Dan Ziskie, the veteran actor known for his roles in the House of Cards and Treme, has passed away at the age of 80.
The American actor and photographer breathed his last on July 21, in New York City after battling with arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Ziskie’s family confirmed his passing via an obituary, which reads, “Dan was a man of remarkable talent and a keen observer of life.”
“He was as vibrant and multifaceted as the characters he portrayed on stage and screen,” his family wrote, adding, they “will miss him deeply.”
The late actor was best known for his recurring role as Vice President Jim Mathews on Netflix’s House of Cards from 2013-2017 after playing C.J. Liquori on the final three seasons of HBO’s Treme from 2011-2013.
He also appeared in Chappelle’s Show, Person of Interest, The Blacklist, 24. His films credit includes Zebrahead (1992) and Adventures in Babysitting (1987), among others.
Before stepping into the world of films and shows, the Mercy actor worked on Broadway productions in New York, where he was an understudy in Morning’s at Seven in 1980.
His other Broadway credits include I’m Not Rappaport and After the Fall and I’m Not Ready.
Ziskie is survived by his brother David and his wife Cynthia, along with his nephews Jesse, Brett and Austin and their six children.
The BBC Proms is returning to Bristol for one weekend
The chief executive of one of Bristol’s leading venues has said he is “very proud” to welcome back the “genre-defying” BBC Proms.
Alongside its traditional home at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Bristol Beacon is set to host a weekend of events from 22 to 24 August.
Sprawling out from the main concert hall to the building’s public spaces and beyond, the performances will encompass everything from a performance by the Danish National Vocal ensemble to a classical DJ set.
“Bristol is a really vibrant musical city,” said Simon Wales, Bristol Beacon’s chief executive.
Bristol Beacon
Mr Wales said the performances were intended to reflect the “adventurous” nature of the city
“There’s a huge amount going on here, and our Proms weekend is a really kind of genre-defying combination of all different types of music, from local artists to international,” he added.
It is the second year in a row that the Bristol Beacon has hosted the classical music festival, following its long-awaited reopening in November 2023.
“This is a venue, a resource, that Bristol should be really proud of,” Mr Wales said.
“It really is one of the best music spaces in the country, and the Proms means that we can show it off to its full extent.”
Giulia Spadafora
It is the second year in a row that the Bristol Beacon has hosted the classical music festival
As well as entertaining those in the venues themselves, many of the performances will also be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 – making them accessible to listeners worldwide.
“Last year in 2024, it was the first Proms [in Bristol], and so there was a lot for everyone to learn about how to make all the spaces work for the live broadcasts that were going out,” Mr Wales said.
“I think everyone will find it much easier this year. There’ll be a bit less last-minute problem-solving.”
‘Absolutely right’
While the events planned for the bank holiday weekend do include the traditional performances normally associated with the Proms, Mr Wales explained that the programme aimed to challenge preconceptions of classical music.
“We really are reflecting some of the diversity and adventure you find in the Bristol music scene,” he said.
“This is a civic venue, it’s owned by Bristol, and we as a charity are here to ensure that we welcome everyone to all types of music. So, this partnership with BBC Proms feels absolutely right.”
Although not working members of the Royal Family, sisters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie are still very much in the royal spotlight. As daughters of Prince Andrew, both Beatrice, 37, and Eugenie, 35, have had a difficult time lately as a result of scandals their father has been involved in.
Over the last few weeks, these issues have become worse for the royal sisters as a result of new claims made about the Duke of York in Andrew Lownie’s upcoming book ‘Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the Yorks’. According to the Daily Mail, one of the claims made in the book is that the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein reportedly once said that him and Andrew were “both serial sex addicts.” Lownie also quoted sources who made fresh allegations about Andrew’s conduct on royal tours, including claims that the prince took a number of women back to his Bangkok hotel room during the King of Thailand’s diamond jubilee celebrations in 2006.
While these allegations may have further damaged Andrew’ reputation, with his popularity having been low for years as a result of various scandals, it does not seem to have damaged the popularity of his daughters.
