‘Disgusting’ a big word that feels almost physicalOpinion: Garda Commissioner’s position untenableTue Mar 25 2014 - 10:32
Culture Shock: The Irish film industry needs belief, strategy, and . . . actionJust as with the rest of the economy, there has never been a coherent long-term Government strategy for developing an indigenous industrySat Mar 15 2014 - 01:00
Why the Taoiseach should not join the St Patrick’s Day paradeOpinion: Our Irishness is pluralist and non-sectarianTue Mar 11 2014 - 15:11
Private memories, public traces: a tribute to Seamus Heaney‘Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens’, an exhibition at Emory University in Atlanta, was intended to be a living celebration of the poet and his work. Instead it has ended up as a fitting memorialSat Mar 08 2014 - 01:00
US success proves European disciples of austerity wrongOpinion: None of the horrendous consequences predicted by hawks has come to passTue Mar 04 2014 - 12:01
Culture Shock: A catalogue of disasters: what’s in store at the National LibraryWhat should be one of the most attractive jobs in Ireland is one that any sane and suitable person would think twice about acceptingSat Mar 01 2014 - 01:00
Shatter’s personal integrity makes the reality of this crisis far worseOpinion: We should not worry that a police force can step out of line but about whether we have the mechanism to deal with this situationTue Feb 25 2014 - 12:01
Outside Mullingar, and beyond the edge of awfulnessAll the hokum that had been happily discarded became, in Martin McDonagh’s hands, a workable proposition again. It didn’t occur to me that an intelligent American dramatist such as John Patrick Shanley might look at those plays and miss all the layers of mockery and irony and manipulationSat Feb 22 2014 - 01:00
Gay people no threat to a robust institutionOpinion: The idea that marriage is under threat is crucial to the mindset of those opposing gay marriageTue Feb 18 2014 - 12:01
Culture Shock: What Conor McPherson needs to do to be a great playwrightThe gifts on show in his plays, including ‘The Night Alive’, at the off-Broadway Atlantic theatre, make him an important figure in Irish theatre – the most obvious successor, in fact, to Brian Friel and Tom Murphy. Except that he can’t quite seem to believe in themSat Feb 15 2014 - 01:00
University fees the Princeton wayAs funding moves away from a consumerist model based on loans, students at one of the top US universities either pay their own fees or get a grant from Princeton itselfSat Feb 15 2014 - 01:00
A columnist’s job confers some privileges, and obligationsOpinion: With the megaphone comes a duty to protect freedom of expressionTue Feb 11 2014 - 12:01
Full equality often has to wait while mainstream opinion catches upOpinion: Gay men and lesbians shouldn’t have to care whether Iona Institute members love them or not, writes Fintan O'TooleTue Feb 04 2014 - 13:18
Garda chief’s answers leave us all with questionsOpinion: A crisis has been created between the police force and the State it is meant to serveTue Jan 28 2014 - 12:01
Culture shock: ‘Cruel’ and unusual? The facts of the Abbey storyJust what form of public accountability will the National Theatre tolerate?Sat Jan 25 2014 - 01:00
No matter how bad the times, the State always has enough to pay consultantsOpinion: Having survived the Great Crash, those who charge by the hour know that nothing will ever disturb their tranquillity againTue Jan 21 2014 - 12:01
Panel raises doubts about Abbey Theatre’s ‘world-class’ statusSome productions did not reach ‘acceptable' professional presentation standardSun Jan 19 2014 - 09:55
Abbey confidential: outside experts unimpressed by our national theatreAn internal report by international assessors suggests the Abbey Theatre needs to stage much better productions if it really wants to be world classSat Jan 18 2014 - 01:00
Top appointment at Irish Water does not suggest thirst for public service reformOpinion: It’s simple – if you’ve been in charge during a major screw-up you don’t get promotedTue Jan 14 2014 - 12:01
Ireland’s rebound is European blarneyIn a column written for the New York Times, Fintan O’Toole argues that Ireland is suffering to maintain an unreal image of slimmed-down perfectionMon Jan 13 2014 - 15:18
Culture Shock: The sacrifice of Culture Ireland will come home to roostFiona Shaw is making a key speech on Tuesday, at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ jamboree. Bizarrely, the State’s official body for cultural exports won’t be at this key annual eventSat Jan 11 2014 - 01:00
The idea that art and culture are about rebranding is an insult to artistsOpinion: Cultural vibrancy is the opposite of bland positivityTue Jan 07 2014 - 12:01
We’re brilliant at Plan B - what we need to do some work on now is Plan AOpinion: Plan B is fecking off, and we’re the world champions at fecking offTue Dec 31 2013 - 12:01
10 things I loved in 2013, from ‘Breaking Bad’ to ‘riverrun’'The final episodes of Breaking Bad had the suspense and spectacle of a great action thriller, the psychological depth of a fine novel, the rush towards a calamity of a Greek tragedy'Sat Dec 28 2013 - 01:00
