of vintage clothes ranging from Edwardian elegance to 1970s and 1980s retro nostalgia. Jewellery designers will be displaying original work alongside antiques and craft pieces. Co Meath is well served by innovative cooks and bakers, many of whom are participating in the fair. Wood-fired pizza will be baked in a clay oven deep under the arched branches of a huge yew tree. From midday Sunday, Pablo-Bruce your host awaits you. See Rossnaree.ie.

Eileen Battersby

WORD ON THE STREET Sceptimist

Where it comes from:Do you see life as being both a pile of manure and a bed of roses? Do you believe the economy has completely sunk, but some prosperity can still be salvaged? Have you lost all faith in human endeavour, yet remain hopeful that we will somehow redeem ourselves? Then you are a sceptimist, someone who is both a sceptic and an optimist.

You are naturally suspicious of anything purporting to be a solution to life's ills, but you still have an unshakeable belief that things are somehow going to get better. It sounds like a mad, paradoxical mindset, but in today's topsy turvy world, being a sceptimist seems the only sane approach.

Where it comes from:In the good old days, people could be conveniently categorised into naysayers and yea-sayers. The former stood on one side of the philosophical divide, ready to paint it black and see the downside of everything. The latter, meanwhile, were staring so hard at the bright side, they needed protective visors. There was no moderately-lit common ground.

But these days, when all our certainties have been shaken to the core, and every day brings stories of sudden downturns and unexpected upturns, we need to adapt our world view to embrace both the dark and the light. And as a sceptimist, you can have the best of both worlds. If it all goes wrong, you can say "I told you so", but if it all turns out right, you can say "I never stopped believing".

How to say it:"I'm a football sceptimist – I don't believe we'll qualify for the 2014 world cup, but I've booked my trip to Brazil anyway."

Kevin Courtney

Smoking guns: at Ballynatray

Pheasant are the silliest birds imaginable and it's easy to accept that they look best on a plate. All the same, I'm happier that the missiles flying over my head are clays and not the real thing. At Ballynatray estate, the birds stalk the avenues like resplendent peers of the realm, which is what they are until November. And then comes doom. But that's not the atmosphere up here in the parkland, where the woods slope from the fringes of the meadows to the Blackwater several miles below. Further up the hill and hidden from sight is the trap, the device which flings cylindrical clays into the air in arcs replicating the flight, if not the flurry, of the pheasant. Stuck into the shining grass are the pegs, white markers for each gun.

We are the guns. This is a simulated driven shoot, one of four spread through the estate that, like Ballynatray House itself, has been renewed by Henry Gwyn Jones and his estate manager Neil Porteous. The landscape, again like the house, is impressive. But it doesn't take more than a few salvoes from the traps before house and landscape are lost to the thrill of shooting, even if the targets are not actual birds. The killer instinct may be diluted by the fact that there is no carnage, but is replaced by an increasingly fierce determination to blast that black disc out of the sky. A surprising number of us are willing to try, an equally surprising number are able to do it.

As a bloodless sport, a simulated drive is hard to beat: it combines skill with weaponry, hours spent in green, grassy sunlight with like-minded company and, in our case, the guidance of a group of experts. It is led by shooting instructor Tom Leahy, with Tony Keane, who trains in the sport, and Martin O'Riordan. The latter is a former plasterer so skilled in his management of shoots that he is described as "an ornithological alchemist", who is able to conduct driven flushes over the guns as if they were orchestrated. That's for later in the year, but for this facsimile event they tutor our group of newcomers with care and good humour. The ear-plugs are handed out, the eye-glasses provided, the guns broken and explained, the stance arranged, the purpose of the second gun for each peg made clear. We are told how to minimise the recoil, how to aim high but not at random, how to step into the shot and how "not to turn around".

Parties are organised to shoot at four different areas of the estate, with a competition before the last drive of the day. Corporate events can be arranged, with lunch in the walled garden, walks along the causeway to the seventh-century island abbey of Molana, or to the ancient salmon and sprat weirs, for which Ballynatray has been given a restoration feasibility study grant. It all takes a bit of doing, especially in November when up to 6,000 birds have to be driven towards stands of 10 guns. For this more than 20 beaters are required, with intelligent dogs which can pick up the spoils on shoots which average a bag of 150 to 200 birds. Accommodation is available in pristine and well-stocked cottages, the Love Nest and in the romantic boathouse.

Among the great houses of the Blackwater, Ballynatray has a long history, from Norman invaders to Penelope Smyth, daughter of the house and princess of Capua through her Gretna Green marriage in 1846 to Carlos, son of the king of Naples. Thinking of these shades of the past as I negotiate the bird-ridden avenue, I hear the raucous shout of a cock pheasant, rampant in his coat of many colours. Just you wait, I think to myself. Just you wait until November.

Ballynatray Estate is near Youghal, Co Cork. See ballynatray.com, tel: 024-97460/97899.

Mary Leland

Vintage boho style

Four books have landed on our desks causing passers-by, of the slightly arty-crafty persuasion, to ooh and ahh. They're all about vintage this and vintage that, with an unmistakable touch of British boho chic. First up , Vintage Flowers, by Vic Brotherson (Kyle Books, £25), who makes stuffing a mix of hydrangeas and roses and a few old weeds gone to seed into a jam jar look like child's play. It's a book of beguiling, colourful, busy, natural arrangements with great appeal. No minimalism here (he also owns one of London's best specialist shops – see scarletandviolet.com).

The English gardening writer Alys Fowler has written her second book – The Thrifty Forager– and it's published by Kyle Books (£16.99). "Where others see weeds, Alys Fowler sees supper," says the blurb, and it too has wonderful photographs that make plucking wild rocket and dandelions from wasteground look like a piece of delicious cake.

EJ McCabe has produced a book of photographs of people, celebrations, landscape and characters from the southern English village of Firle. Published by Frances Lincoln, About A Village(£16.99) should inspire some social historian/photographer to do a similar project on this island.

And finally, there's Angel Adoree's The Vintage Tea Party from Mitchell Beazley, full of old crockery and updated classic recipes, such as asparagus egg custard with Parmesan wafers (£20 in UK). Sounds infinitesimally better than the current American-style Tea Party.

Patsey Murphy

Not common or garden eggs

Anyone for dragon's eggs? You'll find these wonderful ceramic pieces, made by Elizabeth Petcu, at Sculpture in Context at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin from September 8th. With many plants offering a final flourish before settling into the winter season, it's a great time to visit the gardens, and this year's exhibition will have more than 130 sculptures by many of Ireland's leading artists, making it a veritable treasure-trove of visual treats. The National Botanic Gardens are open Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm and 10am-6pm at weekends. You pay €2 for the car park but admission to the exhibition and gardens is free.

Arminta Wallace