In a YouGov poll this month, both Beatrice and Eugenie have seen their popularity increase from May this year, with 39% of respondents having a positive view of the sisters.
Meanwhile, 25% of respondents had a negative view of the princesses.
For Princess Eugenie, 37% said they don’t know when asked about their opinions on her, while 36% of people said this about Beatrice.
While the sisters are believed to be close to their father, it is believed they are “utterly mortified” by some of the claims in the upcoming biography.
As reported by the Daily Mail, royal expert and biographer Ingrid Seward said Andrew’s daughters will be “finding this very difficult”.
She reportedly said: “I’m not surprised they haven’t come out and said anything in his defence. For his girls to show their solidarity publicly wouldn’t benefit them in any way.”
Freelance journalist based in Preston, where she works in broadcasting and local democracy reporting
An older family member recently showed me a video on Facebook. I pressed play and saw Donald Trump accusing India of violating the ceasefire agreement with Pakistan. If it weren’t so out of character, I would have been fooled too. After cross-referencing the video with news sources, it became clear to me that Trump had been a victim of AI false imaging. I explained this but my family member refused to believe me, insisting that it was real because it looked real. If I hadn’t been there to dissuade them, they would have forwarded it to 30 people.
On another occasion, a video surfaced on my TikTok homepage. It showed male migrants climbing off a boat, vlogging their arrival in the UK. “This dangerous journey, we survived it,” says one. “Now to the five-star Marriott hotel.” This video racked up almost 380,000 views in one month. The 22 videos posted from 9 to 13 June on this account, named migrantvlog, showed these men thanking Labour for “free” buffets, feeling “blessed” after being given £2,000 e-bikes for Deliveroo deliveries and burning the union flag.
Even if a man’s arm didn’t disappear midway through a video or a plate vanish into thin air, I could tell the content was AI-generated because of the blurred background and strange, simulation-like characters. But could the thousands of other people watching? Unfortunately, it seemed not many of them could. Racist and anti-immigration posts dominated the comment section.
I worry about this blurring of fact and fiction, and I see this unchecked capability of AI as incredibly dangerous. The Online Safety Act focuses on state-sponsored disinformation. But what happens when ordinary people spread videos like wildfire, believing them to be true? Last summer’s riots were fuelled by inflammatory AI visuals, with only sources such as Full Fact working to cut through the noise. I fear for less media-literate people who succumb to AI-generated falsehoods, and the heat this adds to the pan.
AI can help tell great stories – but who controls the narrative?
Rukanah Mogra
Leicester-based journalist working in sports media and digital communications with Harborough Town FC
The first time I dared use AI in my work, it was to help with a match report. I was on a tight deadline, tired, and my opening paragraph wasn’t working. I fed some notes into an AI tool, and surprisingly it suggested a headline and intro that actually clicked. It saved me time and got me unstuck – a relief when the clock was ticking.
But AI isn’t a magic wand. It can clean up clunky sentences and help cut down wordiness but it can’t chase sources, capture atmosphere or know when a story needs to shift direction. Those instinctive calls are still up to me.
What’s made AI especially useful is that it feels like a judgment-free editor. As a young freelance journalist, I don’t always have access to regular editorial support. Sharing an early draft with a real-life editor can feel exposing, especially when you’re still finding your voice. But ChatGPT doesn’t judge. It lets me experiment, refine awkward phrasing and build confidence before I hit send.
That said, I’m cautious. In journalism it’s easy to lean on tools that promise speed. But if AI starts shaping how stories are told – or worse, which stories are told – we risk losing the creativity, challenge and friction that make reporting meaningful. For now AI is an assistant. But it’s still up to us to set the direction.
Author’s note: I wrote the initial draft for the above piece myself, drawing on real experiences and my personal views. Then I used ChatGPT to help tighten the flow, suggest clearer phrasing and polish the style. I prompted the AI with requests such as: “Rewrite this in a natural, eloquent Guardian-style voice.” While AI gave me useful suggestions and saved time, the core ideas, voice and structure remain mine.
Does our environment pay the price of AI?
