Sandra Harris Writes

  WHEN THEY SEE US. (2019) A NETFLIX TRUE CRIME DRAMA SERIES WRITTEN, CREATED AND DIRECTED BY AVA DUVERNAY. STARRING FELICITY HUFFMAN, VERA FARMIGA, FAMKE JANNSEN AND JOHN LEGUIZAMO. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. © This is a superb four-part true crime/drama mini-series, but it’s the most harrowing thing I’ve ever seen on Netflix, and all the more harrowing for its all being true, and the fact that the stuff that happens to the young boys in it all actually happened. And, if it’s harrowing to watch, how much worse must it be to have actually lived through all this horrible stuff. Let me tell you the story. On the night of April 19 th , 1989 (can you remember where you were and what you were doing in April of that year, just to put the timeframe into context?), a young white woman, an investment banker called Patricia Meili, went for a run late in the evening in New York’s famous Central Park. Somewhere along the way, she was accosted, raped, beaten severely and left for dead in a bu

  THE PEOPLE VS. OJ SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. (2016) BASED ON JEFFREY TOOBIN’S 1997 BOOK, THE RUN OF HIS LIFE: THE PEOPLE VS. OJ SIMPSON. STARRING CUBA GOODING JR., DAVID SCHWIMMER, JOHN TRAVOLTA, NATHAN LANE, SARAH PAULSON, STERLING K. BROWN, KENNETH CHOI AND COURTNEY B. VANCE. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. © I absolutely loved this gripping ten-episode series, only on Netflix until February 28 th , 2022, which forms the first season of true crime anthology series, AMERICAN CRIME STORY. The writing is brilliant, the acting top-notch and the pacing wonderful. The series is based on the real-life murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman by acclaimed NFL (football) player and sometimes-actor, Orenthal James Simpson, better known to the public as OJ ‘The Juice’ Simpson. OJ was Nicole’s ex-husband, with whom he had two children, Sydney and Justin, and Ronald Goldman was Nicole's then boyfriend. After a widely televised low-speed car chase through Los Angeles (‘The J

  IN PRAISE OF BACON, AND A GOOD DAY… BUT MOSTLY BACON. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Every now and then, you get a lovely day, don’t you? One that shuts your complaining trap for five minutes, lol, and makes you realise how lucky you actually are to be alive. Today was one such day. I had a nice walk in the sunshine with my son, who was off school for an appointment, which got cancelled and left us with some unexpected free time. I love it when that happens, when something just unexpectedly frees you up like that!   I took him for a haircut after we’d done our errands and shopping and such, and, while he was chatting away about football to his barber, I had a bizarre but highly enjoyable conversation with a total stranger, a college student who lives locally. It turns out that this young man, not a native Dubliner, hails from the same place where my mother’s family comes from. I named him all the places where my different aunties lived, he knew them all and furthermore informed me that

  VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN IRELAND… WHEN WILL IT END? BY SANDRA HARRIS. © About three weeks ago, a beautiful young school teacher called Aisling Murphy was brutally murdered in Tullamore, while going for a run in the afternoon. It was broad daylight. A man came out of nowhere and strangled her. She was in her early twenties, loved her job as a primary school teacher (and the kids loved her) and was well liked in her community, not to mention loved by her family and boyfriend. She loved playing her traditional music at festivals with her fellow musicians. She seemed like a good, decent person who would have gone on to achieve worthwhile things and contribute something to the world. Last weekend in Cork, a woman was hit in the face and head and left with a broken jaw while walking home alone late at night. A boy of thirteen has been identified as a person of interest in the case. I don’t even know where to begin talking about what’s wrong with this sentence, except to ask the fo

                      NEVER MIND VIOLENCE IN FOOTBALL, WHAT ABOUT VIOLENT FOOTBALLERS? BY SANDRA HARRIS. © ‘My teenage son, who's also autistic, adores Premier League football and the Champions League as well. Understandably for someone as young and impressionable, these men are his heroes, his idols. But more and more of them are getting in trouble for the rape and battery of women. Just today, one of his favourite Manchester United players is on the front pages of the newspapers for rape and assault. I'll tell you something for nothing, it's getting very hard to teach a boy of today to respect women and never be violent to them when the men who should be his examples and role models behave the way they do.’ Above is a post I put up on Facebook yesterday morning after it was made known that Man. Utd forward Mason Greenwood had been arrested by the English police for the alleged rape and assault of a woman. A lot of the comments on the post were in support of my argumen