Patrick Freyne: This is what happens when you try to abolish shameThe real star of the show is a sanity-troubled canine companion to the owner of the longest legs in BelgraviaThu Aug 21 2025 - 05:15
160,000 mod-haired Oasis fans make for Croke Park The Britpop band’s greatest creation was the Oasis fanSat Aug 16 2025 - 06:00
Tubs in a topper, RTÉ on its uppers: Patrick Freyne can see clearly nowRyan Tubridy’s return of €150,000 to his old employer, plus eight other TV moments I missed while I was away reading books and smelling flowersThu Aug 14 2025 - 05:00
‘On which dating show did your parents meet?’ is a classic 2025 icebreaker On E4’s The Honesty Box, a bunch of hunks and hunkettes must obey the whims of a glowing red cube. Would that life were so simple for the rest of us!Thu May 01 2025 - 05:45
‘There were four girls raped in front of us. Their mother cried for their safety’Rape and sexual assault are used as weapons of war in Sudan. A refuge in Adre in Chad offers ‘a safe space for women and girls’ where they can make handicrafts and talkSat Apr 26 2025 - 05:00
Returning home from Chad, I feel there’s a glitch in western empathyThe Sudan war is the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster, but it seems our human compassion is taken up by other conflictsThu Apr 24 2025 - 06:00
The nine biggest TV shows of 2025 so far: Why you should watch them, and where you can catch themIncluding Andor, Severance, The Last of Us, Your Friends & Neighbors, and AdolescenceThu Apr 24 2025 - 05:00
'They tried to rape my nine-year-old daughter. I protected her so they beat me instead'Having escaped a war where murder and rape seem systematic, some 1.3 million people from Sudan struggle to meet their daily needs in Chad - while bearing physical and emotional scars Tue Apr 22 2025 - 06:00
‘My son was killed in front of my eyes. Three bullets in his chest’: Patrick Freyne in Chad’s desert camps An unforgiving conflict between rival military factions has killed 150,000 people. Another 12 million people are displaced, many fleeing to a huge desert camp in eastern Chad. Photographs by Chris MaddaloniSat Apr 19 2025 - 06:00
Sudanese refugees in Chad: 'There isn't enough food or water'Over 237,000 refugees fleeing from the horrors of Sudan's civil war live in an ad hoc camp, barely surviving in east Chad's desert. Video: Chris MaddaloniFri Apr 18 2025 - 14:07
‘A lot of children die’: Patrick Freyne reports from inside Chad camps for Sudanese refugeesUS cuts to foreign aid could be ‘a death sentence for millions of people experiencing extreme hunger and starvation’, says World Food ProgrammeThu Apr 10 2025 - 18:55
Severance is brilliant and relatable. These are eight other similar shows you might loveApple TV+’s stylish dystopian drama Severance is one of the best workplace TV shows. Here are eight more to watchThu Mar 27 2025 - 05:00
‘Fascinating and disturbing’: How our brains and genetics dictate our ideologies - and vice versaDr Leor Zmigrod has found differences in the brain structures and functions of people with different ideologies. Could this science be used by malicious agents?Sun Mar 23 2025 - 06:00
A bunch of influencers are sitting in a windowless bunker. It’s hard not to agree this is the future humanity deservesFighting its future format death, Netflix has tempted YouTube phenomena ‘the Sidemen’ over to its doomed cause for InsideThu Mar 20 2025 - 05:00
Kieran Cuddihy: ‘My favourite interviews are always normal people who are in really extraordinary situations’Presenter of the Tonight Show on Virgin Media and Hard Shoulder on Newstalk on Denis O’Brien, work-life balance and embarrassing career low-lightsSat Mar 15 2025 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Here’s what I see when I see Irish people at their bestWe are hospitable and irreverent, but also cynical and parochial. When things get difficult, who do we want to be?Sat Mar 15 2025 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Ryan owns a tanning business. Yolanda is a Mel B impersonator. These are Britain’s main industries since BrexitPatrick Freyne: Love Triangle UK’s contestants are earnest and well meaning – not, as so often on dating shows, monstrous, sexually prolific sociopathsThu Mar 13 2025 - 06:00