Frances Briggs
Manchester-based science website editor
AI is powerful. It’s an impressive technological advancement and I’d be burying my head in the sand if I believed otherwise. But I’m worried. I’m worried my job won’t exist in five years and I’m worried about its environmental impact.
Attempting to understand the actual impact of AI is difficult; the key players are keeping their statistics close to their chests. What I can see is that things are pretty bad. A recent research paper has spat out some ugly numbers. (It joins other papers that reveal a similar story.) The team considered just one case study: OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o model. Its annual energy consumption is about the same as that of 35,000 residential households. That’s approximately 450,000 KWh-1. Or 325 universities. Or 50 US inpatient hospitals.
That’s not all. There’s also the cooling of these supercomputer’s super-processors. Social media is swarming with terrifying numbers about the data-processing centres that power AI, and they’re not far off. It takes approximately 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water to cool ChatGPT-4o’s processing units, according to the latest estimates.
AI agents such as the free products Perplexity or Claude don’t actually seem to be consuming that much electricity. At most, the total global energy consumed yearly by AI is still less than 1%. But at the same time, data-processing centres in Ireland consumed 22% of the total electricity used by the whole country last year, more than urban housing. For context, there are 80 data-processing centres in Ireland. At present, there are more than 6,000 data-processing centres in the US alone. With the almost exponential uptake in AI since 2018, these numbers are likely to be completely different within a year.
In spite of all these scary statistics, I have to hope that things are not as worrying as they seem. Researchers are already working to meet demands as they explore more effective, economic processing units using nanoscale materials and more. And when you compare the first language-learning models from seven years ago to those created today, they have iterated well beyond their previous inefficiencies. Energy-hungry processing centres will get less greedy – experts are just trying to figure out how.
If AI is the matchmaker, will I know who I’m dating?
Saranka Maheswaran
London-based student who pursues journalism alongside her studies
“You need to get out there, meet lots of people, and date, date, date!” is the cliche I hear most often when speaking to people about being in my 20s. After a few questionable dates and lots of juicy gossip sessions with friends, a new fear emerged. What if they’re using AI to message me?
Overly formal responses, or conversation starters that sounded just a bit too perfect, were what first made me question messages I’d received. I am not completely against AI, and don’t think opposing it entirely is going to stop its development. But I do fear for our ability to make genuine connections with people.
Pre-existing insecurities about how you speak, write or present yourself make a generation with AI to hand an easy prey. It may begin with a simple prompt, asking ChatGPT to make a message sound more friendly, but it can also grow into a menacing relationship in which you become reliant on the technology and lose confidence in your own voice. The 2025 iteration of the annualMatch.com Singles in America study,producedin collaboration with the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, found that one in four singles in the US have used AI in dating.
Perhaps I am over cynical. But to those who are not so sure of how their personalities are coming across when dating or how they may be perceived in a message, they should have faith that if it is meant to be it will be – and if AI has a little too much say in how you communicate, you may just lose yourself.
I can see humans and AI learning together
Iman Khan
Final-year student at the University of Cambridge, specialising in social anthropology
The advancement of AI in education has made me question the idea of any claimed impartiality or neutrality of knowledge. The age of AI brings with it the need to scrutinise any information that comes our way.
This is truer than ever in our universities, where teaching and learningare increasingly assisted by AI. We cannot now isolate AI from education, but we must be ready to scrutinise the mechanisms and narratives that underpin the technology itself and shape its use.
One of my first encounters with AI in education was a request to ChatGPT to suggest reading resources for my course. I had assumed that the tool would play the role of an advanced search engine. But I quickly saw how ChatGPT’s tendency to hallucinate – to present false or misleading information as fact – makes it both a producer and disseminator of information, true or false.
I originally saw this as only a small barrier to the great possibilities of AI, not least because I knew it would improve over time. However, it has also become increasingly clear to me that ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI chatbots contribute to the spread of false information.
AI has rendered the relationship between humans and technology precarious. There is research to be done on the potential implications of AI for all the social sciences. We need to investigate how it is integrated into how we learn and how we live. I’d like to be involved in researching how we adapt to AI’s role as not only a tool but as an active and contributing participant in society.
