Caoimhe Kenny, daughter of Stephen Kenny, crowned Miss Ireland 2025
Caoimhe Kenny was crowned the 77th Miss Ireland at the Knightsbrook Hotel in Trim, Co Meath, on Saturday night.
She is the daughter of Stephen Kenny, a former manager of the Republic of Ireland national team and the current manager of League of Ireland side St Patrick's Athletic.
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Finalists vying for the Miss Ireland 2025 crown stepped into the spotlight on Saturday night and embraced journeys of empowerment, leadership, and community impact.
Since 1947, the Miss Ireland pageant has aimed to celebrated intelligence, ambition, and cultural pride, evolving into a platform that champions female leadership and philanthropy.
This year's competitors will join a legacy of inspiring role models including Former Miss World Rosanna Davison and former Miss Irelands - Pamela Flood, Holly Carpenter, Rebecca Maguire, Lauren McDonagh, Aoife O Sullivan, Amanda Brunker, Pamela Uba, Aoife Walsh, Michelle Rocca, Olivia Tracy, current Miss Ireland Jasmine Gerhardt and many more.
In recent years the Miss Ireland Franchise has raised over €350,000 for various charities including Laura Lynn, Temple Street, Alzheimer's Ireland, Pieta House, The Cari Foundation and The Julian Benson Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
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The finalists of Miss Ireland are put through their paces in a challenging competitive process testing their skills in debating, public speaking, talent, sports, modelling, social media and each finalist is tasked with raising awareness and funds for their chosen charities.
After being crowned Miss Ireland 2025, Caoimhe Kenny will receive a lucrative agency contract and a host of prizes and will then have a chance to jet off to represent Ireland next year on an international stage at the Miss World Festival which is televised in over 100 countries around the world.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘If there's a rule, he tries to break it': the explosively colourful textiles of Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam's artistic life was bookended by success against the odds. In 1972, he became the first Black artist to represent the US at the world's most prestigious art festival, the Venice Biennale. He had overcome poverty and prejudice in the south to study art at one of the first desegregated universities, and, after settling in Washington, was hailed as a radical innovator within the group of abstract painters dubbed the Color School. Pushing his medium in new sculptural directions, he broke convention by taking his canvases off their wooden stretchers. His best-known colour-drenched works have an improvisatory quality, never installed the same way twice, whether they're draped on the wall or hung tent-like from the ceiling. When the art world turned away from abstraction in the following decades, however, he was all but forgotten. He was approaching 80 in 2012 when the young art star Rashid Johnson championed his work, curating an exhibition that led to a fresh slate of big international shows and museum recognition. Yet as Gilliam said in an interview two years before his death in 2022, in art, 'Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I've never lost entirely. We just keep on keeping on.' Sewing Fields, a new exhibition featuring unseen work from Gilliam's residency at the Ballinglen Art Foundation on the west coast of Ireland in 1993, reveals how he never stopped making and innovating. 'He was so prolific,' says the show's co-curator, Mary Cremin. 'There's still a huge amount of his work that's never been shown.' One of the biggest surprises is that he worked in Ireland at all. The isolated rural location with its sea cliffs and rolling hills must have been a major change for an artist who spent his life in cosmopolitan Washington's creative community. He wasn't afraid of mixing things up, though. Prohibited from flying across the Atlantic with petrol-based paints, he was compelled to paint, print and dye materials in his Washington studio in advance, and pursue new processes in Ireland. It resulted in a fresh approach with cut-up collaged fragments of paintings including screen-printed cloth and paper and material thick with paint. 'Needs must is the mother of invention,' says the curator. It was the experience of being captivated by laundry billowing on a line that first led Gilliam to set the canvas free from wooden stretchers to create his characteristic draped works. His approach to painting was expansive, underlining art's connection to lowly cloth while nodding to histories of Black female labour. In Ireland, he worked with a seamstress to stitch his layered compositions of collaged painted fabrics with distinct zigzagging lines of thread. 