The Local Way: New Website, New Campaign

From searching for the best baguette in Paris to discovering the perfect cup of coffee in NYC, THE LOCAL WAY is a video series that offers its audience a glimpse into a city’s local life. For the past two years, the producers of THE LOCAL WAY have shot hundreds of hours of HD footage in Dublin, NYC, Paris, and Los Angeles. Each episode, hosted by local experts, features one aspect of a city – “NYC Cocktail Culture” and “Dublin’s Music Scene” providing travellers with tips and insights of the people and places they will encounter on a visit.

What would you do if you only had a year to live?

I was on radio and TV recently, talking about the low life expectancy associated with sufferers of Fanconi anaemia, as well as my memoir of living with the disease, Two in a Million, and the short film based on the book, Two Suitcases. I chatted to Matt Cooper on Today FM and Dave Fanning, filling in for Ryan Tubridy, on 2FM. I also talked to Sybil Mulcahy and Martin King on TV3′s The Morning Show.

Living with Illness – Interview in Irish Independent

“I know my own doctors said that reading the memoir was of help to them in terms of how they approach patients. They said it gave them insight into the patient experience. I think the arts can help inform what doctors do in that sense.”

Ben’s Books – Great Reads, Great Prices!

You can buy my memoir and my poetry collection here for only €8, including free shipping to anywhere in the world. And the guide to Dublin I edited with Katherine Farmar is now only €5! Don’t miss out on this opportunity – if you don’t buy my books I’ll have to burn them, and book-burning is a sin! All copies are signed – once I make it big, they’ll be worth millions!

Blood and Ink – New Piece on ArtsandHealth.ie

“Writing was a means of escaping the pain of my condition by imagining and creating other realities. It was also a method of explaining my illness to myself, by documenting experiences, thoughts and emotions, and trying to build something meaningful from them.”

Read the story of Two Suitcases and more!

Two Suitcases – New Film Based on Two in a Million

Two Suitcases is an innovative and award-winning new short film, written and directed by Emma Eager and Ben Murnane. Made with the involvement of teens with chronic illness, the film describes (in 11 minutes) the journey of Ben’s bone marrow transplant and recovery, combining a myriad of storytelling methods, including live action, animation, puppetry, home movie footage, and original music.

Dublin: The Local Way

The Local Way is an exciting new series of video guides to cities around the world! The Dublin series is based in part on the guide to Dublin I wrote with Katherine Farmar. What’s more, Katherine and I are the presenters of the show! Check out some videos in the series, Dublin: The Local Way, here. More to follow!

Feather Silence: Poems by Ben Murnane – Now Available

Emotionally direct, with ‘the ordinariness/all hearts/demand’, these poems are fascinating documents in a remarkable journey of survival, testaments in every line to a brave, unbowed, enduring heart—anchored in the ordinary world, yet not afraid to dream.

- Eamon Grennan

The Blood Line

Had a fun experience the other week, got my acting on to do a little interview for this shortfilm about donating blood and where donated blood ends up (in me – as the case may be!). It’s a little promo for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, filmed by some Masters students at Independent Colleges in Dublin. Look – it’s me standing on a bridge in the sun! And getting on the Luas, which in real life I never get anywhere at all! That’s the magic of the movies for you.

Perilous Masters

Then, in some wild act of folly, last September I decided to start studying a one-year full-time Masters in Popular Literature at Trinity College. I am enjoying the course – we get to read porn and comics! – and I do like moving between the two worlds of work and study. But it takes time for extracurricular activities – i.e. updating this site and continuing my own projects – greedily away.