London-based graduate specialising in architecture
In my first years at university, we were discouraged from utilising AI for our architecture essays and models, only using it to proofread our work. However, in my final year, it was introduced a lot more into our process for rendering and enhancing design work.
Our studio tutor gave us a mini-seminar on how to create AI prompts so that we could have detailed descriptions to put into architectural websites such as Visoid. This allowed us to put any models or drawings that we created into an AI prompt, asking it to create a concept design that suited our proposal. It gave my original ideas more complexity and a wide range of designs to play around with. While this was useful during the conceptual phase of our work, if the prompts were not accurate the AI would fail to deliver, so we learned how to be more strategic. I specifically used it after rendering my work as a final touch to create seamless final images.
During my first and second year, AI didn’t have as much impact on the design process of my work; I mainly used existing buildings for design inspiration. However, AI introduced new forms of innovation, which accelerated the speed with which we can push the boundaries of our work. It also made the creative process more experimental, opening up a new way of designing and visualising.
Now I have finished my degree, I’m intrigued to see how much more architecture can grow through using AI. Initially, I believed AI wasn’t the most creative way to design; now, I see it as a tool to improve our designs. It cannot replace human creativity, but it can enhance it.
Architectural practices always ask job applicants for skills in software that uses AI, and you can already see how it is being incorporated in designs and projects. It has always been important to keep up to date with the latest technological advancements in architecture – and AI has reaffirmed this.
Rajinikanth and Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Coolie continues to hold its ground strongly at the box office on its second day of release. After a rousing reception with Rs 65 crore on its opening day, the action thriller earned Rs 53.5 crore on its second day, a slight dip compared to Thursday’s numbers. Yet, the film registered an impressive 96.50 per cent occupancy in Chennai and over 80 per cent across several cities in Tamil Nadu.
On Friday, Sun Pictures announced that Coolie had minted over Rs 151 crore worldwide, emerging as the first Tamil film ever to make the record. The numbers also came from overseas collections where it earned more than $8.75 million. Here too, Coolie broke records to become the first Tamil film to achieve this massive feat.
Coolie tops the list of top day 1 grossers in the Tamil film industry, surpassing Vijay’s Leo which earned over Rs 140 crore.
War 2, starring Hritik Roshan and Jr NTR, had a good start in North America. The film earned USD 1.93 million by its second day. Rajinikanth’s Coolie, however, is leading. Coolie earned USD 4.67 million in the same period. Coolie has surpassed Kabali’s record. Both films are targeting different audiences. The overseas box office is seeing an exciting clash.
The much-awaited War 2, starring Hrithik Roshan, Jr NTR, and Kiara Advani, has opened to a solid start at the North American box office. Directed by Ayan Mukerji, the high-octane YRF Spy Universe entry registered USD 1.417 million on its first day, including Telugu collections of USD 605,000. The film had already built strong momentum with its premiere shows, raking in USD 925,000 (with Telugu contributing USD 500,000). By Day 2, till 9 a.m. IST, War 2 had added another USD 520,000, taking its cumulative to USD 1.93 million ( Rs 16.94 crore).This is an impressive debut for a Hindi-language action spectacle in North America, reaffirming Hrithik Roshan’s overseas pull and Jr NTR’s pan-India reach following RRR and Devara : Part 1. The Telugu version’s contribution highlights the film’s crossover appeal, aided by Jr NTR’s global fan base. Kiara Advani’s presence, coupled with Mukerji’s stylish vision, has also made the film a hot ticket among younger audiences.However, comparisons with Rajinikanth’s Coolie which released on the same day are inevitable. Lokesh Kanagaraj’s directorial, headlined by the Superstar alongside Nagarjuna, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Sathyaraj, Shruti Haasan, and Rachita Ram, stormed the North American box office with USD 3.04 million from premieres alone. It followed this with USD 95,000 on Day 1 and USD 720,000 by Day 2 morning, taking its total to USD 4.67 million within just 48 hours.The comparison shows Coolie clearly ahead of War 2 in terms of North American box office pace. While War 2 touched USD 1,93 million by its second day morning, Coolie had already breached the USD 4.5 million mark in the same timeframe, even going on to surpass Kabali’s nine-year-old record of USD 4.44 million lifetime. In comparison War 2 had more walk-ins over Coolie but Rajinikanth’s film earned more as it had a heavy advance booking in place. Industry observers believe the two films cater to slightly different audiences. Coolie thrives on Rajinikanth’s massive diaspora fanbase and Lokesh’s cult following, particularly in Tamil-speaking regions, while War 2 is a Hindi-Telugu bilingual juggernaut backed by the strength of YRF’s Spy Universe. The latter’s box office legs will depend on how well it performs across both North Indian and South Indian diaspora markets.Ultimately, War 2 has delivered a strong opening, but Rajinikanth’s Coolie still holds the crown for the biggest Tamil (and pan-Indian) storm at the North American box office this season. With both films in play, the overseas box office is witnessing one of its most exciting clashes in years.
