“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.” – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Welcome to my August Newsletter: A self-contained one-sitting read, with no endless scroll!
Frame Fest Stop Motion Festival 2026
I’m afraid I’ve left a piece of my heart in Connemara after Paul McDonnell’s inaugral stop motion festival Frame Fest which I attended at the weekend (29/30 August 2026). I arrived on the Friday night after a wedding in Roscommon, driving the amazingly scenic route along Lough Corrib with its green islands, via Clonbur and Cornamona and on to Leitir Móir and Teeranea. 200 stop motion animators or people with stop motion interests arrived in Teeranea for 2 days and it was absolutely exhilarating to be among to so many creative, dedicated people. On the Saturday I got to do nothing but watch 47 stop motion shorts and one feature film in the local hall that the festival team had turned into a magical atmospheric cinema space.
Aardman director Seamus Malone gave a key talk about Shaun the Sheep, who of course had travelled with him (first class in a little plastic box), and later there was a Q&A with the creative team behind Captain Morten and the Spider Queen (Paul himself, Henry Nicholson and Ragnar Neljandi). That night I took my drawing equipment to the nearby Tigh Phlunkett and spent the evening drawing attendees (and a couple of staff).
Oh, and I got to meet Shaun the Sheep.
On the Sunday I got to attend a stop motion workshop with Aardman animator Henry Nicholson who made an ape character come to life in 3 frames (he took many more frames after that!). Paul’s studio, Stiúideo Fia, was open to visit on the Sunday and I was the proverbial kid in the sweet shop, wandering around spotting recognisable maquettes and puppets from movies and TV shows.
Sunday’s key talk was by Richard Pickersgill of Mackinnon & Saunders, who’d driven from Manchester so he could bring puppets including Postman Pat and Jess, Pinnochio and Geppetto, an homunculus from Mackenzie Crook’s Small Prophets, and Pingu!
There was an emotional live call with young film makers in Gaza who got a standing ovation from the festival, and on Sunday evening the prizes were announced. I saw some incredible films and met so many amazing people I’ll be coming down off the high of that weekend for weeks to come. I will have a more thorough post on this in the near future but that’s just the gist for now. An exemplary first festival Paul. Here’s to many more.
Cartoon published in The New Cartoonist
Delighted to have this cartoon of Odyssey director Christopher Nolan included in the latest issue of The New Cartoonist.
Macnas at 40
Macnas turns 40 this year, and Macnas turned the tide of my life. I first saw Macnas aged 19 when they came to Carndonagh and did a show in the Diamond. I knew then that I had to go to Galway and work for them. I applied for art college, got it (on the 5th round, who knew the CAO had a FIFTH round!), got accepted into Macnas on the Summer Job Scheme (why do we always get rid of amazing successful initiatives like this?) and after flunking college (go me!) I got full time employment in Macnas. I started off making 300 slip-clay skulls for Druid which were destined to be destroyed by Mick Lally over the course of the run of A Skull in Connemara. Visual artist Sharon Lynch got me in the door for that one, having already made scores of skulls she was moving on to other projects, took me in and trained me up on the process. As the deadline loomed for completion of the 300 skulls, I had every kiln in Galway firing one night, and I made it. Next I got to design the parade Carnival of Fools for that summer’s Galway Arts Festival (it’s 21st!). I turned 21 that July. It’s incredible the trust and responsibility I was given at such a young age.
I became an employee that summer too, joining the management as a supervisor of a European-funded training programme for the unemployed. Honestly writing this down I’m wondering what the hell was wrong with people giving me these positions but I either had an honest face or was a consummate bullshitter (if memory serves it was most likely the latter). I got to travel and perform all over Ireland during this time, and there was a cultural exchange in France, a trip to Dallas to perform for Elizabeth Taylor’s AIDS charity fundraiser, and one of the pinnacles of my life, performing in Times Square, New York for the turn of the Millenium with one of my maker heroes, Michael Curry. I learned so much and experienced so much as a young maker, designer, performer and manager in my time in Macnas it could fill a book.
I finished with Macnas around 2002 but remained a fan for the following decades, and quite enjoyed being a punter, outside looking in at the incredible work coming out of the Fisheries Field. I did come out of retirement for them a couple of times after being asked very nicely, and had amazing experiences as a couple of very visually prominent characters during parades.
