Beneath the vote for stability and small-c conservatism, darker currents are stirringOur system of PR is praised for incentivising consensus and civility. But it can also lead to entropy – a gradual decline into uncertainty and disorderTue Dec 03 2024 - 06:00
‘Serial evasion’ and ‘brittle impatience’: Our writers give their verdict on the leaders’ debate General election: Three writers analyse debate between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn FéinWed Nov 27 2024 - 08:00
America’s system of checks and balances will be severely tested by Trump’s presidencyWith a supreme court majority sympathetic both to Republican policies and to a more expansive definition of presidential power, the new administration will have nearly all the tools it needsSat Nov 09 2024 - 07:10
Cillian Murphy’s Small Things Like These has become a cause celebre of the Make Ireland Great Again brigadeCillian Murphy probably didn’t expect to be taken literally when he compared Ireland in the 1980s to the dark ages, but that is where we are nowSat Nov 09 2024 - 05:00
US election results: Irish time when the winner could become obvious and guide to following the nightIf polls are correct, it could take days to decide the next president, but a ‘blue wall’ surge could make the result obvious by 4amMon Nov 04 2024 - 11:54
Donald Trump on The Joe Rogan Experience: three hours of meandering, falsehood-filled talk marks a big moment for podcastsPodcasts used to be a marginal force. Now they’ve taken centre stage. But with their baggy informality and authenticity also comes a lack of rigourSat Nov 02 2024 - 06:30
Did Biden call Trump supporters ‘garbage’? And did he damage Harris’s election chances?Republicans have jumped on the US president’s latest gaffe. The White House says he was misinterpretedWed Oct 30 2024 - 13:47
Creatives finally wake up to the threat of big tech's AI training models. Are they too late?More than 20,000 artists, writers, composers and other cultural creatives are objecting to unlicensed scraping of their work in the AI space raceSat Oct 26 2024 - 05:00
Hugh Linehan: RTÉ returning to the GPO could benefit broadcaster and north inner cityA proposed return by the national broadcaster to its birthplace is apt as it redefines itself, and could benefit a neglected part ot DublinSat Oct 19 2024 - 05:00
Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: Same method, but different resultA review of why jarring events — suicide, addiction, corruption, disease — happen and gain tractionSat Oct 19 2024 - 00:00
US election explained: What role will the economy play?Voters have preferred Trump on the issue, but Harris is closing the gapTue Oct 15 2024 - 20:39
US election explained: Could the abortion debate decide the US presidency?Trump has been forced to shift his position on an issue perceived as one of Harris’s greatest political assetsTue Oct 15 2024 - 20:05
US election explained: How do the Congressional elections work?Democrats have a reasonable chance of regaining the House of Representatives but face an uphill battle to hold on to their Senate majorityTue Oct 15 2024 - 17:00
US election explained: How does the electoral college work?It is possible to lose the popular vote but still win the US presidential election – as Donald Trump did in 2016Tue Oct 15 2024 - 16:26
When Delia Smith and Hugh Grant team up in protest, it’s worth your attention. So why are they defending a Sunday paper?Guardian Media Group wants to sell the Observer, now 232 years old, to the news website Tortoise. It has a fight on its handsSat Oct 12 2024 - 05:00
The Apprentice controversy: Donald Trump and the ‘toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest’ lawyer in the USThe new Trump origin film is not a flattering portrayal either of the former president or of Roy Cohn, the legal attack dog and Mob fixer who was his mentorSat Oct 05 2024 - 05:00
Phil Coulter and John Sheahan vs Lankum and The Mary Wallopers: Sit back and enjoy the music-industry hatredWhat a pleasure to observe the flare-up between the composer and last surviving Dubliner and the drone-folk maestros and bouncy balladeersSat Sept 28 2024 - 05:00
A massed army of audio bots is coming over the hill. What will it do to us? You’d be hard pressed to tell latest AI voices from the real thing. It’s bad news for actual human beings who fear being left on scrapheapSat Sept 21 2024 - 05:00
The billion-dollar Rings of Power is part of the weird new age of televisionPrime Video is investing untold amounts in its Lord of the Rings fantasy. But the fastest-growing new streamer has a very different approachSat Aug 31 2024 - 05:00
What I Read This Week: Background hum of an approaching election grows ever louder Inside Politics presenter Hugh Linehan picks his favourite stories of the week including, Patrick Freyne’s Rose of Tralee report and Ken Early’s take on the chaos at ChelseaSat Aug 24 2024 - 07:00
Which politicians have done most for Irish culture? As the general election approaches, it’s a question worth asking The main parties’ approaches to Ireland’s cultural life was encapsulated by the opposing outlooks of Charles Haughey and Garret FitzGeraldSat Aug 24 2024 - 05:00
Government’s refusal to scrap the licence fee shows a depressingly limited understanding of the media landscapeThe debate needs to move on from the best way to fund a public-service broadcaster to the best way to fund public-service contentSat Aug 03 2024 - 05:00
Betty the chimp: Was Dublin Zoo’s tea party favourite really a terrifying matriarch and bully?Death of oldest living chimpanzee in human care raises issue of recurring human impulse to anthropomorphise other speciesSat Jul 27 2024 - 05:00
Sinéad O’Connor’s waxwork looks nothing like the fiery young woman from 1990 it representsOpinion: I don’t know what that is, but it sure as hell is not Sinéad O’ConnorFri Jul 26 2024 - 06:10
Show me ‘citizen journalism’ and I’ll show you a rat’s nest of some of the most noxious people aroundWhat began as the high idealism of Arab Spring-style community reporting has soured into the preserve of right-wing provocateursSat Jul 20 2024 - 05:00