“Get the latest news updates on Times of India, including reviews of the movie Coolie and War 2.”
A man has completed his first-ever Parkrun at the age of 91.
Michael Thorley finished the 5km (3.1-mile) run on Mersea Island, Essex, in just over an hour.
He met both his aims for the run – to finish the course and to not come last – and said he wanted to encourage people to have a go and make some more friends.
“If I don’t do it now, when am I going to do it? I’m getting older by the day,” he said.
Mr Thorley first signed up for Parkrun – a weekly, timed 5km event which takes place in more than 20 countries across the world – four years ago, just one year after undergoing heart surgery.
But he did not take part until a fortnight ago, clocking a time of 1:03:04.
“It’s a question of ‘Carpe Diem’ [‘seize the day’ in Latin],” he said.
He is not the oldest person to have taken part in Parkrun, however.
Harold Messam was a regular at a Parkrun in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, at the age of 95, while Colin Thorne marked his 101st birthday in style in January by completing his 217th Parkrun in Whangarei, New Zealand.
Mr Thorley’s wife Sarah, 69, is a regular Parkrunner, last week completing her 100th, with a time of 32:15.
She comes back “enthused” from the event, thanks to the “wonderful, friendly and encouraging people”.
She said: “The real stars are the people who set it all up; all the volunteers every week.
“Some people are here every week and they mightn’t even ever have done a run, but they’re here because they like it. It’s a really nice, friendly place.”
Race director Viv Fox said: “We’re just really lucky to have a core group of people who like coming here week in and week out and just enjoy the atmosphere.”
Wealthy women glugging wine? Check. A dark secret from the past exposed? Check! This Liane Moriarty-coded Aussie drama (which streamed on ITVX in 2023) tells the story of Simone (Nicole da Silva) who is about to publish her first novel, One Night, which is based on a devastating event that happened 20 years earlier. But when her two estranged friends Tess (Jodie Whittaker) and Hat (Yael Stone) re-enter her life, it becomes clear that they were a bigger part of the story than she was. HR
24 Hours That Changed the World
8.10pm, Channel 4
Why was Japan so reluctant to surrender at the end of the second world war? This documentary explores the second half of 1945 – the European war was over, nuclear bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but Japan fought on. Factors included military “honour” and Emperor Hirohito’s status as an apparently infallible living god. Phil Harrison
Beck
9pm, BBC Four
The Beck team, weakened by their staff being suspended from work or traumatised by it, look into the case of a sexist podcaster whose throat has been cut. The denouement, with the instability of Vilhelm (Valter Skarsgård) ready to cause further calamity, is super-tense. Jack Seale
The Count of Monte Cristo
9pm, U&Drama
The epic tale of revenge continues with Dantès (Sam Claflin) finally escaping prison. He befriends a fellow fugitive who helps him find the hidden treasure that Abbé Faria (Jeremy Irons) told him about. Before that, the most precious item Dantès could discover is a razor to get rid of that ridiculous beard. HR
Annika
9.10pm, BBC One
Letting Nicola Walker address the camera as Scotland-based detective Annika Stranhed still makes this crime drama feel fresh and alive. Her musings here on Jekyll and Hyde lead us into the case of a slain millionaire, but the real drama is in Annika’s odd work/family unit: the interplay between Walker and Jamie Sives as DS Michael McAndrews is beautifully brittle. JS
Griff’s Great American South
9.10pm, Channel 4
Griff Rhys Jones continues his rollicking journey and this week ends up in Birmingham, Alabama – considered the “true” deep south and which, according to Jones, is the state that Americans least want to visit. But a rise in hi-tech organisations means that more people are moving there. HR
Film choice
Night Always Comes, out now, Netflix
