When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

IRISH EXAMINER
The Irish Examiner is a national daily newspaper based in the the city of Cork, southwest Ireland. Founded in 1841, the paper was initially known as The Cork Examiner, then as The Examiner, before taking its current name. With beginnings reporting news in English for its local following in the county of Munster, its reader base has since expanded internationally.
Photo of U.S. President Joe Biden during the North America's Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, USA.
eyes on the U.S.
Riley Sparks

World Rolls Eyes At “Nonno” Biden’s Reelection Run

After Joe Biden announced he's running for a second term as U.S. president this week, newspapers around the world began to brace for a rematch of two rather old men.

It was America's "worst-kept secret": U.S. President Joe Biden's announcement this week that he would seek re-election came as no surprise. Still, there was plenty to say around the world about the president officially joining the race for a second term.

Many commentators focused on the president’s (rising) age and (sinking) popularity, with some questioning the Democratic party’s decision to stick with “old, boring and moderate” Biden instead of a more progressive candidate.

To receive Eyes on U.S. each week in your inbox, sign up here.

At 80, Biden is the country’s oldest-ever incumbent president, and if re-elected would be 86 by the end of his second term.

Watch VideoShow less
Image of Joe Biden with a Pipe band laughing together.
eyes on the U.S.
Shaun Lavelle

When Joe Biden Came To My Hometown, And Why He May Be The Last Irish President

President Biden finishes his much-publicized trip to Ireland today in my tiny hometown. We're enjoying the pomp, but it's a reminder that the glory days of Irish America are well and truly gone.

-Essay-

BALLINA —U.S. President Joe Biden has come to visit my hometown of Ballina — population of just over 10,000. To put that in perspective, the press pack for his four-day visit to Ireland is around 1,000 people, or one-tenth of the town’s population.

On Thursday, the day before Biden's arrival, during a normally peaceful countryside walk, I saw the bizarre image of three large U.S. army helicopters landing on the football pitch of my old high school. They’re much bigger and even louder than they seem on television. They’re about 20 meters in length, and blowback from the choppers’ blades caused trees to bend almost to the point of snapping.

To receive Eyes on U.S. each week in your inbox, sign up here.

The President himself wasn’t on board. He was still in Dublin, so this was presumably just part of the security detail's advance planning. Pray for those trees when the whole cavalcade actually arrives.

So, what is one of the most powerful people in the world doing in a small town in remote county Mayo, in the west of Ireland — a town that had previously been best known for its salmon festival?

Watch VideoShow less
Still around ... for now?
EL PAIS
Benjamin Witte

Is This The Final Chapter For World's Iconic Bookshops?

From Madrid to Cork to Shanghai, some of the most revered old bookshops are closing doors as they face pressure from big chains and e-readers. But our bookworm writer found some small signs of hope.

-Essay-

PARIS — A week or so before Christmas, I decided to take advantage of a quick in-and-out visit to Paris to visit one of the city's most iconic expat establishments: The Shakespeare and Company bookstore in the Latin Quarter.

A stormy night had just fallen and the temps weren't too far above freezing as I trudged across the Seine, through wind and rain, to where I expected to find the famous English-language gathering spot. But when I got there, the bookshop — famous among other things for cameos in films like Before Sunset (2004) and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011) — was nowhere to be found.

That's when it occurred to me that the venerable old locale had perhaps closed down. "Noooo," I lamented. "Say it ain't so." But yes, surely I read something to that effect, I thought. Or did I? Befuddled and very cold, I ducked under an awning and, with numb fingers, fumbled around in my pocket for my phone.

A homeless man glanced at me sideways as I punched the words "Shakespeare and Company" onto the wet screen and then … Yes, there it was, about a block east of my current location, according to Google Maps. Duh. Slinking back into the rain, my collar turned up, I ventured on and, within a few minutes, found myself at last in front of the bookshop — along with about 20 other people waiting in line for a chance to enter.

Too wet and chilled to wait (the other would-be customers had umbrellas), I aborted my mission and headed back across the river to the warmth and shelter of the Châtelet metro station, but with the satisfaction that all was right again with the world. Yes, I thought, at least in this one important case, Amazon, digital reader devices, big-box retailers like Barnes & Noble and all the other shifting currents of our modern world didn't conspire to kill yet another classic bookshop.

Closing shop

But maybe it's just a matter of time, as Spain's El País reminded me this week. In the historic center of Madrid, I was sad to discover, one of the city's oldest and most beloved bookshops — Nicolás Moya Librería Médica — will soon be shutting its doors after more than 150 years.

Established in 1862 and located just a few meters from the Puerta del Sol, the family-owned store specializes in books on medicine, agriculture, veterinary sciences, and navigation. Its founder, Nicolás Moya (born in 1838) wasn't even an adult yet when he first began selling medical texts to students at a nearby training school for surgeons. Later the shop would become a favorite haunt for a number of well-known doctors, including Nobel Prize-winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), with whom Moya became friends.

All that for what?

But all these years later, the Moya family now says they can no longer make ends meet. "And all that for what? So they can put in a Zara, a McDonald's, or one of these other establishments that eat everything up," Salvador García, a neighbor, told El País. "It's so sad. I've bought a ton of books here since I was a student."

