Radical change is what we really needRevolutionary transformation is the only hope for future of the nation – and Eamon Gilmore’s Labour partyTue Mar 01 2011 - 00:00
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects: Neolithic bowl, c 3500 BCThe bowl is simple enough, very dark with burnished surfaces and relatively crude lattice-pattern decorationsSat Feb 26 2011 - 00:00
The Celtic leopard: welcome to the age of 'tranformismo'CULTURE SHOCK DURING THAT brief moment last year when the British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was still popular, he appeared…Sat Feb 26 2011 - 00:00
The darker side of 'Irelantis' was lost on us a decade agoCULTURE SHOCK: I F YOU leave Ireland, at least through Dublin airport, one of the last things you’ll see are the ads for a mobile…Sat Feb 19 2011 - 00:00
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects: Ceremonial Axe, 3600 BCEven now, its sheen and colour are magnetically alluring, the jade green surface, mottled with darker veins and glimmers of light…Sat Feb 19 2011 - 00:00
One of the crassest pieces of theatre I have ever seenCULTURE SHOCK: YASMINA REZA’S God of Carnage is one of the biggest hit international plays of the past five yearsSat Feb 12 2011 - 00:00
Do humans like to fantasise? Is the pope a Catholic?CULTURE SHOCK: EMMA IS, like, so disconnected from the real worldSat Feb 05 2011 - 00:00
We need to talk about money, MicheálTo be taken seriously, Fianna Fáil’s new leader must address some problematic aspects of his party’s cultureTue Feb 01 2011 - 00:00
The decision that I made on contesting this general electionOPINION: This columnist will not be seen on the hustings and to ask why not is entirely legitimateSat Jan 29 2011 - 00:00
Real-life dramas? We don't do those. But John B Keane didCULTURE SHOCK: IMAGINE THE FOLLOWING scenario. In 2008 a man is found strangled in a ditchSat Jan 22 2011 - 00:00
I would be a very different person without my stammerOther people’s embarrassment is the worst part of having a stammer – but it forces you to expand your vocabulary and gives you…Sat Jan 15 2011 - 00:00
Time to take the tough decisions on oil and gasWE’VE just been through a year when the unthinkable became normalTue Jan 04 2011 - 00:00
Why bank directors owe us a confessionWithout some public reckoning with recent business behaviour, we’re stuck with a corrosive fatalismTue Dec 28 2010 - 00:00
A year of terrifying hallucinationsOver the past 12 months, the unimaginable became the new realityMon Dec 27 2010 - 00:00
10 treats that made 2010 bearableCULTURE SHOCK: AT LEAST THERE were the pleasures of the mind and heartSat Dec 18 2010 - 00:00
A dark Irish secret that few of us want to talk aboutCULTURE SHOCK: A SCAN OF Wednesday morning’s newspapers revealed three thingsSat Dec 11 2010 - 00:00
Purgatory is a nasty notion - someone should tell the IMFCULTURE SHOCK : IN THE FIRST act of Hamlet , after the prince has been visited by the ghost of his father, he swears “by Saint…Sat Dec 04 2010 - 00:00
Great plans to make us a backwater of despairThe all-too-intricate programme of the IMF, EU and State omits all thought of fixing our decrepit democracyTue Nov 30 2010 - 00:00
Hold on tight: why the past will be a model for our futureCULTURE SHOCK: IN DIARMAID MacCULLOCH’S A History of Christianity (surely the greatest work of historical synthesis of our time…Sat Nov 27 2010 - 00:00
The people must act or we will remain irrelevantBefore an election, a civic movement has to create a critical mass around the idea of radical political reformTue Nov 23 2010 - 00:00
Who'd have imagined our crisis would have been so predictable?CULTURE SHOCK: THERE ARE TIMES, however rare, when a piece of theatre has an effect way beyond its intrinsic merit.Sat Nov 20 2010 - 00:00
"Fear, rage, despair and distrust have been in the pot for two years. The new ingredient is shame"The long-threatened arrival of the IMF bogeymen was a major loss for Ireland as a proud, independent nationSat Nov 20 2010 - 00:00
There's one thing soaps do better than anyone else: deathCULTURE SHOCK: ‘EXTRAORDINARY,” says Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives , “how potent cheap music isSat Nov 13 2010 - 00:00
What would photos of the Great Famine have been like?CULTURE SHOCK: THERE ARE no photographs of the Great FamineSat Oct 23 2010 - 01:00
Put these plays together and they'd be dynamiteCULTURE SHOCK: IF IT WERE possible to formulate the play that Ireland most needs to see right now, it would be a genetically…Sat Oct 16 2010 - 01:00
