Time to move past north-south mythThere is an old, probably apocryphal story about a Dublin 4 grandee, a well-connected denizen of the world bounded by University…Wed Nov 14 2012 - 00:00
We need to make a stand on IBRC debtSo, we’ve now given Irish children a right to have their voices heard on matters that affect themTue Nov 13 2012 - 00:00
All the world's a stage, but not everyone gets accessOne of the more admirable achievements of Irish writing is that it broke new ground for people with disabilitiesSat Nov 10 2012 - 00:00
Time to honour a forgotten vow to the nation's childrenThe children’s rights referendum is a chance to fulfil our abandoned promiseTue Nov 06 2012 - 00:00
What kind of a country is this?THERE IS, IN THE approach to the centenary of the 1916 Rising, a concern with how the declaration of the republic is to be remembered…Sat Nov 03 2012 - 00:00
Schools plan will end in formalised apartheidThe Minister’s approach to primary school patronage is inimical to the idea of a republic, and will be disastrousTue Oct 30 2012 - 00:00
'Titanic' launch ticket, May 1911A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Shortly after noon on May 31st, 1911, a huge crowd gathered at the Harland and Woolf shipyard…Sat Oct 27 2012 - 01:00
Stroke City cuts a dash through politics of programmingCULTURE SHOCK: FEW FESTIVALS contain their contradictions in their titlesSat Oct 27 2012 - 01:00
Irish society is colluding in its own destructionCAN A country die of shame? Probably not – but Ireland is making a good effortTue Oct 23 2012 - 01:00
Minority report: can theatre avoid the fate of classical music?CULTURE SHOCK : SITTING ON THE bus on the way home from a Dublin Theatre Festival show last week, I suddenly started thinking…Sat Oct 20 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objects: GAA medal, 1887This gold medal was presented to a Limerick player, PJ Corbett, after the first all-Ireland Gaelic football championship, in …Sat Oct 13 2012 - 01:00
Despair at 'Dorian', feast on 'Famine'CULTURE SHOCK: PERHAPS WE’VE been spoiledSat Oct 13 2012 - 01:00
Somebody please make a drama out of the crisisIMAGINE SOMEONE from an alien culture where theatre is unknownSat Oct 06 2012 - 01:00
The Ulster Covenant: loyalist or nationalist, where would we be without it?CULTURE SHOCK: One hundred years ago this week, 500,000 Ulster people pledged to defend their UK citizenship and to defeat the…Sat Sept 29 2012 - 01:00
Dark stain of Irish gulag system not yet addressedALMOST EVERY European state has a dark stain on its conscience – totalitarian violence at home and/or colonial violence abroad…Tue Sept 25 2012 - 01:00
Parnell silver casket, 1884A history of Ireland in 100 objects: This ornate silver casket, with the by now standard imagery of round towers, wolfhounds…Sat Sept 22 2012 - 01:00
Yemen and Zimbabwe pay their cultural dues, but Ireland acts the miserCULTURE SHOCK: AFGHANISTAN IS A MEMBER, as is Zimbabwe. Yemen pays its dues, and so does RwandaSat Sept 22 2012 - 01:00
Sympathy for the devilMEMOIR: Salman Rushdie has salvaged a brilliant book from the lost years he spent in hiding from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa…Sat Sept 22 2012 - 01:00
This is theatre, baby, and there are three things you need to make it workCULTURE SHOCK : EVER SINCE the advent of cinema and television, theatre has existed on the edge of irrelevance, which is not…Sat Sept 15 2012 - 01:00
We ourselves are fit to make a new republicChange could happen if the 66 citizens set for the constitutional convention did not fall in with the tame planTue Sept 11 2012 - 01:00
Even with the Smiths - Robert and Patti - the Picnic is not just about the musicCULTURE SHOCK: THE ENGLISH ACTOR Ernest Thesiger, when asked to recall his experiences on the western front during the first…Sat Sept 08 2012 - 01:00
Emigrant's teapot, late 19th to mid-20th centuryA history of Ireland in 100 objects This humble object tells two stories of wandering peopleSat Sept 08 2012 - 01:00
Gothic realism in the here and now: haunted houses of a dead boomCULTURE SHOCK: IT’S A SIMPLE, three-letter word: “now”Sat Sept 01 2012 - 01:00
Campaign against abortion is a phoney warIT IS now 30 years since anti-abortion groups succeeded in pushing their issue to the top of the Irish political agendaTue Aug 28 2012 - 01:00
Wherefore art thou, Irish rat?CULTURE SHOCK: There are glimmers of Ireland in Shakespeare’s work, but even after all these years, theatre makers don’t quite…Sat Aug 25 2012 - 01:00
So long, middle AmericaSOCIETY: Two powerful new books document the ongoing destruction of ordinary working communities in the USSat Aug 25 2012 - 01:00
Shakespeare's play on a day of reckoningCULTURE SHOCK: Shakespeare lived in a nasty state, and dealt with dangerous matters of the day, from murder to mayhem, with …Sat Aug 18 2012 - 01:00
Blind search for profits behind care home abuseEVEN IN a euphoric Olympic week, a headline like “Mentally disabled adults abused at Christian Brothers’ home” would have grabbed…Tue Aug 14 2012 - 01:00
Ten objects that define modern IrelandTHE SIMPLE noun “object” has a surprising, somewhat contradictory, range of meaningsSat Aug 11 2012 - 01:00
Observe the great goat circling the rotting remains of the TigerCULTURE SHOCK: IT SEEMS APT that Julian Gough’s The Great Goat Bubble, which was one of the pleasures of the Galway Arts Festival…Sat Aug 04 2012 - 01:00
Support for shameless Quinn is misplacedTAKE ALL the money raised this year by the cuts in child benefitTue Jul 31 2012 - 01:00
The cult of the pure: what the Olympics say about artists and athletesCULTURE SHOCK: THERE IS A PECULIAR connection between Ireland’s two Olympic medals for the arts, both won in Paris in 1924. …Sat Jul 28 2012 - 01:00
Quinn's jail privileges show touch of classEven in Mountjoy Prison, Seán Quinn jnr enjoys treatment denied those from the wrong classTue Jul 24 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsPenrose glass decanter, late 18th century: This glass decanter is striking for its elegance of form and luxurious, almost sensual…Sat Jul 21 2012 - 01:00
Time to stop recklessness and start taxing banksAS EUROPEAN Union finance ministers discuss ways of controlling reckless banks, a very simple logic appliesTue Jul 10 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Pike, 1798No Irish event of such consequence is more powerfully symbolised by a single object than the 1798 insurrection and the pikeSat Jul 07 2012 - 01:00
Quinn built his sense of victimhood on impunitySeán Quinn’s belief that he could hold the law in blatant contempt was perfectly rationalTue Jul 03 2012 - 01:00
If Ireland has changed so much, why hasn't theatre kept pace?CULTURE SHOCK: LAST WEEK I took part in a symposium at the Peacock on the “futures” of Irish theatreSat Jun 30 2012 - 01:00