'He supposedly had six sewing machines in his Ballinglen studio,' says Cremin. She points out that Ireland's light and unpredictable weather fed into Gilliam's explosive use of colour, too. 'The sky changes, the seasons change in a single day,' says Cremin. 'In these works, the tone changes all the time.' One reason given for Gilliam's art-world wilderness years is that, during the rise of identity politics in the 1980s, his work didn't foreground Black experience. Today, it's his commitment to constant experimentation within his medium that the curator sees as crucial to his legacy for younger artists. Says Cremin: 'If there's a rule, he tries to break it.' Folded Cottage II, 1993This kickstarted the experimental body of work Gilliam produced on Ireland's west coast and, as the title suggests, it took formal inspiration from its coastal dwellings. There're all kinds of painterly techniques on the fragments he collaged, including stained and splashed paint, as well as his signature method of raking lines in pigment. Doonfeeny Lower, 1994Gilliam pushed painting into sculptural territory with works that spoke to the human body and the world beyond the gallery. With its loops of fabric across its top edge, this collaged painting looks almost wearable – or like curtains. The stitched lines of thread that hold the composition together crisscross like pencil marks. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Count on Us, 2008This dyed nylon trio is typical of Gilliam's key move as an artist: draped paintings that freed the fabric support from its traditional wooden stretcher. The buoyant palette channels the jubilation felt when Obama was elected in 2008. As the co-curator Mary Cremin points out, it's hard not to wonder what the Washington-based artist would have made of the current president. Silhouette/Template, 1994This is one of many later works that would be inspired by Gilliam's time in Ireland. Rippling across the wall like a kite or rolling hills, it's testament to the improvisatory nature of his work, in terms of the painting itself, and how it might change each time it's hung. 'It's unpredictable,' says Cremin. Pages and Echoes #8, 1998From primary hued paint spatters to deep moody mauves, this work pops with contrasting textures and tones. The handmade printed paper among the painted fabric, shows the influence of his sometime collaborator, the revered printmaker William Weege. Sewing Fields is at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, to 25 January.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Brian Shuel obituary
As the British folk revival expanded and developed through the 1960s and 70s, many of the leading performers were photographed by Brian Shuel, who has died aged 90. His early photographs were often taken indoors, in darkened folk clubs held in upstairs rooms in pubs, which required him to push the film to its limits, resulting in grainy but atmospheric images. He combined his artist's eye with often being in the right place at the right time. In December 1962, Brian was at the King & Queen folk club in central London to photograph Martin Carthy, but he also captured one of the floor singers – Bob Dylan on his first visit to Britain. Three days later, he photographed him again at the Singers' Club, with the folk revival founding fathers Ewan MacColl and AL Lloyd in the audience. In those early years, Brian photographed folk performers such as the Watersons, Fairport Convention, Shirley Collins and Pentangle, as well as visiting Americans including Pete Seeger and the Rev Gary Davis. In 1963, at the Edinburgh festival, he photographed the Dubliners when they were still known as the Ronnie Drew Ballad Group. He photographed performers both on and off stage, including those at the first Keele folk festivals in 1965 and 1966. Brian was born in Dublin, to Beatrice (nee Oulton) and Ronald Shuel, who served in the colonial police in Nigeria. Brian was brought up by his mother's two unmarried sisters in County Wicklow. He was educated at the Royal School Armagh in Northern Ireland, and then, from 1954, at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. After completing his graphic design course, he did national service as a cartographer in Singapore; it was there that he bought his first camera. On his return in 1958, Brian married Sally Boswell, whom he had met on his first day at college. His father-in-law, the illustrator and artist James Boswell, was editor of Sainsbury's in-house magazine and Brian became its designer, soon also photographing many aspects of Sainsbury's operations. Through his leftwing activism, James