Fintan O’Toole: Gibraltar's experience exposes British Brexit liesThe Spain-Gibraltar border shows what a customs-union divide looks likeSat Sept 29 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: #MeToo cannot win in a climate of fearThe departure of Ian Buruma as editor of the ‘New York Review of Books’ should worry everyone who values the freedom of the pressTue Sept 25 2018 - 02:00
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland’s difficulty becomes England’s opportunityBritain’s new Brexit strategy is a cynical reversal of the Irish adage. But it won’t workSat Sept 22 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: It is insane to look to developers to solve housing crisisDeveloper-led planning has never met the basic need for shelter. Yet the Government clings to its blind ideological faith in the market.Tue Sept 18 2018 - 02:00
Fintan O’Toole: Boris Johnson has stopped being funnyJohnson is not evil, but he is a deeply unserious manchild who pursues only his own pleasures – while ruining the country he purports to loveSat Sept 15 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: ‘Adults in the room’ are not the resistance – they are Trump collaboratorsFintan O’Toole: Self-exculpating mindsets of the enablers are not a form of resistanceTue Sept 11 2018 - 02:00
Fintan O'Toole: Irish villages are dead unless we come up with plan fastIreland needs a joined-up national plan for vibrant villagesTue Sept 04 2018 - 02:00
Fintan O’Toole: The slide into ‘post-truth’ is not inevitableWe should not despair about apparent impossibility of civil discourse – we’ve been here beforeTue Aug 28 2018 - 01:49
Fintan O’Toole: This visit feels too much like a ceremonial processionFrancis cannot escape reality that he heads an institution struggling to confess its sinsSat Aug 25 2018 - 20:53
It’s too late. Not even Pope Francis can resurrect Catholic IrelandFrancis seems a fine person, and the faithful will greet him with joy. But he can’t repair the ruins of a corrupt, abusive institutionThu Aug 23 2018 - 12:59
Fintan O'Toole: Is the pope a Catholic? Most probably notChurch’s failure to embrace Margaret Cash is at odds with their teachingTue Aug 21 2018 - 12:40
Fintan O’Toole: Why is Ireland unable to solve basic problems?The Republic is a rich, young, stable country. So why is it so dysfunctional?Sat Aug 18 2018 - 06:00
Some countries have a haze of smog – we have a haze of smugOur climate cheques are bouncing but we still think we are an exceptional peopleTue Aug 14 2018 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland, land of a 32-county hockey team and a 26-county rail systemThere are very real ways in which there is no such singular place as IrelandSat Aug 11 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: Bertie is back and Ross is in The Thick of It‘Granny grant’ a symptom of political culture that refuses to build decent public servicesTue Aug 07 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: The big hold up for rural broadband is ideologyUsing the 1950s State electricity model would be a sin against the new orthodoxySat Aug 04 2018 - 08:44
Fintan O’Toole: Brexit Plan B is mash-up of ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘Mad Max’Contingency plan was to scare Brussels but really only echoes with ‘Don’t panic!’Tue Jul 31 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: ‘Yeats Test’ criteria reveal we are doomedUse of WB Yeats by politicians and media is an index of how bad world has becomeSat Jul 28 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland should offer UK precious gift of timeExtension of Brexit deadline beyond March 2019 is now a vital Irish interestTue Jul 24 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O'Toole: Trump does and says pretty much what Putin wants him to doThe humiliation of Trump is the greatest revenge drama since ‘Hamlet’.Sat Jul 21 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Brexit White Paper puts UK on road to nowhereWhen Britain joined the EU it realised the stakes. Now it is mired in petty politickingTue Jul 17 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O'Toole: There is nothing undemocratic about voting again on BrexitSecond thoughts are the essence of democracy. The Brexit promised in 2016 has vanished so it is time to ask the people againSat Jul 14 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Britain has gone to huge trouble to humiliate itselfBest possible Brexit outcome is the worst of both worlds, a state neither in nor outTue Jul 10 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O'Toole: The spectre of the migrant is scaring democracy to deathCutting the numbers of migrants will not stop the rise of the far-right because the anxieties it exploits are ultimately not about migrationSat Jul 07 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: The logic of Trump and fascism is escalating violenceWhat can the far right offer in return for people surrendering democratic power?Tue Jul 03 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: The long Irish 19th century is finally overThe Victorian notion of charity is dying, along with Catholicism and AnglophobiaSat Jun 30 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flowBabies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarismTue Jun 26 2018 - 05:00