Culture Shock: Peter O’Toole – a great actor undazzled by his own starThe late actor’s approach was sceptical, cool, intellectual. He was, at his best, almost a meta-actorSat Dec 21 2013 - 01:00
Three key truths about the bailout which we are only learning nowOpinion: Minister crumbled under the threat of financial terrorism from TrichetTue Dec 17 2013 - 12:01
Culture Shock: This people’s revolution is dulled by dutyThe National Theatre is obliged to commemorate the 1913 Lockout, but Jimmy Fay’s production of ‘The Risen People’ should have asked a basic question first: why go back to James Plunkett’s text rather than approach the subject with wholly new eyes?Sat Dec 14 2013 - 01:00
For richer, for poorer, we should create a society for allWe need a sober optimism, not a self-deluding and cult-like adherence to compulsory success storiesFri Dec 13 2013 - 01:00
The ugly sound of a howl of joy haunts Sinn Féin’s account of IRA killingsOpinion: The horrible things done during the Troubles cannot be undone, but they should not be lied aboutTue Dec 10 2013 - 12:01
Nelson Mandela: Prometheus unboundHis achievement was to make his country fit for ordinary men and women to live in freedomFri Dec 06 2013 - 00:55
The nation’s children will go on paying the cost of the bailout for some timeOpinion: The gap in health between the best-off and worst-off children has doubled in the three years after the bank guaranteeTue Dec 03 2013 - 12:01
The Gate KeeperFor 30 years Michael Colgan has been the dominant figure behind the Gate Theatre, combining business acumen, a taste for avant garde drama and the instincts of a brazen and irrepressible showmanSat Nov 30 2013 - 01:00
Technology has not created leisure but the sense of never being free of workOpinion: Obsessive devotion to one’s job is toxic, not just to oneself but to family and friendsTue Nov 26 2013 - 12:01
Culture Shock: A history of Irish drama in 10 foodsBrendan Behan said every time there was a crisis at the Abbey, someone put on a pan of rashers. But are there any rashers in Irish plays?Sat Nov 23 2013 - 01:00
25 years of Irish life through the columns of Fintan O’TooleThis is an introduction from a special supplement marking 25 years of Irish Times columns by Fintan O'Toole. To see more of the supplement, including themes such as emigration, the rise and fall of Fianna Fail, the dynamics of terror and the bubble and the bust, see the link to our digital edition belowWed Nov 20 2013 - 06:00
Oct 16th, 1998: Turning the Famine into a corporate celebrationThose in positions of power and authority in Ireland seldom take responsibility for the state of its political institutions and corporate culture. One of the reasons for this failure is that, in Ireland, the Establishment is always someone else. All the insiders like to think of themselves as outsiders.Wed Nov 20 2013 - 06:00
I have never sought to be someone who is contrarian or purposely ‘provocative’Opinion: It is important to believe that you are writing for citizens who want to live in a fairer and better societyTue Nov 19 2013 - 12:01
Culture Shock: ‘Love/Hate’ needs to go to the wire – and steal, not borrowThe fourth series of RTÉ’s gangland drama was missing something crucial: the politics of ‘The Wire’ and the strong female world of ‘The Sopranos’Sat Nov 16 2013 - 01:00
Goodman centre stage for first grand inquiry of tribunal eraLarry Goodman coverage, 1989-1994Wed Nov 13 2013 - 01:00
Why fencing in our high mountain pastures is really the height of follyOpinion: For walkers, there are now problems where there were none beforeTue Nov 12 2013 - 12:01
Culture Shock: Never mind the Nazis. What about Ireland’s own stolen treasures?A beautiful Buddha on display at the National Museum has a resonance in Irish literature: Leopold and Molly Bloom mention it in ‘Ulysses’. But it is as much a piece of loot as any of the 1,400 works by Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Renoir, Munch, Dix and others that have been uncovered in MunichSat Nov 09 2013 - 01:00
It’s time for Gerry Adams to bow out, and take his fictional counterpart with himOpinion: Sinn Féin is now a significant, and in many ways constructive, part of the democratic processTue Nov 05 2013 - 12:02
Culture Shock: Disgraceful, disgusting, disreputable: it’s high time to ban the censorship boardSat Nov 02 2013 - 01:00
Irish mastery of doublespeak has led us to a tragic endpointThe Germans need to be hearing Message A: Ireland is in dire trouble. They’re getting Message B: Ireland is grandTue Oct 29 2013 - 12:00
Culture Shock: The Irish family – proceed with cautionIn ‘The Hanging Gardens’, at the Abbey Theatre, Frank McGuinness attempts the highly unusual feat of creating a convincing nuclear family on an Irish stage. Its failure is not entirely surprisingSat Oct 26 2013 - 01:00
Blueprint for a smarter societyIreland performs brilliantly at a community level but functions poorly as a society. How can we apply our small-scale success to the whole country?Sat Oct 26 2013 - 01:00
