A fresh look at the first World War? Very novelCultureShock : That the first World War remained almost virgin territory in Irish fiction for so long lends Sebastian Barry'…Sat Apr 07 2007 - 01:00
Ideas that can changethe worldLast week, the Task Force on Active Citizenship produced a fine report, reminding us that democracy demands a culture of engagement…Tue Apr 03 2007 - 01:00
Our collective memory has blanked out slaveryCultureShock: We have forgotten that St Patrick was a slave, that slavery was practised here until recently and that the sex…Sat Mar 31 2007 - 01:00
Private prosperity, public lossGetting the language right is always the key to convincing people that common sense need not applyTue Mar 27 2007 - 01:00
St Patrick's Day - celebrating a wider, vaguer IrishnessCultureShock: Paradoxically, we're getting better at celebrating St Patrick's Day precisely because we no longer really know…Sat Mar 17 2007 - 00:00
Free press essential in democracyOver the last fortnight, the Seanad has been debating the Defamation Bill and its long-awaited reform of Ireland's absurd libel…Tue Mar 06 2007 - 00:00
Paedophilia: the last great award winnerCultureShock The play Blackbird is more a self-congratulatory game of taboo-breaking than a real confrontation with the unspeakable…Sat Feb 24 2007 - 00:00
Build them up and knock them downCulture Shock: We use our great writers as a unique selling point, but we can't even be bothered to preserve the houses they…Sat Feb 17 2007 - 00:00
How Charlie came to be painted as a man of the artsCultureShock: For the arts in Ireland over the past 40 years, Charles Haughey's presence is almost as unsettling as it is for…Sat Feb 10 2007 - 00:00
How Charlie came to be painted as a man of the artsCultureShock: For the arts in Ireland over the past 40 years, Charles Haughey's presence is almost as unsettling as it is for…Sat Feb 10 2007 - 00:00
Is it now okay to call Goody subhuman?Stupidity is less common than people thinkTue Jan 23 2007 - 00:00
On the trail of US democracyBiography: How many of those who analysed the political and social institutions of bygone centuries are still widely read today…Sat Jan 20 2007 - 00:00
Forgetting about the childrenLast May, the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health and Children issued the report of their joint taskforce on…Tue Jan 16 2007 - 00:00
How Enda Kenny blew itFor those who aspire to political leadership, there is usually a moment of truth. Enda Kenny's came on October 3rd last yearTue Jan 09 2007 - 00:00
The weight of Yangtze waterSome 1.4 million people have been relocated as part of the Three Gorges Dam project, which has been undertaken in an effort to…Sat Nov 11 2006 - 00:00
In this land of 'tea money', the public gets a bad pressLetter from Beijing: During the summer, I went out to one of Beijing's working-class suburbs to look at a curious eventMon Nov 06 2006 - 00:00
China attempts to revive the spirit of Mao's long marchBeijing Letter: A few months ago, I interviewed a middle-aged teacher in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong who had gone…Mon Oct 30 2006 - 00:00
Flush of success drowns out bigger issues in rural ChinaLetter from Beijing: Wei Xien Shang showed me the new room in his house as if it were a new wing recently added to a royal …Mon Oct 23 2006 - 01:00
Peering down a telescope at Kim Jong's strange domainManchuria Letter: Last month, when I was in the Manchurian province of Jilin, I took a detour to see one of China's most beautiful…Mon Oct 16 2006 - 01:00
Memory of hunger the sauce for China's well-fedLetter from Beijing: If you order a roast duck in a restaurant in China, a roast duck is exactly what you will getMon Oct 02 2006 - 01:00
China's soundtrack: the clearing of smokers' lungsLetter from Beijing: One of the things most guide books to China will tell you is that it is customary for a guest to be greeted…Mon Sept 25 2006 - 01:00
Mao makes karaoke comeback as Chinese join chairman for sing-songBeijing Letter: Wherever you go in China, you can be sure that a town will have at least two kinds of prominent buildingMon Sept 18 2006 - 01:00
Mao still a touchy subject despite economic revolutionLetter from Beijing: Shortly before 7Mon Sept 11 2006 - 01:00
Feeling the pulse of traditional Chinese medicineLetter from Beijing: Recently, when I visited Tibet with a group of Chinese tourists, I joined them on a trip to a traditional…Mon Sept 04 2006 - 01:00
