Based in London; Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. Saoránach d'Éirinn.
Newspapers
IHT, RIP
The New York Times Company, owners of the International Herald-Tribune, announced they are going to kill off the 126-year-old newspaper. read more
Design
Danzig in Flag & Arms
The arms and flag of the Baltic city combine the usual strong characteristics of any design: simplicity and beauty. read more

Painting
An Original Cusack
This painting of St Patrick’s Church in Monaghan Town is one of the few fruits of art class from school days we’ve bothered preserving. read more
Austria
Vienna Views
A few photographic impressions from my jaunt to the Kaiserliche Hauptstadt. read more
Cooking
The Ever Useful Haggis
In my limited (but slowly expanding) culinary experience, I have found haggis a rather useful addition to the repertoire. read more
The Papacy
Better late than never
After Benedict XVI’s surprise, the Los Angeles Times asked me and ten other Catholics what they would like to see in the new pope. read more
Austria
Irish Vienna
The Irish, of course, have a long history of interaction with Mitteleuropa, and with Vienna in particular, from the earliest days. read more
Pope Francis
From the provost
Please, warns Fr Julian Large, do not let your attitude to the Pope be determined by the media. read more
European Union
The Swiss model
If the E.U. is ever to succeed in settling upon a working model of democracy, Harold James argues scaling up small-country democracy is the way forward. read more
The Roman Forum
Gardone 2013
The daily programme of events for the twenty-first Gardone Riviera Summer Symposium organised by the Roman Forum has been released. read more
Order of Malta
The Malteserkirche, Vienna
I happened to stumble upon the Order of Malta church in Vienna while meandering down the Kärntner Straße in the middle of a snowy day. read more
Vatican
Grazie
The municipal authorities have put these posters up all around Rome. click to view
Vexillology
Squabbles Over Szekler Flag
In Transylvania, a “flag war” has broken out between Romanian politicians and the representatives of the Hungarian-speaking Szekler people. read more
Church
Don Bosco in London
Just went to venerate the relics of Don Bosco, which are doing a UK-wide tour organised by the Salesian order. read more
andrewcusack.com
New Year, New Look
This new year brings a new look at andrewcusack.com, one I hope is simpler, cleaner, a little more crisp. read more
Art Market
Grace Jones, Artist
Among the surprises in store at the Olympia antiques fair on Monday night were two works by the actress Grace Jones. read more
Blogs
Return of La Rittelmeyer
One of our favourite fellow cigarette-smokers has finally returned to the web following what we hope will be the last of her episodic periods of absence therefrom. read more
History
African Independence
The nifty ‘Tumblr’ site Afrographique presents Africa-related facts and statistics in a visually appealing and accessible way. read more
Unbuilt Buildings
The UN at Quebec
Before the location of the permanent UN headquarters was decided, the City of Quebec put forth a bid to host the international body. read more
Architecture
Little Ben
The clocktower on Victoria Street has disappeared for now, but will return. read more
Diary
Curiosity Killed the Cat
All sensible right-minded people love the Phoenix and hate the Phoenix. It is a wonderful place, yet somehow attracts the very worst and most tiresome lot of humanity. read more
Architecture
No. 6, Burlington Gardens
I’ve often thought that No. 6 Burlington Gardens is London’s closest answer to your typical nineteenth-century Teutonic university’s Hauptgebäude. read more
History & Politics
The Legacy of 1916
Sunday’s address by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin at the party’s annual Arbour Hill commemoration. read more
Scotland
The Palace of Holyroodhouse
Nestled between Calton Hill and Salisbury Crags, the Palace of Holyroodhouse sits at the end of the Royal Mile that runs between it and Edinburgh Castle. read more
Brompton Oratory
The Lady Altar
In the south transept of the Brompton Oratory is the altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, perhaps the finest altar in the entire church. read more
Traditional Architecture
A Decade of Driehaus
To commemorate the first decade of the Driehaus Prize, Carl Laubin was commissioned to produce a capriccio depicting the works of the first ten Driehaus laureates. read more
Architecture
Scipione Perosini’s Imperial Palace
Some architectural projects are just so completely mental and insane that you actually have to doff your cap to the creativity of their inventors. Scipione Perosini’s ‘Projet d’un palais impérial à Rome’ is one such plan. read more
Vatican
Against the Dictatorship of Relativism
There is “another form of poverty,” the Pope told the assembled diplomatic corps, “which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. … It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the ‘dictatorship of relativism’.” read more
Argentina
Franciscan Ways
If God is an Argentine then, apparently, the pope is a Peronist, writes Martin Gambarotta. At least that is how much of the local press has chosen to describe Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. read more
Church
Pope Francis
The Sacred College have elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, to be Rome’s new bishop and our Supreme Pontiff. He has chosen to take the name of Francis. read more
Art
Beauty and Revolution
A new exhibition in Frankfurt seeks to highlight the vitality of the Neoclassical style and place it within a general artistic framework as a foundation for later Romanticism. read more
Architecture
The Kaiserforum
VIewing Vienna’s Hofburg from the Ringstraße, one senses a certain awkwardness: what is now the open Heldenplatz was conceived as part of a great imperial forum, the incomplete Kaiserforum. read more
Urbanism
The most beautiful city never built
In 1911, Australia held a competition to design its new capital city of Canberra. Chicago’s Walter Burley Griffin won, with a second prize for Finland’s Eliel Saarinen. But I would have chosen another design: Edward Gimson’s. read more
England
A Rainy Day in Winchester
It was late summer. I hadn’t seen Nicholas in a while but he wasn’t particularly keen on travelling into London. “Why not meet in Winchester?” he suggested. read more
Ireland
The Vigil for Life
Gardaí estimate that 25,000 people gathered on the southern side of Merrion Square in Dublin to demonstrate opposition to government plans to liberalise Irish abortion laws. read more
Parliament
A Bill Committee in the Commons
A bill committee meeting in one of the richly decorated committee rooms of the Palace of Westminster. The Minister is standing, rattling on in an explanatory defence of his government’s bill. read more
Architecture
The Other Modern in Madrid
Like many modern architects, Miguel Fisac began his career with more traditional works. His first commission was the Church of the Holy Spirit in Madrid, a fitting example of “the other modern”. read more
Argentina
Linea A Loses Its Lustre
Disappointing news from Buenos Aires: in their hundredth year of service, all the original carriages on Linea A of the Subté are to be replaced. read more
Urbanism
Yorkville Promenade
One of the thorough-going irritations of New York is that, for all its glories, one can’t help but feel that the individual, the human being, is simply not the priority there. read more
Politics & Society
France Marches for Marriage
Led by a provocative comedian, a gay atheist, and a socialist teacher, as many as a million protesters march in Paris against government plans to introduce same-sex civil marriage. read more
Christmas
Return to Downside
Christmas was marked by a return to the Abbey Basilica of Saint Gregory the Great at Downside for Midnight Mass. The abbey church always has a splendid feeling at night. read more
Architecture
Palacio Legislativo Federal
Most of the major American countries have large parliamentary buildings built at the height of their prosperity in the decade before and after 1900, but Mexico is a particular exception. read more