Money matters … Night Always Comes on Netflix. Photograph: Allyson Riggs/Netflix
Musician/author Willy Vlautin’s modern noir novel is brought to the screen in gritty style by two alumni of The Crown – director Benjamin Caron and lead Vanessa Kirby – though the subject matter couldn’t be more different. Set over a taut 24 hours, it follows Kirby’s Lynette as she races around the city to find the $25,000 needed to buy her home before she, her brother and feckless mother are evicted. A drip-feed of revelations about her traumatic past life accompany the desperate quest, with Kirby superb as a woman torn between what she wants and what she needs. Simon Wardell
Ill Met By Moonlight, 3pm, U&Yesterday
The great British partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was nearing its end in 1957 when they produced this fact-based second world war drama. It isn’t up there with their many classics (Powell himself was particularly scathing about it) but there’s a surprising jollity to its story of a mission to kidnap a German general (Marius Goring) in 1944 Crete and spirit him off the island. Dirk Bogarde is the nonchalant leader of the operation, Maj “Paddy” Leigh Fermor, while the local resistance are a fun-loving bunch despite the occupation. SW
Hounds, 10.30pm, BBC Four
Life-changing errors … Hounds on BBC Four. Photograph: Collection Christophel/Alamy
In a Casablanca far from the tourist traps, petty criminal Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) and his as-yet untainted son Isaam (Ayoub Elaid) are hired by Hassan’s boss to abduct a man. Unfortunately, the victim suffocates in their van, so they set off across the city in an error-strewn attempt to dispose of the body before daylight. Kamal Lazraq’s neorealist Cannes winner offers a raw but sometimes comic closeup on the underbelly of Moroccan society, while the shifts in the father-son relationship give the film dramatic heft, despite the leads being nonprofessional. SW
Live sport
Premier League Football: Aston Villa v Newcastle, 11am, TNT Sport 1 Followed by Wolves v Man City at 5pm on Sky Sports Main Event.
Championship Football: Wrexham v West Brom, noon, ITV1 From StōK Racecourse.
Athletics: Diamond League Silesia, 3pm, BBC Two The 12th meeting, from Silesian Stadium in Chorzów, Poland.
When ‘Border’ actor Sunny Deol once opened up about his career choices, he made a point that still resonates today. Speaking at the trailer launch of ‘Blank’ in 2019, Sunny was asked about the rising trend of patriotic films in Bollywood. His reply was as candid as it was heartfelt. “First and foremost, are we patriotic or not? Do we love our mother, do we love our country? That is most important. It should not be taken like some kind of saleable thing,” he said, underlining that for him, cinema was never about chasing market trends.
‘Some of the films I’ve done are patriotic in nature’
Sunny reflected on his filmography, where characters were often strong, upright, and fighting for something larger than themselves—values he connected to deeply on a personal level. Border, Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, and 23rd March 1931: Shaheed weren’t made to capitalize on patriotic sentiment, he explained, but because those stories spoke to his own beliefs. “That is my nature too. I am not the kind of person who gives up,” he remarked.He also noted how times had changed, pointing out that filmmaking had become increasingly driven by marketing cycles. “Some of the films I’ve done are patriotic in nature and people somehow connect with me more. It was never a saleable thing which we did. But now the whole world is changing, everything has become marketing,” he said. His words reflected not just an actor’s perspective, but also a concern about how stories were being packaged for the audience.
‘Border 2‘ Independence Day poster
Cut to the present, and Sunny Deol is once again set to carry the torch of patriotism with Border 2. On India’s 79th Independence Day, the makers unveiled the first poster of the highly anticipated war drama, scheduled for release on January 22, 2026, just ahead of Republic Day.
