March Spotlight Artist

TCM movie channel has a lot of Artist Spotlights and Themes. The featured Artist of the Month in March is Merle Oberon. The TCM channel will be airing her movies on Friday night with one of her most recognizable movie this Friday, Wuthering Heights (1939). I look forward to rewatching that movie.

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Thanks to TCM, I’ve been doing my own Monthly Artist Spotlights. I focus on 3 artists, book authors, music artists, and actors.

My Artists Spotlight for March

March is always a fun month for me, from holidays to a lot of family birthdays. My favorite holidays are St. Patrick’s Day and International Women’s Day (this year’s theme is #PledgeForParity).

“In some regions, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for people to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. In other regions, however, the political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner. Some people celebrate the day by wearing purple ribbons.” – Wikipedia.

So here are 3 Irish Women for March Artist Spotlight.

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Maria Doyle Kennedy

Maria Doyle Kennedy (born 25 September 1964) is an Irish singer, songwriter, and television/film actress. (Official Website/ Wikipedia/ Twitter/ Facebook).

I first saw Maria in her first movie appearance in 1991, The Commitments as Natalie Murphy. She is even on an official Irish Stamp with a picture from that movie. To be on a official stamp, that’s amazing.

Since then she’s been in 20 movies and 17 Television show appearances with her most notable show, BBC’s Orphan Black (BBC Three and America links) as the tough Siobhán Sadler or just Mrs. S for those Orphan Black fans like myself. She’s a total bad a$$ in this show and I love it!

I liked her in The Commitments but really liked her in the movie The Matchmaker with co-stars Janeane Garofalo and Denis Leary. And my Gramps and I are really anticipating the coming season 4 of Orphan Black on April 14th! (For the U.S. that is).

So take a look at some of Maria Doyle Kennedy’s works. I think she’s an awesome woman.

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Maria Edgeworth

With Irish female authors, I could have gone on with a list of favorites like Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes and Cecilia Ahern (in fact I have named Cecelia and Maeve in the past spotlight posts already) . Or even named Emma Donoghue for her book that was made into a movie, Room, in which both movie and book has received awards.

But then I saw this  interesting author when I was searching for Irish female authors. “Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults’ and children’s literature.” (Wikipedia). She attracted me because of two of her works out of many, Belinda and the Castle Rackrent.

Castle Rackrent, a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800, is often regarded as the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first Big House novel and the first saga novel.[1: Kirkpatrick, Kathryn J. (1995) “Introduction to Castle Rackrent”, Oxford, Oxford University Press]

It is also widely regarded as the first novel to use the device of a narrator who is both unreliable and an observer of, rather than a player in, the actions he chronicles. Kathryn J. Kirkpatrick suggests that it “both borrows from and originates a variety of literary genres and subgenres without neatly fitting into any one of them”.[1] William Butler Yeats pronounced Castle Rackrent “one of the most inspired chronicles written in English”. [2: W. B. Yeats, Representative Irish Tales (1891; Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1979), 27.][3: Kirkpatrick, Kathryn J. (1995). Introduction to Castle Rackrent. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-953755-6.]

(Wikipedia)

Needless to say that I’ve added both Belinda (about two women, one who thinks she’s dying from Breast Cancer) and Castle Rackrent to my TBR list. Luckily Amazon has both books for free on kindle.

Oh and for those reading Irish Heritage Authors for March, these look like some good additions.

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Dolores O’Riordan

Many of you probably already know Dolores O’Riordan (Twitter/ Facebook) from the music band, The Cranberries (YouTube/ Facebook/ Twitter). But unless you’re a big fan of that band or of Dolores, than you might not have known that she has 2 solo albums, Are You Listening? (2007) and No Baggage (2009).

“Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan (born September 6, 1971) is an Irish musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist.” (Wikipedia)

I really like her singing and both music from The Cranberries and her solo works. Here’s a favorite song of mine from her album Are You Listening?