Shaping the Century: 25 brilliant Irish women in 2025This century has brought us many landmark moments, provided by remarkable Irish women who are an inspiration to others Sat Mar 08 2025 - 06:40
I feel we’re close now, Meghan, so I can speak freely. The right pitch is crucial in lifestyle hucksterism like yoursOn With Love, Meghan, you mainly cook. Given how long the Meghan-and-Harry industrial complex took to create this series, I feel a little let downThu Mar 06 2025 - 05:00
On Prime, Jack Reacher is still wandering from town to town, much like the 2FM RoadcasterReacher’s inevitable fisticuffs are an adorable masculine power fantasy, there to soothe struggling menfolk in the audienceThu Feb 27 2025 - 05:00
Dr Lydia Foy: ‘I never got an apology actually. It would be nice to get one’The trans activist who fought the State for years for the right to change her gender on her birth cert would prefer to ‘talk about me as a person rather than all the baloney with the courts’Sat Feb 22 2025 - 06:05
We already have Great House Revival. What we need now is Feck the Preservation Order, Let’s Knock It and Build an Office BlockOr maybe If We Just Leave It Derelict We’ll Make Money on the Land Value Alone. Hugh Wallace could still present itThu Feb 20 2025 - 05:00
‘It’s boobing out!’ Kim Kardashian cries. Irish Times readers will recognise this reference to the Heaney poem of that nameThe celebrity clan have so Truman Show-ed their existence that all significant events in their lives have occurred on cameraThu Feb 13 2025 - 05:00
Holly Willoughby is well used to troublesome co-hosts. Bear Grylls may like insects and urine, but he’s not Phillip Schofield Celebrity Bear Hunt review: From the dawn of reality TV it has been clear it would culminate with an apparently unhinged survivalist hunting helpless celebsThu Feb 06 2025 - 05:00
‘Young men aren’t just b****rds running around on their bikes ... everyone has their own dreams’A Dublin project explores how the world shapes young men by helping some of them to create ‘boys’ as they really see themSat Feb 01 2025 - 06:00
Des Bishop: ‘I never felt the grief with my dad like I felt with my mother’For the Irish-American comedian, lockdown was preceded by his mother’s death. The impact was profound – but it opened the way to a new lifeSat Feb 01 2025 - 05:30
Joseph O’Connor: ‘I don’t know what modern Ireland is yet. I’m suspicious about the new sacred cows’The Irish novelist on taking instruction from Vincent Browne, finding his way in fiction as a young man and coming to understand that the best writing has an inherent musicalitySat Feb 01 2025 - 05:00
I am now very fit. I am ready for Ireland’s fittest family to adopt meWhat golden specimens they are, you think, as they propel themselves across God’s good earth like Accenture employees here to rationalise a businessThu Jan 30 2025 - 05:00
On Beast Games, MrBeast gives away islands. This will be familiar to the Irish as ‘colonialism’There is no rhyme or reason to success or failure on Prime Video’s gameshow. MrBeast’s message for our children seems to be that life is arbitrary chaosThu Jan 23 2025 - 06:24
What Michael Lowry’s constituents really think of himIn the independent TD’s Thurles political heartland some say they don’t believe the findings against him, others feel he made forgivable mistakes that are now in the past, and some subscribe to both theories at onceSat Jan 18 2025 - 05:59
Patrick Freyne’s guide to the high profile shows for 2025: From White Lotus to YellowjacketsIncluding Severance, White Lotus, The Studio, Poker Face, Stranger Things and Black MirrorThu Jan 16 2025 - 05:00
Doireann Garrihy: ‘I was a big kid. It’s sad when I think back. I think I made jokes to get attention’Recently married Dancing with the Stars co-host has learned to tread carefully when it comes to putting her life onlineSat Jan 11 2025 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: I joined a gym this year. Here’s how working out is working outI’m not entirely sedentary these days. I walk a lot. But recently I was talking to my GP and she suggested that I should also use my arms sometimesSun Dec 29 2024 - 06:00