Boswell became a director of Topic Records, Britain's pre-eminent folk record label, which had its origins in the Workers' Music Association. Boswell had illustrated many of their early record sleeves and in 1962, to learn more about the music, he and Brian embarked on a nationwide tour of folk clubs, travelling as far as Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle and the Spinners' club in Liverpool. Brian's photographs featured on Topic record sleeves and the quality of his work spread his reputation among the still-developing folk scene. He told Nathan Joseph of Transatlantic Records that he did not think much of their sleeve designs and was challenged to prove he could do better. A hundred or so sleeves followed, including the early records of Ralph McTell, Billy Connolly (with Gerry Rafferty as the Humblebums) and Mike and Sally Oldfield as the Sallyangie. Many of the sleeves featured Brian's photographs; he also designed the label's logo, as well as sleeves for American reissues on Transatlantic's Xtra label. Brian's photographs brought him into contact with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, whose librarian, Ruth Noyes, encouraged him to photograph the Bampton Morris Dancers from west Oxfordshire on their traditional Whit Monday tour. The visual attraction of such seasonal customs was obvious, and Brian set about a nationwide pilgrimage to photograph them: the Abbots Bromley Horn Dancers, Padstow's Obby Oss, Ashbourne Shrovetide football – more than 200 in total. In 1972, he was the adviser for a BBC film by Barrie Gavin, The Passing of the Year. In the 80s, Brian revisited many of the customs for a book, The National Trust Guide to Traditional Customs of Britain, which was published to critical acclaim by Webb and Bower in 1985. He also wrote descriptions of the customs: unlike many similar books, Brian had actually visited all the events featured. His approach was to capture the fun, sheer enjoyment and pride of the participants, whose confidence he quickly gained. The full extent of Brian's archive of folk musicians and customs was revealed only when he digitised hundreds of images and uploaded them onto his Collections Picture Library and personal websites. His photographs continue to be admired and eagerly sought after. Brian's assessment that his pictures were 'simple, straightforward, honest and well designed' was typically modest. Although best known for his folk music and customs photographs, Brian also built considerable portfolios of images of bridges and London. His freelance photography work for Sainsbury's continued, and other commissions came from, among others, British Steel, Daily Mirror, the prison system (he photographed in more than 40 prisons), Kodak and the Central Office of Information. From 1985, Brian edited the journal of the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (Bapla). His wife Sal was Bapla's administrator, as well as a freelance illustrator. Brian is survived by Sal, their two sons, Simon and Ben, and grandson, James. Brian Courtenay Oulton Shuel, photographer and designer, born 4 March 1935; died 12 June 2025
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Intimacy by Ita O'Brien: How Normal People can have great sex
Intimacy: A Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires by Ita O'Brien (Ebury Press £16, 384pp) When Ita O'Brien was growing up in a strictly traditional Irish Catholic family where no one ever mentioned menstruation, let alone sex, she had no inkling her career would involve sitting with actors, offering them choreographic suggestions as to how they might simulate an orgasm. Yet as a sought-after intimacy coordinator for films and television, this is exactly what O'Brien does. Not just the orgasm, but the whole build-up – which she strongly believes should be given time and space. Her mission is to make sex scenes realistic as well as sexy, while respecting actors' boundaries. While there isn't enough time in an hour-long episode to film the full 20 minutes (on average) that it takes for a woman to be 'ready for penetration', the gradualness should be hinted at. In her thought-provoking 'field guide to intimacy', O'Brien becomes an intimacy coordinator for us all, drawing on her filming work to give us helpful tips on how we should make our real-life sex lives both realistic and sexy, while respecting each other's boundaries. People have asked her to visit their bedrooms to help coordinate their sex lives. She does not do that; but this book is the next best thing. Best known for her coordination of the mutually respectful but highly erotic sex scenes between Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones 's characters in the BBC drama Normal People (2020), O'Brien is justifiably proud of her work (which also includes It's A Sin, Gentleman Jack, and I May Destroy You). Viewers of Normal People were 'profoundly affected', she writes, by the scene in which Connell (played by Mescal) and Marianne (Edgar-Jones) make love for the first time. 