The winner of Election 2016 is social democracyWhat we voted for is a profound shift of priorities, towards decent services, a fair use of public resources and a reversal of the drift towards inequalityMon Feb 29 2016 - 01:00
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1982 – The Hunt by Night, by Derek MahonIn this collection, as in much of the poet’s work, dreams of permanence give way to history’s merciless demand to leave everything behindSat Feb 27 2016 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: Fianna Gael has been a long time comingThey now have one comfortable majority between them and if they don’t occupy that space together, it becomes a power vacuum.Tue Feb 23 2016 - 01:10
Fintan O’Toole: EU at its strongest when on brink of abyssThreat of Brexit may see union reconnect with its roots in positive side of fearSun Feb 21 2016 - 19:04
Fintan O’Toole: Enda Kenny’s claim of economic superpowers doesn’t washFor most of its period of office, the coalition told citizens that it was essentially powerless and only obeying ordersTue Feb 16 2016 - 03:31
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1980 – In Her Own Image, by Eavan BolandPoet’s reclaiming of the reality of women’s experience was both important and thrillingSat Feb 13 2016 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: Irish people do not get to elect a governmentWhoever gets into power after the election will run the country in much the same wayTue Feb 09 2016 - 00:31
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1979 – Faith Healer, by Brian FrielBrian Friel wrote three superb plays in an astonishing two-year burst of activity. ‘Faith Healer’ was the least well received but has become perhaps the most influentialSat Feb 06 2016 - 01:00
Culture Shock: What next? Blow up Mount Rushmore?Statues of old white guys are being removed, vandalised or campaigned against. The problem with the new iconoclasm is knowing where to stopFri Feb 05 2016 - 15:00
Fintan O’Toole: Why we will not miss the 31st DáilElected with a huge mandate for radical democratic change, it lapsed into collective indifference and impotenceTue Feb 02 2016 - 15:26
Fintan O’Toole: Fragile global politics makes the unthinkable thinkableA lack of political authority due to spiraling inequality is the common threadTue Jan 26 2016 - 03:00
Fintan O’Toole: No Oscar nomination for best supporting environmentThe glamorous stuff that gives the nation a lift is a byproduct of a messy, dynamic creative ecosystem full of knowns and unknownsTue Jan 19 2016 - 03:40
Fintan O’Toole: David Drumm is as entitled to bail as anyone elseGovernment has a duty to ensure that citizens who have not been convicted are spared the horrors of US prison systemWed Jan 13 2016 - 04:50
David Bowie changed the way we think about the selfAs geniuses tend to do, he anticipated what was coming in the virtual worldMon Jan 11 2016 - 12:22
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1975 – North, by Seamus HeaneyIn the poet’s most direct response to the Troubles in his native Northern Ireland, the past is alive with an atavistic violence that thrusts itself into the present daySat Jan 09 2016 - 04:00
Fintan O’Toole: Genuine local democracy part of the solution to floodingTime and again, local people protested against development on flood plainsTue Jan 05 2016 - 01:00
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1974 – Christmas Eve, by Maeve BrennanThe Dublin-born writer found fame in New York, but her best stories are set in IrelandSat Jan 02 2016 - 01:00
From the archives: Don’t believe a word – The life and death of Phil LynottOriginally published in 1986, Fintan O’Toole recalls the Thin Lizzy frontman’s upbringing in Crumlin, the band’s rise to fame, and the final days of the rockerSat Jan 02 2016 - 00:17
Fintan O’Toole: A toast to the luck of the Irish, second time aroundDame Fortune has given us another chance to build a real republicMon Dec 28 2015 - 18:21
Was ever a generation so misled?The rug was pulled from under them but they gradually found their feetTue Dec 22 2015 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole's 2015: The importance of being inconclusiveI’m not sure we learn anything from the arts – except that we need them more than everSat Dec 19 2015 - 05:00
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1973 – Da, by Hugh LeonardThe Dublin playwright, himself an embodiment of upward mobility, brilliantly captured the comedy and melancholy of new moneySat Dec 19 2015 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: Radical change the only way to achieve stabilityEven an existential crisis has not disturbed the distribution of privilege or caused failed institutions and practices to be swept awayTue Dec 15 2015 - 01:00
Fintan O'Toole: Why the Irish vote for corruptionCouncillors filmed by RTÉ seeking financial rewards for help with planning have been confident and combative since the broadcast. Why not? It could be an electoral assetSat Dec 12 2015 - 04:00
Fintan O’Toole: The lesson of Irish politics is keep calm and carry on corruptlyProposed watchdog’s independence from politics completely stripped awayWed Dec 09 2015 - 12:23