Culchiecore, bonkbusters, murder, more murder and Nationwide: What I’ve seen on TV in 2024Patrick Freyne on the 2 Johnnies, Rivals, Say Nothing, Baby Reindeer and television trends of the past 12 monthsThu Dec 19 2024 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: I am becoming a demotivational speaker – let’s all have an averagely productive DecemberI keep meeting people who are extremely burned out. I meet them so often that I’m beginning to think burnout is something that exists by designSat Dec 14 2024 - 06:00
‘Watch your step’: Steve Coogan takes Patrick Freyne backstage at Dr StrangeloveThe comic actor is playing four parts in the new stage version of Stanley Kubrick’s film, which comes to Ireland in 2025Sat Dec 14 2024 - 05:30
Wake up, people: Here’s what the mainstream media don’t want you to know about ChristmasFrom Santy and selection boxes to Christmas pudding and Mariah Carey, these are some of the truths you won’t hear elsewhereThu Dec 12 2024 - 05:00
Actor Edward Norton on environmental activism: ‘If you find it inconvenient, I think that’s precisely the f**king point’Norton might be best known for his blockbuster Hollywood roles, but the actor is also a committed environmentalist and successful entrepreneurSun Dec 08 2024 - 05:00
Joan Baez: Do I ever hear from Bob Dylan? ‘Not a word’Looking young and powerful at 83, Baez is still engaged in politics, but has recently revealed a dark secretSat Dec 07 2024 - 06:00
What do women want? A hunky idiot without a past, that’s whatHot Frosty, Netflix’s latest reboot of The Snowman, at last brings some ‘hubba-hubba, vroom-vroom, arooooga!’ to Raymond Briggs’s family favouriteThu Dec 05 2024 - 05:00
Read this before you vote: Patrick Freyne’s vibes-based guide to Election 2024From HR Pufnstuf to Battlestar Galactica, what can we learn from political television shows through the ages before we go to the ballot box?Thu Nov 28 2024 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: My favourite corporate psy-ops of the season – or Christmas ads, as they’re called in the suburbs Patrick Freyne: here are my favourite corporate psy-ops of the season – or Christmas TV ads, as I believe you call them in the suburbsThu Nov 21 2024 - 05:00
Dublin’s crack cocaine epidemic: ‘You get a rush. You come down. And then you have to go again’Crack cocaine is the new heroin, say addicts and frontline support workers, its use and widespread availability an epidemic that is getting worseSat Nov 09 2024 - 06:00
‘We’re in uncharted territory’: Why the forgotten threat of nuclear war presents real and present dangerWith the Doomsday Clock set at 90 seconds to midnight, the US and Russia’s Cold War stand-off seems quaint in retrospectSun Nov 03 2024 - 06:00
No Magic Pill: ‘If you cast disabled actors, they bring with their performance the lived experience of disability’It’s time for professional productions to use disabled actors for both disabled and nondisabled characters, say playwright Christian O’Reilly and his colleaguesSat Nov 02 2024 - 05:15
Doctor Odyssey’s core message: just imagine Pacey from Dawson’s Creek holding you tight and saying, ‘Shhh, it’s okay’Patrick Freyne: Cruising takes on an alternative meaning in this medical melodrama, with Joshua Jackson visiting multiple ports of callThu Oct 31 2024 - 05:00
John Creedon: ‘I was always being sent away, not because they didn’t love me, but because they couldn’t cope’Broadcaster and author reflects on an unusual childhood in Cork, constant low-level anxiety and presenting Winning Streak without understanding the rulesSat Oct 26 2024 - 05:00
Rivals: The thrusting bum is intercut with spurting soap and overflowing champagne. We are in safe, if filthy, handsPatrick Freyne: If I was in Disney+’s Jilly Cooper adaptation, someone would surely compliment my ‘magnificent column’Thu Oct 24 2024 - 05:00
Changing career midlife: ‘At 45 I thought I was finished... But it didn’t even occur to me that I could do anything else’More and more people are opting to switch professions in midlife. We talk to three people who have taken the plungeSun Oct 20 2024 - 05:01
Long-lost story by Dracula author Bram Stoker unearthed at National Library of IrelandGibbet Hill, the Irish writer’s macabre tale of a man set upon by strange children at the site of a real murder, was discovered by Dublin researcher Brian ClearySat Oct 19 2024 - 00:00