Bold? Deep? No, it's more Oedipus SchmedipusCULTURE SHOCK: SEÁN O’CASEY’S The Silver Tassie is arguably Ireland’s first European playSat Oct 09 2010 - 01:00
The Wilde spirit that speaks the language of modern theatreCULTURE SHOCK: TEN YEARS AGO, for his Beckett on Film series, Michael Colgan, the artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin…Sat Oct 02 2010 - 01:00
A small price to pay?POLITICS : Snouts in the Trough: Irish Politicians and Their Expenses , by Ken Foxe, Gill & Macmillan, 227pp, €16.99Sat Oct 02 2010 - 01:00
Are Dublin's literary connections just accidents of birth?CULTURE SHOCK: DUBLIN’S DESIGNATION as a Unesco City of Literature raises an obvious questionSat Sept 25 2010 - 01:00
'Medea' is of our time, yet distant and strange - and savageCULTURE SHOCK: IT IS HARD to get your head around the fact that Medea was first staged 1,000 years before literacy took off …Sat Sept 18 2010 - 01:00
How Metsu's northern irreverence illuminates the joy of PuritanismCULTURE SHOCK: Dutch painters of the 17th century had to occupy safe - or religious - ground, but Gabriel Metsu saw this as …Sat Sept 11 2010 - 01:00
A rare breed of actorA highly sophisticated, educated and thoughtful man, Mick Lally may have looked as if he was carved from the side of a Mayo mountain…Wed Sept 01 2010 - 01:00
A musical spectacle to lift our hearts and lift us out of recessionCULTURE SHOCK: IN ONE of the many idle moments spent compiling playlists for my iPod, I had a flash of inspirationSat Jul 24 2010 - 01:00
Eugene McCabe: The great - but often forgotten - laureate of indeterminacyCULTURE SHOCK: The vague nature of his native borderland has defined Eugene McCabe – his work and his reputation – for much …Sat Jul 10 2010 - 01:00
TDs silent on other attacks on rural IrelandWhere is the passion of TDs when ‘the rural way of life’ is being slowly strangled by policies of more much consequence than …Tue Jul 06 2010 - 01:00
Time for a new look at the 'old enemy'Our relationship with our neighbour can still affect Irish behaviour in the most bizarre waysTue Jun 29 2010 - 01:00
Entertaining, even enraging, but without art this can't be theatreCULTURE SHOCK: AS WELL AS being an entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking exploration of Ireland’s economic catastrophe…Sat Jun 26 2010 - 01:00
Bringing Synge back in from a curious coldCULTURE SHOCK: RECENTLY, A letter writer to The Irish Times suggested that in order to “honour Dublin’s literary greats”, “once…Sat Jun 12 2010 - 01:00
Theatre has nothing to declare but an innate uncertaintyCULTURE SHOCK: A playwright has gone to court to defend his ‘moral rights’ over an adaptation of The Playboy of the Western …Sat May 22 2010 - 01:00
This is the golden age of TV drama - if you can find itCULTURE SHOCK: Television continues to thrive, but multi-channel viewing, downloading and DVDs have dispersed its old audience…Sat May 01 2010 - 01:00
Finding a future for Dublin Bus requires more than downsizingPlans to reshape its confusing network of routes and slim down the size of its workforce might benefit Dublin Bus, but it will…Sat Apr 24 2010 - 01:00
A prescient vision of Ireland, through a 1960s lensCULTURE SHOCK: IN RECENT YEARS, we’ve had lots of zombie and horror movies in which familiar landscapes have been emptied of…Sat Apr 17 2010 - 01:00
Neglect of archives shows contempt for citizensCULTURE SHOCK: The chaos in public policy concerning archives in general, and health records in particular, demonstrates the…Sat Apr 10 2010 - 01:00
The finance manager who tried to play by the rulesThe experience of this former IFSC banker is a parable of Celtic Tiger Ireland, illustrating the culture of light-touch regulation…Sat Apr 03 2010 - 01:00
Arch McDonagh takes a wrong turn to dead-end AmericanaCULTURE SHOCK : For this awful, knowing parody in the Tarantino genre, McDonagh should return to his superior, terrible beauties…Sat Mar 20 2010 - 00:00
Snuffing out our creative industry is not 'smart' economisingCULTURE SHOCK: ART, LIKE NATURE, is an ecosystemSat Mar 13 2010 - 00:00
Top Irish businessman rails at 'intertwining with politics'ONE OF Ireland’s most successful businessmen, Niall Fitzgerald, has told The Irish Times he did not feel that he could have pursued…Sat Mar 06 2010 - 00:00
Owen Roe - now the most magnetic figure on the Irish stageThe born stars of Irish theatre head for the Hollywood hills, but – with a bit of luck – less obvious greats such as Owen Roe…Sat Feb 13 2010 - 00:00
Why must agnostics be obliged to teach faith?IMAGINE A country in which entry to a major profession is subject to a test of one’s private beliefsTue Feb 02 2010 - 00:00