'Are you sure you want this?' Connell asks. When Marianne nods, he says: 'If it hurts, I'll stop.' A bit later, he asks: 'Does it hurt?' 'A bit.' And then she says: 'It's nice.' And they tenderly make love. I remember how captivated we all were by the eroticism as well as the charm of that series during the first lockdown. Those scenes 'helped viewers remember all the joy and gorgeousness of their first relationships as teenagers, and how unsure they felt'. 'The prospect of bringing something to the screen that I felt was representative of the reality of young people in love having sex was really exciting to me,' O'Brien writes. Sex is too often portrayed unrealistically. 'All that bumping and grinding, the thrusting and heads thrown back in simulated ecstasy, rarely bears much relationship to people's own experience of their sexual encounters. We see penetration after 30 seconds of kissing. Is that how it happens in your life? No!' The film world certainly needed someone like O'Brien. Before the arrival of intimacy coordinators, directors just used to tell actors to get on with it. Actress Gemma Whelan describes the multiple intimate sex scenes she had to do in Game Of Thrones as 'a frenzied mess'. 'Action! Just go for it!' the director would shout at the actors. 'Bit of boob biting, then slap her bum and go!' Of her role in the Scandi-noir series The Bridge, Swedish actress Sofia Helin said: 'It's tense every time you have to cross your own boundaries in order to satisfy a director's needs.' Dakota Johnson wishes intimacy coordinators had existed when she was filming Fifty Shades Of Grey. 'I was just kind of thrown to the wolves on that one,' she said. Things have moved on since then. O'Brien's four main tenets are: open communication, agreement and consent, clear choreography, and closure. Her sessions involve deep breathing exercises to make actors fully present in their own bodies and aware and respectful of their partner's physical presence. In one exercise, she advises them to put their right hand on each other's hearts, and their left hand over their partner's hand on their heart, and 'feel the movement of the energy and the dance between you'. That's just one of many build-up exercises, some of which verge on the woo-woo. There's a great deal about the seven chakras, and a lot of visualising of waterfalls, and your own lower body as 'the base of a tree putting roots deep into the earth'. When it comes to advising us on how to improve our own intimate lives, or at least how to avoid our sex lives from rusting up over a long marriage, O'Brien says self-love and self-esteem are most important. Look into a mirror and say: 'I choose to love myself. I am enough. I believe in myself.' She advises gazing into the eyes of your partner for 60 seconds at a time, and 'sharing your wonderings'. Gaze at the stars together, as she and her partner do; stand in bare feet on the grass in order to be fully rooted in your body. She advises us to be honest about what we do and don't want, and how that might change over time, and to dare to talk about it although it can be 'difficult and embarrassing'. She invites us to 'take a hand mirror and to explore and get to know your vulva'. I might give that one a miss. To remind us how unique every vulva is, O'Brien gives us a full page of drawings of different-shaped ones, from an art work by Jamie McCartney called The Great Wall of Vulva, which portrays 400 of them. Not a work to show to the older generation in Catholic Ireland, perhaps. Yet I liked the advice she quotes from the sex therapist Linsey Blair: we should regard intimacy as a kind of tapas menu. 'You order in bite-size chunks; you don't just think every sexual encounter has to be a three-course meal leading to penetration and orgasm.' Sometimes 'doing small things every day is more intimate than a three-course extravaganza once every three months'. 'Tuesday sex' is what she calls the ordinary stuff, which many of us might hope to keep up as a habit over a long lifetime. This is very different from 'Nine And A Half Weeks sex' (named after the film of the same name). Online porn has made too many young people think sex must be of the latter variety. Whereas, in reality, 'intimacy is rarely spontaneous' – and can be just as satisfying if you schedule it into the diary. Most importantly, O'Brien reminds us, 'it's possible to have intimacy without sex, and sex without intimacy'.
