Electric Picnic review: Chvrches – There’s no roof, but they blow it off anywayThe electropop head-hangers conquer the festival’s main stageFri Aug 31 2018 - 21:20
Electric Picnic review: Paddy Hanna – An indie-rock showmanDublin troubadour reaches out and finds an audience ready to take him by the handFri Aug 31 2018 - 19:20
Electric Picnic: Festival-goers warned of roadworks and delaysStradbally set for 50,000 visitors to the three-day music and arts festivalThu Aug 30 2018 - 11:01
Louis CK: an unwelcome return from a short exileComedian returned to stand up just 10 months after sexual misconduct revelationsWed Aug 29 2018 - 10:03
Seatwave closure will not eliminate ticket resellingAnalysis: Industrial-scale touting by professional resellers will continue in the shadowsMon Aug 13 2018 - 13:59
Here be plausible dragons: The appeal of fantasy set to realityThese four novels explore human nature through a fantastical premise to great effectSat Jul 28 2018 - 06:00
Mercury music prize: Another appalling British snub for Irish artistsIt’s three years since an Irish act was nominated for the British-centric awardThu Jul 26 2018 - 14:38
Music industry’s silence in wake of R Kelly’s outburst is damningLack of condemnation of rapper’s ‘I Admit’ reveals culture untouched by #MeToo movementTue Jul 24 2018 - 14:06
Who is America? Sacha Baron Cohen’s new creation has none of the humanity of Ali GBaron Cohen has created four new characters, all extreme parodies and none easy to warm toMon Jul 16 2018 - 11:30
Kraftwerk: rapturous show of androids-have-feelings-too anthemsReview: seeing four elder gents in tight-fitting jumpsuits impersonating robot aloofness was a powerfully human momentThu Jul 12 2018 - 08:30
Billy Joel review: juiced-up hits with a sting in the tailWhile the hits didn’t quite flow at the Aviva Stadium, they did arrive at a dutiful clipSun Jun 24 2018 - 10:05
Pills, thrills and backaches: How to relive your Ibiza daysFrom Jenny Greene to Underworld, the summer is packed with house music nostalgiaTue Jun 19 2018 - 05:00
Beyoncé and Jay-Z: Weird, woozy peek at a superstar marriageThe Carters review: Everything Is Love brings to a close their state-of-the-marital-union trilogyMon Jun 18 2018 - 11:00
Kanye West: ye review: Big-hearted and introspectiveWhile the troubled megastar is tender, warm and devoid of ego, the old Kanye hasn’t completely left usFri Jun 01 2018 - 15:49
Roseanne Barr: A disaster waiting to happenActor’s racist Valerie Jarrett tweet came as little surprise to her social media followersWed May 30 2018 - 09:30
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill: can she recapture the magic as she hits the road?Voice of The Fugees to play the 3Arena in Dublin in November as part of European tourWed May 23 2018 - 14:00
Harry & Meghan, A Royal Romance: I wanted it to be shoddierLifetime channel’s TV movie about the soon-to-wed couple is disappointingly enjoyableMon May 14 2018 - 23:30
Iceage: Something Rotten from the state of DenmarkConfrontational young singer Elias Rønnenfelt on the Danish band’s new album, ‘Beyondless’, and why he won’t tolerate inattentive fans using their mobile phonesat gigsSat May 05 2018 - 05:00
Ed Sheeran: ‘It’s Friday night. I’m so happy to be in Cork’Thousands of voices join the redhead wunderkind in song on first night of his Irish tourFri May 04 2018 - 23:16
Fame, angst and Avicii, EDM’s reluctant global superstarSwede self-identified as an introvert who was uncomfortable with his jet-set lifestyleFri Apr 20 2018 - 21:22
Television has never been so bad . . . and that’s a good thing‘Billions’ and Damian Lewis’s terrible accent lead way in new era of awfully addictive ‘cack cocaine’Sat Apr 14 2018 - 05:00
Arcade Fire play ‘Linger’ in Dolores O’Riordan tribute in DublinBand conjure late lump-in-throat moment with Cranberries cover during 3Arena setMon Apr 09 2018 - 10:24
‘I just want to be an artist. I don’t want to be the queer Christian artist’Her first album chronicled her substance abuse and struggle reconciling her faith and sexuality. Now Julien Baker wants to escape the gay Christian ‘gimmick’Fri Mar 23 2018 - 05:00
Choice Music Prize awards should aim to be more than an industry backslapping sessionA suspicion lingers that Choice opted for a slightly underwhelming candidate in ShipsFri Mar 09 2018 - 07:59
Choice Music Prize Irish album of the year revealedChasing Abbey awarded Irish song of the year for That Good ThingThu Mar 08 2018 - 23:26
Longitude 2018 line-up shows hip-hop has killed the guitar starOpinion: Guitar music is no longer central to youth culture. Wake up and smell the r’n’bMon Feb 12 2018 - 11:31
Chris O’Dowd having as much fun as possible in a very bad filmPlaying a character called Mundy, O’Dowd is the best thing about ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’Tue Feb 06 2018 - 12:38