Fintan O’Toole’s top British novelsThe Irish Times literary editor was one of 82 foreigners polled by the BBC to choose the 100 best British novels. Read how he got onTue Dec 08 2015 - 16:25
Fintan O’Toole: Obscene salaries encourage contempt for the simple dignity of a job well doneThe idea that talented people need to be incentivised to work to the best of their abilities by obscene salaries and bonuses is toxic at many levels.Tue Dec 01 2015 - 11:28
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1970 – Troubles, by JG FarrellThe fall of the British Empire is expressed as dark comedy in this resonant novelSat Nov 28 2015 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: Still the best little parliament in the world for rubber-stamping budgetsThe level of engagement the Houses of the Oireachtas in the budgetary process is the lowest observed in any OECD countryTue Nov 24 2015 - 03:30
Fintan O’Toole: Babbling commentary is music to the ears of Islamic StateMaking sweeping statements about the Paris attacks puffs up their lethal vanityFri Nov 20 2015 - 17:35
Culture Shock: Why Irish novels are such a box-office draw‘Brooklyn’, ‘Room’ and ‘The Secret Scripture’ all have unapologetically literary sourcesFri Nov 20 2015 - 17:16
Fintan O’Toole: Carey inquiry leaks an abuse of human dignityWhat happened to to Pat Carey shows that our tradition of restraint has fadedTue Nov 17 2015 - 11:51
Fintan O'Toole: Three arts questions that need answersThe relationships between the Abbey Theatre, the Government and the Arts Council show plenty that’s wrong with arts governance in IrelandFri Nov 13 2015 - 14:27
Lost Shelley poem defending jailed Irish journalist unveiledVanessa Redgrave reads pamphlet defending former United Irishman Peter FinnertyTue Nov 10 2015 - 18:15
Fintan O’Toole: Time to make Attorney General answerable for actionsA common thread is the pretence the AG is a special creature above politicsTue Nov 10 2015 - 01:00
‘Misery in Dublin’ – what kind of legacy for our children?Perhaps the Georgian tenements were better than today’s homelessnessTue Nov 03 2015 - 01:26
Fintan O’Toole: Travellers keep us settled in our waysTravellers are hated because they don’t share Irish society’s great article of faith: that without a house you’re nothingTue Oct 27 2015 - 04:00
Fintan O’Toole: Opposition to social housing is matter of ideology not economicsWhy could State build housing in hungry 1930s and postwar 1940s but not now?Tue Oct 20 2015 - 04:00
Fintan O’Toole: The Minister for Finance and his know-nothing BudgetNeither before nor after the budget will Michael Noonan produce even a basic analysis of whether his measures as a whole are progressive or regressiveTue Oct 13 2015 - 10:06
Van Morrison: ‘I have never lived in Kilross House’Singer distances himself from civil action taken by wife over views from propertyMon Oct 12 2015 - 01:00
1916: Portraits and Lives, edited by Lawrence William White and James QuinnUnheralded leaders of the Rising take their places alongside Pearse, Connolly and PlunkettSat Oct 10 2015 - 15:49
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1963 – The Barracks, by John McGahernOfficial Ireland approved of McGahern’s mesmerising debut novel, based on his upbringing in a Roscommon Garda barracks. The banning of its follow-up sent him into exileSat Oct 10 2015 - 01:00
Culture Shock: When you’ve killed off drama, where can you go next?If the Dublin Theatre Festival takes the pulse of Irish theatre, this year’s suggests that the life of the Irish literary play is fadingFri Oct 09 2015 - 15:52
Fintan O’Toole: Five reasons why nobody believes the Government’s capital planWhere’s the evidence that the Government can actually do big things?Tue Oct 06 2015 - 04:37
Brian Friel: No country needed his gift more than IrelandPlaywright’s language will ring out around the world for as long as theatre survivesSat Oct 03 2015 - 14:07
Fintan O’Toole: The truth according to Brian FrielFor the late playwright the past and our images of it were slippery and treacherous. Truth lay not in public facts but in private fictionsFri Oct 02 2015 - 12:00
Brian Friel’s interview with Fintan O’Toole: ‘I’m not really very good at this kind of question’The late playwright did not like to be interviewed, and eventually he gave it up altogether. But he did give this rare interview to the drama critic of ‘In Dublin’ magazine in 1982Fri Oct 02 2015 - 11:30
Fintan O’Toole: The myth of Ireland’s progressive tax systemThe top 10% pay 29% of their incomes in tax. The bottom 10% pay 28%Tue Sept 29 2015 - 05:45
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1961 – A Whistle in the Dark, by Tom MurphyTom Murphy’s searing indictment of a distorted Irish masculinity was in the great tradition of Synge and O’Casey – telling Ireland what it did not wish to hearSat Sept 26 2015 - 01:00
Fintan O’Toole: What is at the root of inequality?People with inadequate education suffer in pretty much every economy. But they suffer much, much worse in the State.Tue Sept 22 2015 - 06:00
