Artists played a vital role in the State's formation and since independence have held it to account

This famous, infamous, beloved and influential novel didn’t break the mould. It made it

The BBC, formed in the same year as the Irish Free State, became an imaginary homeland for Irish writers from Yeats and MacNeice to Beckett and Bowen

Struggle of one of the strongest counties bad for the GAA – and for Irish sport

By the time you read this, this year’s participants should be near their destination

Tributes paid to poet’s part in setting up Aosdána to help artists and writers

Co Wexford born writer served as an arts adviser to former taoiseach Charles Haughey

Since the foundation of the State, its relationship with the arts has been ambiguous

We have had a number of ‘mission statements’ over the past 100 years, but have any visions become reality?

President was right to speak of the need to recognise the atrocities committed by both sides

Opinion: It looks likely the status quo for the Common Travel Area will remain

A coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would not be in national interest

There may be ideological differences in next Dáil but not between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael

The newly digitised minute books of the Abbey Theatre’s board meetings during its early decades reveal a host of remarkable struggles, from attempted censorship by Dublin Corporation to artistic disputes at the top of the theatre

Don Juan del Águila and Lord Mountjoy

WN Osborough, author of The Irish Stage: a Legal History, offers a fascinating overview of the interplay of actors and lawyers with an unlikely cast from Cicero to Goebbels

The ‘Irish Times’ Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks project has published its first 30 entries, covering 1916-1945 – a time of paradoxical philistinism and creativity

Ó Faoláin: critic, writer or both?

A landmark libel case from 60 years ago, involving the English novelist Honor Tracy – Sean O’Faolain’s lover – and a fundraising cleric, shows the pitfalls that the media can still stumble into

The latest books news and listings

Banned from studying law until after the Catholic Relief Act, Daniel O’Connell made his fortune and his reputation in that profession

A new book lists 31 definitive texts. Are the authors right? And what should be the 32nd?

Best-selling novelist and playright was one of Ireland’s most recognisable writers

This masterful writer’s rural-Ireland background invariably emerges from her sophisticated portraits of female sensibility

An insightful chronicle describes a daughter’s struggle to emerge from the shadow of her famous father, the writer Séan O’Faolain