One year I was strapped into a massive skirt-like structure as a Pied Piper type character, with a PA secreted inside. As soon as we got on to the Wolfe Tone Bridge the PA failed, the track I was miming to fell silent, and my float ground to a halt. There was a ripple of disappointment through the throngs gathered to watch and I knew I had to do something. I started clapping my hands, then cupping my ear to the crowd. A few claps came back. I turned to the other side and did this again. A few more claps. I started clapping again, and threw my hands up in a command to join in. The crowd got the hint and started loudly clapping in a rhythm I led. I got them cheering too, and at just the pinnacle of cheers and clapping the PA came back on and we started moving to massive applause. It was an electric experience to give an acoustic performance! Later I performed on stilts as a Plague Doctor, in one of the most ornately beautiful, scary costumes I’ve performed in. It was my last stilt performance for Macnas and had the extra irony of a version of a plague doctor being the first stilt costume I designed for Macnas in my first parade as designer. I’ve never inhabited a character, or been inhabited by one, as thoroughly as that Last Plague Doctor.
I look forward to what comes out of the 40-year-old Macnas, and many happy returns!
Weddings
An incredible August for weddings and my wedding season even runs later than usual this year will almost full September and October. No complaints here! August brought me to Woodlands Adare, Martinstown House The Curragh, Crover House Hotel Cavan, Sligo Park Hotel, Castle Dargan Estate Sligo, Castlecourt Hotel Westport, The Heritage Hotel Killenard, Boyne Hill House Meath, Blackrock Cottage Galway, and Kilronan Castle Co.Roscommon. Some 2026 dates are still available so get in touch if you’re looking for some last minute wedding entertainment!
Commissions
I’ve been busy with commissions too so all the new work I’ve posted to my site this month is this fun piece for a young Harry Potter Fan!
This Month’s New Cartoons:
Stop the Match
I reworked my earlier Eurovision cartoon for the revolting vista of the Ireland Israel match because it’s the same shit under a different event banner. Israel’s unquestioned participation in international events turns those events into propaganda for genocide. Stop the Game.
Stellar Excursions
I’m something of a Star Trek fan if you hadn’t noticed.
Bobby Fingers, Back with Another Masterpiece
The Goverment could round up all the Basic Income for the Arts funding and give it to Bobby Fingers making him the YouTube Laureate of Ireland or something and I don’t think it’d raise a single objection. Another disgusting masterpiece from the master maker that had me crying laughing. Watch it on the Big Youtube on the telly if you can.
Agility Award
Well my funding application to the Arts Council’s Agility Award got rejected. I never usually apply for funding and to be honest I wouldn’t waste my time on it again. It’s like the state gatekeepers of arts funding are trying to foster a gambling habit in artists, “oh you didn’t win this time but you should definitely gamble again, you could win big next time by taking a week out of your life to write ANOTHER funding application!” This is how casinos work. I recognise this is the way of the world for a lot of Irish artists and this isn’t meant to disparage anyone who engages this system, but for me, I don’t need emails from someone titled “Corporate Response Manager” telling me my project lacked merit. I’m already an artist, I already have merit, thank you.
On Da Telly
This month I binged the hilarious and spooky Widows Bay, a Stephen King-esque horror comedy which goes to show you can use and reuse tropes as long as you’re hitting the marks in pacing, performance, and engaging writing. Hamish Linklater has a brilliant menacing turn in it but what is it with this guy and islands with isolated haunted fishing communities? Above is my caricature of him from the brilliant, brilliant Midnight Mass, which he also graciously shared on his Instagram!
I additionally binged the latest series of Batman: Caped Crusader which stars, guess who, Hamish Linklater in the titular role! While I really enjoyed the first series this one was quite lacklustre and at times poorly written, still enjoyable but not as tight as the first series. On the plus side Linklater’s Batman is the best screen Batman since the best Batman ever, Kevin Conroy in Batman The Animated Series.
And Finally… Kerry’s Cow Bear
A new study has overturned a long-held idea about when farming reached Ireland. Bone fragments from Ferriter’s Cove, once seen as the earliest signs of domestic cattle, came from a bear and a wild boar. Source: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/08/kerry-cow-bones-identified-as-bear-and-boar/
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