Sadly, the demise of the Nicolás Moya shop is part of a well-documented and globe-spanning trend, as independent booksellers across the globe struggle to compete with online retailers and large chains.

Just over two years ago, a beloved bookshop in Cork City, Ireland — Liam Ruiséal's — celebrated its centennial. A year after that, however, the Ruiséal family announced that they would be closing their doors, the Irish Examiner reported. "The recent economic downturn was also a contributing factor," according to a statement by the family. "As a family business, with over 100 years' history in Cork City, it was a difficult and emotional decision for us."

Photo: William Murphy

On the other side of the planet, the Tilley family in Launceston, Tasmania, made a similarly "heartbreaking" decision in early 2017 when they decided to shutter the more than 170-year-old Birchalls, Australia's longest surviving bookshop, according to the local paper The Examiner.

And exactly one year later, the "best-known liberal" bookshop in Shanghai, the Jifeng Bookstore, announced that it, too, would be closing its doors, albeit due to political rather than economic pressures, the South China Morning Post reported last year.

The authorities are more concerned about political stability.

"Jifeng's impending closure was in line with a series of moves by the Chinese authorities to tighten ideological control," a source told the Hong Kong-based, English-language newspaper. "The authorities are more concerned about political stability," he said. "They don't want to see freer social or cultural events."

Happy endings

More recently still, the last surviving used bookstore in New York City's Upper West Side, Westsider Books, gave word that it would also soon close, much to the chagrin of neighbors and employees. "It's a big surprise," shop worker David told the West Side Rag in early January. "Though on the other hand, I'm not surprised. Everyone's having trouble, even Barnes & Noble."

David is right — if that's any solace: Big chain booksellers like Barnes & Noble, which contributed to so many independent shops going belly up (at least in the United States), are also "floundering" these days, the New York Times reported last year. Earlier in the decade, one of Barnes & Noble's biggest competitors, Border's Books, officially went bust.

But taking things back to the Upper West Side: Here, I'm happy to say, is a bit of good news to report. Like my confusion over the fate of Shakespeare and Company in Paris, it turns out that there's a twist to the story of Westsider Books (which, coincidentally, had its own Woody-Allen-film cameo — in Fading Gigolo, 2013).

Thanks to a last-minute fundraising campaign that reached the do-or-die goal of $50,000, the neighborhood fixture will be staying put. It's "the ultimate comeback story," the West Side Rag reported. How's that for poetic justice?

Artist's impression of the upcoming Alzheimer Village in Dax
Countries
Benjamin Witte

The 'Alzheimer Village' Treatment Model Starts To Take Root

Like an elaborate film set, everything about the place may look real — like a typical 1950s town square, for example, or a medieval "bastide" (fortified village). And there are certainly some real aspects to it. The cinema really does show films. The coffee shop really does serve hot drinks.

But it's also a carefully crafted illusion, designed specifically for people who (like Jim Carrey's character in the popular 1998 film The Truman Show) may not be able to tell the difference. That's because the residents suffer from Alzheimer's and others forms of dementia. And the faux "towns' they inhabit are actually treatment centers, designed as an alternative to the more institutional, hospital-like facilities typically used to treat such patients.

These "dementia villages," as they're known, are still few and far between, but the treatment model is catching on, with new projects opening or in the planning stages in a number of different countries. In Dax, a city in southwestern France, a 120-patient village is set to open in late 2019, the French daily Le Monde reports. The facility is expected to cost some 28 million euros to build, plus an additional 7 million euros per year to operate. It is the first such project in France, and will include a supermarket, hair salon, brewery, restaurant and libraries, all around a medieval-style central square.

Landscaping and architectural design plans for Dax village — Photo: NORD Architects Copenhagen via Instagram

The idea, says Professor Jean-Francois Dartiges, neurologist and epidemiologist at CHU Pellegrin in Bordeaux, is that residents will be able to go about their daily activities as normally as possible. "They can continue participating in their social lives," he says.

The Dax "village" takes its inspiration from a similar treatment center in Weesp, Holland, just outside of Amsterdam. The De Hogeweyk home, as it's known, opened in late 2009 and has approximately 152 residents. "People suffering from senile dementia are capable of "operating" quite normally when they are in a normal environment," De Hogeweyk's manager, Jannette Spiering, told Le Monde back in 2013.

It uses tangible prompts from people's pasts.

Unlike the Dutch center, the French facility will also include a research center. By living amongst its residents, researchers will use a comparative approach to measure the impact this kind of treatment model has on dementia patients.

A dementia village in Wiedlisbach, in the Swiss canton of Bern, also followed the De Hogeweyk model, as did a recently opened facility in County Limerick, in Ireland, the Irish Examiner reports. Plans are underway to build a similar center in British Columbia, according to the Canadian daily National Post. And in San Diego, California, a 1950s-themed dementia facility — complete with a 1959 Ford Thunderbird — opened its doors just this past April. Glenner Town Square, as it's known, was built in a warehouse and, unlike its European counterparts, is only open during the day.

"It's very therapeutic for people with dementia," Lisa Tyburski, the facility's director of business development, told the Daily Mail. "Basically what it does is it uses tangible prompts from people's past to bring out memories that are still in there."