Fintan O’Toole: Baffling Government decision to tear up crisis plan has three bad effectsGovernment adopted system for handling emergencies in 2017 but has ignored itTue Apr 28 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Donald Trump has destroyed the country he promised to make great againThe world has loved, hated and envied the US. Now, for the first time, we pity itSat Apr 25 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: FF and FG have produced a colouring book for adultsPost-coronavirus era will demand a radicalism the old parties are not trained forTue Apr 21 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Even before Covid-19, we feared an impending disasterThe new government will have to dispel the despair that lingers from the last decadeSat Apr 18 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: A preventable tragedy is unfolding in care homesIt is not too late but the Government must act now to save care workersTue Apr 14 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Coronavirus has exposed the myth of British exceptionalismJohnson’s first response was at odds with rest of world but virus does not respect his delusions of national characterSat Apr 11 2020 - 12:45
Fintan O’Toole: After Covid-19 we will love – and detest – our devices moreTechnology has made this plague different from anything humanity has known beforeSat Apr 11 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: Crisis management is what the State does bestImmense task of reconstruction will demand much more than frantic improvisationTue Apr 07 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Earth has a toxic virus – usThe coronavirus crisis reminds us we must find a way not to kill the host we inhabitSat Apr 04 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole on Tim Robinson: ‘One of the greatest writers of lands’A poetic genius who marvellously mapped the Burren, Connemara and Aran IslandsFri Apr 03 2020 - 17:12
Fintan O’Toole: We can’t help giving meaning to this absurd virusCovid-19 is cruelly capricious but human beings need to attach significance to sufferingTue Mar 31 2020 - 09:34
Fintan O’Toole: We are learning how much we rely on low-paid workersThe coronavirus pandemic exposes that those who keep us alive are deeply undervaluedSat Mar 28 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: We must not allow coronavirus pandemic to rob us of griefThere is no such thing as mass death – people die one by one and each is uniqueTue Mar 24 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Coronavirus has made all familiar things strangeIt should not take something as terrible as this to awake us to life’s inherent fragilitySat Mar 21 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Coronavirus has ended the era of political riskWho needs a politics of disruption when Covid-19 is disrupting the world?Tue Mar 17 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: ‘The withering god of fever swoops on us’Artists have always sought to find meaning in pandemics, plagues and mass infectionsSat Mar 14 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: None of us is safe from virus unless all of us are safeCovid-19 has shaken us out of complacent delusion that health is a private concernTue Mar 10 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Covid-19 has come to tell us that we are not the kings of the worldNew coronavirus has exposed the great weakness within the human triumphSat Mar 07 2020 - 06:00
Shakespeare in a Divided America: A miraculous achievementReview: James Shapiro has fashioned an illuminating, compulsively readable historySat Mar 07 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland is now an upside down Celtic Tiger worldPublic policy is still dominated by fear of a return of Celtic Tiger hubris. But 2020 is not like 2002Tue Mar 03 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Bernie Sanders’s former limitation is now his great strengthSanders is an astute, effective politician who understands power and can achieve the impossibleSat Feb 29 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: If murderous dissidents are wrong, so was Provisional IRASinn Féin has to stop legitimising terrorTue Feb 25 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Irish voters' actions are not populist – just sensibleEven the business community recognises our public sector is currently too smallSat Feb 22 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Post-election urgency needed as voters run out of patienceTime not on side of electorate in terms of housing and healthTue Feb 18 2020 - 08:17
Fintan O’Toole: The enigma of Mary Lou McDonaldThe Sinn Féin leader has a talent for intimacy, but she remains utterly mysteriousSat Feb 15 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: Voters have taken a bold gamble on normalityBehind the election’s radical result is a desire to make the Irish system ordinaryTue Feb 11 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Seismic election result has changed Irish political landscapeIt may be days before the allocation of Dáil seats is complete but we know this: the old political system is finishedSun Feb 09 2020 - 14:13
Fintan O’Toole: The US Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump IncThe acquittal of Donald Trump without a real trial puts the US on the road to autocracySat Feb 08 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: It is time for Sinn Féin to come in from the coldA real democratic alternative has to include the biggest party of radical changeTue Feb 04 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: ‘Brexternity of endless uncertainty’ starts todayBrexit as advertised – all the benefits of being in the EU, none of the costs – was a fantasyFri Jan 31 2020 - 23:17
Fintan O’Toole: It is politically easier to keep spending on bad policies than to shift to good onesPolitical parties must be honest about what it takes to get real fiscal prudenceTue Jan 28 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: The terms of Brexit hold a great ironyIssue of a populist project without a people, nationalist project without a nation remainsSun Jan 26 2020 - 17:07
Fintan O'Toole: Safety-first politics has had its dayWe have devised the most risk-averse political system in the democratic world. But more of the same is no longer the safe betTue Jan 21 2020 - 11:59
Fintan O’Toole: Ten big questions for incoming politiciansIn choosing a government, we should think of the major challenges between now and 2025Sat Jan 18 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Will Election 2020 be another story of cynical politics and patronage?Our politicians think we are not interested in long-term policies. The election will test if their cynicism is justifiedTue Jan 14 2020 - 08:10
Fintan O'Toole: Why do we fear the ghosts of dead policemen?Are Ireland’s wars truly over? For some people, there is still a hierarchy of victimsSat Jan 11 2020 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Trump administration weaponises its talent for lyingFalse claim of involvement in 9/11 attacks used to justify Suleimani assassinationTue Jan 07 2020 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Five big questions for the coming decadeCan we decarbonise the global economy? Will democracy die? Could Ireland unite?Sat Jan 04 2020 - 06:00
Recalling the Celtic Tiger: Insightful overview of the excitement and excessBook review: Fintan O'Toole on the effects, symptoms and consequences of Ireland’s economic boomSat Jan 04 2020 - 00:00
Fintan O’Toole: Varadkar’s vacuous slogan reveals mean streakThe Taoiseach’s campaign for the election will revive his catchphrase about ‘people who get up early in the morning’Tue Dec 31 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: 2019 was a bit like Game of Thrones – lots of action, no climaxYear in Review: 2019 was a year of lots of extraordinary activity but not much movementSat Dec 28 2019 - 00:06
Fintan O'Toole: We need to sing a Christmas lullaby to ourselvesEmbedded in the Nativity is the universal human experience of being cared forTue Dec 24 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Did the Irish Times ‘No Child 2020’ project work?There was some progress on child poverty in 2019, but many of the problems grew worseSat Dec 21 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: The big question of the last decade is...The Decade in Culture: t’s up to us to reclaim the private self from Google and FacebookSat Dec 21 2019 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: UK election saw three big pillars of political stability crack on a single dayThe fragile UK is now in the hands of a man with the touch of a chicken stranglerTue Dec 17 2019 - 07:50
Fintan O’Toole: Boris the loveable buffoon beats Johnson the charlatanKey voters know the British PM is a liar but they choose to collude with the spectacleTue Dec 10 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Labour's failure in this election will be due to Jeremy CorbynIt is tragic that a potentially transformative moment for Britain depends on this manSat Dec 07 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: A banal moment in Brussels is a black joke on IrelandThe departure of the last UK member of the EU commission has poignancy for IrelandTue Dec 03 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: All that austerity was a mistake. Awfully sorryA German official admits the cruel cuts imposed on Ireland were unnecessarySat Nov 30 2019 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Schools with immigrants producing tomorrow’s Irish speakersBlanchardstown school turns coping with 51 languages into a new way of teachingTue Nov 26 2019 - 06:00