Grammys 2018: Bruno Mars wins big as U2 perform in front of Statue of LibertySinger Kesha’s emotional performance was a big talking point of the nightMon Jan 29 2018 - 09:52
Mark E Smith: passionate, occasionally psychotic high priest of post-punkSmith fronted The Fall since 1976, going through over 60 bandmates in the process but they were always at the cutting edgeWed Jan 24 2018 - 22:08
Careful now: Will we ever stop talking about Father Ted?Twenty years and thousands of repeats later, Ireland still lives in Craggy Island’s shadowSat Jan 20 2018 - 06:15
Why I’m glad I can’t afford to live in Dublin‘I don’t go to mass, have never voted Fianna Fáil and have never been to a GAA match,’ a journalist from the south of the city proudly remarked to meThu Aug 24 2017 - 06:00
Game of Thrones: Death to the Night King, long live JoffreyThe army of the dead’s king is a poor leader to the show’s excellent cast of villainsMon Aug 21 2017 - 13:00
Is Game of Thrones still brave enough to kill main characters?When did we last lose a hero or antihero? The series needs to rediscover its bloodlustMon Aug 07 2017 - 12:04
Harry Potter: is there a less appealing fictional character?Celebrated from birth as ‘special’, he’s a Millennial stereotype and a bad role-model for kidsMon Jul 31 2017 - 06:00
U2’s albums ranked from worst to bestThe band are about to perform The Joshua Tree in Croke Park, so where does it stand in the canon?Tue Jul 18 2017 - 12:00
In praise of Chris de Burgh, musical geniusThe singer’s finest songs demolish the caricature that he’s just a Daniel O’Donnell for Dart users. Indeed, if ever an artist was ripe for rehabilitation it is de BurghSat Apr 15 2017 - 06:00
We're living through the drippy Ed Sheeran era – where did the bad boys go?When a 'milksop mewler' like Sheeran is ubiquitous it makes you yearn for the anti-heroes like Pete DohertyThu Mar 23 2017 - 06:00
‘My coping mechanism for stress? I pull my own hair out tuft by tuft’A new book argues that obsessive compulsive behaviour – from wall punching to hair pulling – offers emotional releaseThu Mar 02 2017 - 09:00
Are you an introvert? The Trump era could be your momentIn these brutish times, it’s become fashionable to turn inwards. And introversion can be a gift not a burden.Fri Feb 17 2017 - 06:00
Great adaptations? Books coming to a screen near youFrom Silence to Trainspotting 2, here’s what to look out for in 2017Mon Jan 16 2017 - 06:00
I blame Star Wars for science fiction’s downfallIf 2001: A Space Odyssey was deeply inquisitive and soulful, as the best science fiction often is, Star Wars was the worst thing to befall the genreWed Dec 14 2016 - 06:00
How science fiction predicted President Trump: a warning from alternate historyOctavia Butler’s Parable of Talents, Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, Philip K Dick’s The Man In The High Castle and Robert Heinlein’s Starship TroopersFri Nov 11 2016 - 16:06
Harry Potter and the boy wizard traditionThe parallels between Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea and JK Rowling’s creation are striking, part of a tradition of boy wizards in fantasy fiction dating back to CS LewisSun Jul 31 2016 - 08:00
Fantasy fiction: From the edge of heaven to the gates of hellReviews: ‘Edge of Heaven’, ‘The Fireman’, ‘The Paper Menagerie’, ‘The City of Mirrors’Sat Jul 09 2016 - 01:11
Game of Thrones would be nothing without TolkienA Song of Ice and Fire is fundamentally un-Tolkienesque – heroes die, villains prosper – but George RR Martin is a self-proclaimed fan of the Lord of the RingsMon Jun 27 2016 - 15:03
Put down that PlayStation: the ‘gamebook’ is backFighting Fantasy inculcated in me a lifelong love of reading and a lifelong hatred of orcs guarding chests of gold. I’m not aloneTue May 24 2016 - 16:59
Game of Thrones superior to Lord of the Rings? It’s a fantasyGeorge RR Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire is seen as mature, complex and reflective of real life, but Lord of The Rings is felt to be fusty, puritanical and moralistic. WrongMon Apr 11 2016 - 11:17
‘What are the tingles in my head?’ The strange subculture of ASMRPeople with autonomous sensory meridian response get tingles when they hear certain sounds. It has spawned an industry in unusual YouTube videosThu Feb 18 2016 - 06:00
Board games come out of the closetForget the boredom-in-a-box games of your youth: the exciting new breed have names such as Zombicide, Shadows of Brimstone and Kingdom Death: MonsterWed Feb 03 2016 - 11:00
Did Philip K Dick dream of electric sheep? Much worseThe ‘Blade Runner’ author was a paid-up member of the tin-foil hat brigadeFri Jan 15 2016 - 15:48
