The best exam essay I read this year was an angry – and refreshingly human – one
There’s a fatuous assumption that linking thinking and writing is some sort of inefficiency
Belfastmen - An Intimate History of Life Before Gay Liberation: Defiance, tenderness and interrupted clandestine encounters
Focus on individual tales the great strength of this book, as author details back stories and afterlives of those on trial and the consequences of exposure
A hurling club in Buenos Aires will not help answer the question of why Irish people leave
Latest ‘diaspora strategy’ sidesteps reality of emigration and how difficult it is to come home
War games in the Strait of Hormuz and debates over nuclear energy – it’s the 1970s again
Similar warnings were being aired then as now over Ireland’s vulnerability to an oil crisis
There is still little clear indication of where Sinn Féin is going
There is nothing new in the party’s apparent uncertainty over where to place itself
The 1926 census has drawn me into a web of wonder
Often puzzles are thrown up; why was John’s age listed as 28 when he was, according to other data, 33?
When Charles Haughey refused to meet the ‘Nine Frozen Arses’ protesters
During an era of social media, sinister orchestration and fragmented politics, a path to resolution looks doubtful
Fawning focus on the Artemis II mission reveals a disturbing arrogance
We should leave the moon alone
This German thinker sounded an alarm about the EU and the US – are we ready to listen?
Jürgen Habermas insisted that ‘rearmament is the existential self-assertion of an EU that can no longer count on the protection of the US’
50 years after motorists camped overnight for petrol, Ireland is still a slave to oil
The current crisis highlights the sad longevity of the toxic combination of hubris, power and corruption the control of oil has generated
Dolores Keane’s honesty about her demons was as piercing as her singing
Being the custodian of so much was no easy path, but she knew she could not stop singing
Real legacy of Elvis may be contested, but his story recalls a better America
It is the vitality and soulfulness of Elvis on stage that lingers in Baz Luhrmann’s film, a powerful antidote to the usual preoccupation with his private demons
Donald Trump’s pressure-cooker approach to Iran was always going to explode
It suits Iranian militants to prolong confrontation by drawing their enemies into protracted regional conflicts
Fianna Fáil’s founding aims haven’t aged well for the party
Unity, a social system offering equal opportunities and fair distribution of land were among them
Few predicted just how deep AI’s race to the bottom would go
ChatGPT is the scourge of educationalists and others who care about research, writing, intellectual autonomy, truth and accuracy