The culture wars are over, apparently. Just don’t bet on peace anytime soon Lisa Nandy, the UK’s new culture secretary, announced this week the ‘end of the era of culture wars’, but an armistice is not actually within her remitSat Jul 13 2024 - 05:00
Labour faces decisions that will alienate some in Britain who voted for it Keir Starmer is an antidote to the privileged Tories he has displaced but he will need to be ruthlessness and willing to upend policySat Jul 06 2024 - 07:00
The Abbey Theatre is vacating the stage during peak season for reasons unknown. What is going on?The events that have unfolded over the past five years at the national theatre raise obvious parallels with the RTÉ debacleSat Jul 06 2024 - 05:00
The biggest problem with RTÉ’s new five-year plan is what it doesn’t addressWe waited an age for A New Direction’s ‘third age’, and it already feels rather out of dateSat Jun 29 2024 - 05:00
Even with Spielberg-style cuddliness, there’s a cold, dark void at the heart of artificial intelligenceHugh Linehan: With his Kubrick-derived film AI Artificial Intelligence, the director created a surprisingly convincing version of where technology is leading usSat Jun 15 2024 - 05:00
Climate activists turn the screw on literary festivalsThe investment firm has met the ire of literary activists amid accusations of greenwashingSat Jun 08 2024 - 05:00
Things can only get better? Rishi Sunak’s election chant reckoning was perfectionCountless politicians have tried to co-opt pop hits as campaign anthemsSat Jun 01 2024 - 05:00
A Googlepocalypse is sweeping the United States – and its devastating effects are on their way to IrelandHugh Linehan: The link economy is dying, and with it an entire ecosystem that supported content creation and communication is coming to an endSat May 25 2024 - 05:15
‘You mean to say we spent £80 and we don’t even get to see her tits?’: Roger Corman’s Irish studio was from another ageHugh Linehan: Director set up in Galway in the mid-1990s, when he was in his 70s, and churned out his trademark low-budget exploitation movies thereMon May 20 2024 - 13:04
Elon Musk: Brave truth-teller or weird pontificator about the IRA?Hugh Linehan: The billionaire has been telling Michael Milken about everything from AI to space travel to the decline and fall of western civilisationSat May 11 2024 - 05:00
There’s nothing very dramatic about That They May Face the Rising Sun. Which is why it’s such a good filmHugh Linehan: Stanley Kubrick said a film should be more like music than like fiction. The Irish director Pat Collins knows why that mattersSat Apr 27 2024 - 05:00
Who watches the watchers when it comes to disinformation?Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit organisation, set out to counter misleading online content. Instead it seems to be stifling legitimate debateSat Apr 20 2024 - 05:00
A scoopless Scoop: What Netflix gets wrong about the news business in its re-creation of Newsnight’s Prince Andrew coupHugh Linehan: The streamer’s new drama is just another lethargic entry into the often unlovely genre of hero-journalist moviesSat Apr 13 2024 - 05:00
Colour-blind casting is the new normal. But we should still be alert to less palatable realitiesHugh Linehan: There are sound practical and ethical reasons for colourblind and colour-conscious casting. Other attempts to rewrite the past are absurdSat Apr 06 2024 - 05:00
The dream is clear: no hand-held device, no screens or keyboards. Just you, jacked into the metaverse like Keanu ReevesHugh Linehan: Business and tech inevitably and increasingly define how culture is produced, distributed and consumedSat Mar 30 2024 - 05:05
It’s not just British royals who edit photos. Manipulated images are everywhere you lookHugh Linehan: The boundaries between news and entertainment keep shifting. But the idea of photography as somehow true has always been questionableSat Mar 23 2024 - 07:00
Should we be surprised that Leo Varadkar, in the most pressurised job of all, decided to step down?High points rate as reaction to Brexit and Covid along with social changes wrought by votes on marriage equality and abortion rightsThu Mar 21 2024 - 06:30
Metropolitan bubble: Referendum fallout for Irish politics and wider societyDoes last week’s anti-establishment revolt contain the seeds of a change?Sat Mar 16 2024 - 06:00
If you want a long career in government, don’t become minister for cultureHugh Linehan: The RTÉ tragicomedy has helped to show where the arts brief ranks in the political pecking orderSat Mar 09 2024 - 05:00
Catherine Martin: RTÉ’s biggest champion in Cabinet is now at war with broadcaster’s leadershipMinister’s move to effectively sack RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh on television escalated political aspect of crisisSat Mar 02 2024 - 06:00
Why does nobody hate rotten, rancid, sanctimonious, brain-rotting music any more?Hugh Linehan: When it comes to Taylor Swift, for example, only the tinfoil-hat-wearers of the US extreme right have a bad word to say about herSat Mar 02 2024 - 05:00
In One Day, Em and Dex’s extended mixtapes tell you everything you need to know about their worldsHugh Linehan: David Nicholls, whose novel the Netflix series is based on, posted the mixtapes on Spotify. Do they give a sense of history being rewritten?Sat Feb 24 2024 - 05:00
RTÉ’s real failing is risk aversion, not risk-taking Hugh Linehan: The still largely untold saga of Toy Show the Musical has the makings of that rarest of RTÉ beasts: an actually funny comedySat Feb 17 2024 - 05:00
RTÉ before the Oireachtas: More insights into bad governance, arrogant culture and inadequate safeguardsToy Show the Musical and executive exit payments among the topics at today's hearing. But where do we go to from here?Wed Feb 14 2024 - 20:00
Jon Stewart is swooping back to The Daily Show to save the US from an orange-skinned huckster. The hubris is dizzyingHugh Linehan: His backers believe the comedian can help turn the tide against a Trump victory in November. The media has changed too much for thatSat Feb 10 2024 - 05:13