Internet now making 'Great Firewall of China' very porousBeijing Letter: Before writing this piece, I wanted to read the recent Human Rights Watch report on state censorship of the …Mon Aug 28 2006 - 01:00
Exhausting art of shopping in China makes it the real dealLetter from Beijing : I've always had a phobic attitude to helpful shop assistants, regarding even the most polite "Can I help…Mon Aug 21 2006 - 01:00
Chinese tradition of selling fakes is alive and wellBeijing Letter: Since he uses a European name with his clients, let's call him JamesMon Aug 14 2006 - 01:00
Motoring madness puts spoke in China's wheelLetter from Beijing: For the benefit of intending travellers, here are some Chinese rules of the road:Mon Jul 31 2006 - 01:00
Tendering a fantasy life, albeit in name onlyLetter from Beijing: Where's Times Square? The Champs Élysées? Beverly Hills? Yosemite? London? Windsor Park? The Riviera? …Mon Jul 24 2006 - 01:00
A short back and sides tale from an above-board Chinese barberBeijing Letter: The time came, as it must to all of us, when the hair had to be cutMon Jul 17 2006 - 01:00
We choose what to rememberRecently, after I had written about the official neglect of Daniel O'Connell's role as the founder of Irish democracy, I had …Tue May 23 2006 - 01:00
We really think we're rolling in itThe great economist JK Galbraith, who died on Saturday, coined the phrase "conventional wisdom"Tue May 02 2006 - 01:00
Millennium forests idea one big lieDo you remember your tree? Your own unique Irish native broadleaf tree? The one that the Government planted for you to mark the…Tue Apr 11 2006 - 01:00
Skin colour query sours the censusA fortnight from next Sunday, I will sit down with my census formTue Apr 04 2006 - 01:00
The real 'Fighting Irish' storyIn a very interesting letter to this newspaper last Thursday, the New York-based publisher Niall O'Dowd took issue with my criticism…Tue Mar 28 2006 - 01:00
Sad state of our flitting leadersI feel so ashamed. There I've been, all these years, blaming them for their behaviour, showing no sympathy, being cruelly judgmental…Tue Mar 14 2006 - 00:00
Our feral tribalism unleashedIn June 1934, two lorry-loads of political activists, composed, as the Irish Independent put it, "largely of Protestants and …Tue Feb 28 2006 - 00:00
Leave Jerry McCabe in peaceOn June 10th, 1996, just after an IRA gang killed Garda Jerry McCabe and tried to kill his colleague Ben O'Sullivan, the Sinn…Tue Feb 21 2006 - 00:00
Sometimes we seek to be insultedIn the 28th canto of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem, The Inferno , widely regarded as one of the keystones of European civilisation…Tue Feb 07 2006 - 00:00
ReviewToday's review is of Play About My Dad at the Project Arts Centre, DublinSat Feb 04 2006 - 00:00
Record we cannot be proud ofIt was, in the words of Mary O'Rourke, "political correctness gone wrong"Tue Jan 17 2006 - 00:00
Kids need a future, not token giftThis is the time of year when we think above all about children, about their need for love and security, about their capacity…Tue Dec 27 2005 - 00:00
Budget's poverty of visionIf not now, when? If, when a government has more than €50 billion to spend on running the State and €4Tue Dec 13 2005 - 00:00
Playing to a new world orderTheatre 2005: All this week, Irish Times critics look back on the past year in the arts and give their verdict.Mon Dec 12 2005 - 00:00
A lot hangs on outcome of disputeOf all the reasons why the dispute at Irish Ferries really matters, perhaps the least important has to do with industrial relations…Tue Nov 29 2005 - 00:00
A culture that failed to see evilIt looks like some kind of crude anti-clerical satireTue Nov 01 2005 - 00:00
The strut of power gave them a sense they could do whatever they liked, wherever they likedNearly a decade ago, the mother of one of the boys abused by the parish priest of Monageer Fr James Grennan told the Pat Kenny…Sat Oct 29 2005 - 01:00
Preparing for biggest battle yetIt is not hard to understand why, at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis over the weekend, the Taoiseach announced the return from next …Tue Oct 25 2005 - 01:00
Comparison with Nazis is absurdLast week, when I read in the online edition of The Irish Times about Fr Alec Reid's claims that Ulster unionists treated the…Tue Oct 18 2005 - 01:00