Drumm too dull to understand what he was part of and too thick to feel pain of others’ sufferingThe Anglo Irish Bank boss was inflated by people’s need to believe in his magic moneySat Jun 23 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Banks are public institutions masquerading as private businessesPressure is mounting for top bankers’ pay limits to be lifted. It should be resistedTue Jun 19 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland is becoming the tax haven of choice for profit-shifting multinationalsOur national symbol is no longer the Tricolour but a big sign saying ‘12.5%’Sat Jun 16 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: Brexiteers cannot allow the English bulldog to be wagged by an Irish tailThe truth is that the Brexiteers don’t give a flying frig for Ireland, North or SouthTue Jun 12 2018 - 15:55
Fintan O’Toole: How to honour our unshamed MagdalenesThe last Magdalene laundry, which shut only in 1996, should become a memorial centreSat Jun 09 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: National Anthem is tone deaf to new IrelandEnshrining ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ in law is out of tune with radically altered identityTue Jun 05 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Catholic Ireland is now a religious rust belt of half-empty churchesThe authoritarian version of Catholicism is over. In other forms it is alive and wellSat Jun 02 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Repeal supporters must not treat No voters as freaksIreland is too ambiguous to sustain culture wars. Post-vote, we need to win the peace for social justiceTue May 29 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Abortion result shows democracy can rise above hysteria and hateIreland has voted No to tribalism and fear in overwhelming decision to remove the EighthSun May 27 2018 - 07:34
Fintan O’Toole: A United Ireland isn’t what it used to beTwenty years ago we voted for a new vision of Irish nationalism. Don’t let Brexit drive us backSat May 26 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Real choice is not Yes or No. It is What If? or As IfWe cannot vote to impose on others what we do not really know ourselvesTue May 22 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole on Tom Murphy the Irish OrpheusThis is the text of O’Toole’s eulogy delivered at the service in the Mansion HouseSat May 19 2018 - 15:00
Fintan O’Toole: Abortion issue creates and sustains tribal politicsIn 1983, the conservative Catholic John Healy could also be a staunch opponent of the Eighth AmendmentSat May 19 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Tom Murphy documented the inner history of modern IrelandWriter of ‘A Whistle in the Dark’ and ‘Conversations on a Homecoming’ dies at age of 83Tue May 15 2018 - 23:37
Fintan O’Toole: Why are the State's great secrets often about women's bodies?Our Republic still exists in the long shadow of shame. Why would it not?Tue May 15 2018 - 10:36
Fintan O'Toole: On abortion we are subjects of Brexit BritainAnti-abortionists depend on pagan England to uphold their vision of a holy IrelandSat May 12 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: In health system culture change is just a buzzwordIreland has failed to create a health service owned by people and not vested interestsTue May 08 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Women die while outrage after outrage fails to shift attitudesWomen’s health is a matter of faith and the medical and political authorities must be believed without questionSat May 05 2018 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: 8th Amendment demands punishment for womenConstitutional ban means Ireland too extreme even for mainstream social conservativesTue May 01 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Jacob Rees-Mogg, great satirist of our timesIf Brexiteers knew anything about Irish food they would keep their mouths shutSat Apr 28 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O'Toole: How I discovered what I felt about abortionI was 18 when asked to help a girl get an abortion. I knew it was not about me, it was about herTue Apr 24 2018 - 05:00
Fintan O’Toole: Conservatives have abandoned their core principlesThe rich were only pretending they cared about prudence, law and family valuesSat Apr 21 2018 - 06:00
Fintan O’Toole: Was the DUP involved in Brexit campaign fraud?The party is implicated in what appears to be a serious undermining of the voting processTue Apr 17 2018 - 05:00