Sunny Deol’s Fierce Return In ‘Border 2’ Unveiled
“Get the latest news updates on Times of India, including reviews of the movie Coolie and War 2.”
It is a much remarked phenomenon that two of the most important British bands since the Beatles – The Smiths and Oasis – were almost entirely Manchester-Irish.
Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr, whose parents were from Athy, Co Kildare, told The Irish Times some years ago: “I’ve never described myself as British or English. I’m either Mancunian or Mancunian Irish – that is a culture and a nationality that is a thing unto itself.”
Oasis, too, come from a working-class Irish background. Along with the Gallagher brothers, original members Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Tony McCarroll all have Irish roots.
The Gallaghers’ father Tommy was from Duleek, Co Meath; their mother Peggy Sweeney from Charlestown, Co Mayo, a place synonymous with mass Irish emigration.
Peggy was one of 11 children and emigrated to Manchester at the age of 18 in 1961 sending back £1 a week to help her family. Many of the Sweeney family moved to Manchester – five of Peggy’s sisters lived nearby.
Tommy Gallagher worked as a builder in Manchester and moonlighted as a country and western DJ at the Carousel Club. Big Tom MacBride of Big Tom and the Mainliners fame remembers attending the club and seeing Noel and Liam there. “They were only skitters of gossons at the time.”
Overseas faithful go the extra mile to relive childhood memories of Britpop brothers. Credit: Dan Dennison
When the Gallagher brothers were young, their summers were spent in either Charlestown or Duleek. Noel Gallagher told Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show in 1996 that his mother used “to drag us religiously by the earhole for six weeks because we had never seen the likes of nettles. We run around the fields throwing things at cows. She was determined to introduce us to Irish culture.”
[ Being the sons of emigrants helped Oasis Opens in new window ]
It was a bit of a culture shock but “we grew to love it and we still love it,” he added.
For their parents, the summers provided an antidote to the concrete jungle they grew up in.
Family portrait of the Gallagher family in the mid 1970’s, from left to right Noel, Paul, Liam and mum Peggy Gallagher. Photograph: Dan Callister/ Liaison via Getty Images
Tommy Gallagher bought Noel his first guitar and brought him to Maine Road to see Manchester City, but Noel has no time for him.
Peggy later left Tommy and recalled years after: “I left him a knife, a fork, and a spoon. And I think I left him too much.”
She and her children left the family home in Burnage for a council flat. She took several jobs to provide for her three boys, Noel, Liam and Paul and kept the family together saying in later years: “We’re Irish Catholics and we’re that kind of family.”
Tommy became completely estranged from his family. In one notorious incident at the height of the band’s fame in March 1996, he turned up at Dublin’s Westbury Hotel where his sons were staying.
He arrived in the bar at 2am and ended up in a screaming match with Liam. Tommy had to be escorted off the premises.
Noel said of his father: “As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t got a father. He’s not a father to me, y’know? I don’t respect him in any way whatsoever.”
Oasis playing in New York in 1994. Photograph: Steve Eichner/ WireImage via Getty Images
Tommy would continue to pontificate on his estranged sons saying that reports of him being a bad father were exaggerated. He even held out hope of a public reconciliation with his sons, but it never came.
The question of Oasis’ links with Co Meath came up, inevitably, at a press conference to announce their gig at Slane Castle in 2009. Noel Gallagher recalled that approximately 80 relatives turned up to the band’s earlier Slane gig in 1995 when they played support to REM.
Both Tommy and Peggy Gallagher are still alive.
Peggy’s family home, which she later used for holidays, was sold last year for €300,000. Locals said Mrs Gallagher was no longer able to come over to the house on her own and there was no one locally to look after her any more.
As a Manchester City fan, Noel was asked last year about the club’s midfielder Phil Foden.
Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher at a photoshoot in a hotel in Tokyo, September 1994. Photograph: Koh Hasebe/ Shinko Music/ Getty Images
“Do you care how he plays for England in the Euros this summer?” asked the interviewer.
“I’m not an England fan, I’m Irish,” Gallagher replied. “Good night!”
