Support for shameless Quinn is misplacedTAKE ALL the money raised this year by the cuts in child benefitTue Jul 31 2012 - 01:00
The cult of the pure: what the Olympics say about artists and athletesCULTURE SHOCK: THERE IS A PECULIAR connection between Ireland’s two Olympic medals for the arts, both won in Paris in 1924. …Sat Jul 28 2012 - 01:00
Quinn's jail privileges show touch of classEven in Mountjoy Prison, Seán Quinn jnr enjoys treatment denied those from the wrong classTue Jul 24 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsPenrose glass decanter, late 18th century: This glass decanter is striking for its elegance of form and luxurious, almost sensual…Sat Jul 21 2012 - 01:00
Time to stop recklessness and start taxing banksAS EUROPEAN Union finance ministers discuss ways of controlling reckless banks, a very simple logic appliesTue Jul 10 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Pike, 1798No Irish event of such consequence is more powerfully symbolised by a single object than the 1798 insurrection and the pikeSat Jul 07 2012 - 01:00
Quinn built his sense of victimhood on impunitySeán Quinn’s belief that he could hold the law in blatant contempt was perfectly rationalTue Jul 03 2012 - 01:00
If Ireland has changed so much, why hasn't theatre kept pace?CULTURE SHOCK: LAST WEEK I took part in a symposium at the Peacock on the “futures” of Irish theatreSat Jun 30 2012 - 01:00
Cotton panel showing Volunteer review, 1783A history of Ireland in 100 objects In November 1783 Edward Clarke, proprietor of the Irish Furniture, Cotton and Linen Warehouse…Sat Jun 30 2012 - 01:00
Tammany Hall lives on in feeble reformsTHE GREAT handbook of Irish machine politics is Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, the reflections of one of the veteran operators of …Tue Jun 26 2012 - 01:00
Home is where the heart is broken: Murphy's brush with ChekhovCULTURE SHOCK: SOME PLAYS ARE long because they have to be and some are long because the dramatist didn’t work hard enough to…Sat Jun 23 2012 - 01:00
Engraving of linen-makers, 1782A history of Ireland in 100 objects This engraving, one of a set of 12 by the Irish artist William Hincks, is a rare kind of…Sat Jun 23 2012 - 01:00
Irish politics as ugly as Trapattoni's bogus tacticsThe Irish soccer team’s humiliation exposed the false pragmatism that rules our political lifeTue Jun 19 2012 - 01:00
RTÉ apologises for treatment of late broadcasterRTÉ HAS formally apologised to the family of its former head of agriculture programmes, Joe Murray, who died last year.Sat Jun 16 2012 - 01:00
Naked greed, macho posturing: Glengarry or Ireland?CULTURE SHOCK: WHEN THE OFFICE is ransacked to make it look as if there has been a robbery, no one can make a call, because …Sat Jun 16 2012 - 01:00
Farcical system proves this is no crisisLET US be clear: there is no crisis in Ireland. A crisis is a moment when a system must either collapse or changeTue Jun 12 2012 - 01:00
Cuts and a clueless power grab characterise this Government's approach to the artsCULTURE SHOCK: IT IS TEMPTING to say that the current Government is the most philistine in the history of the StateSat Jun 09 2012 - 01:00
Dillon regimental flag, 1745A history of Ireland in 100 objects Under the treaties of Limerick and Galway that ended Jacobite resistance in Ireland, members…Sat Jun 09 2012 - 01:00
Yes vote an expression of grim fatalismIf people did believe what Michael Noonan had told us, the main argument for a Yes vote would have collapsedTue Jun 05 2012 - 01:00
Wood's Halfpence, 1724A history of Ireland in 100 objects In 1722, the British government granted William Wood permission to proceed with a patent…Sat Jun 02 2012 - 01:00
State of corruption: power and impunityPOLITICS: The political analyst Elaine Byrne has charted Ireland’s financial scandals and, with them, the culture that created…Sat Jun 02 2012 - 01:00
Fat chance of tackling fiscal fallout of obesityFour key issues concerning the long-term sustainability of public spending are being ignoredTue May 29 2012 - 01:00
Conestoga wagon, 18th centuryA history of Ireland in 100 objects: Conestoga wagons were first made by German immigrants in eastern Pennsylvania in the 1730s…Sat May 26 2012 - 01:00
Treaty a mere clause in contract yet unseenYOU GET a call from a solicitor – let’s call her Angela. She summons you to her officeTue May 22 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsIn 1950, in the course of rebuilding works on an old house in Summerhill in Co Meath, this remarkable stone was found behind …Sat May 19 2012 - 01:00
Why the cultural boycott of Israel is a blunt and backward instrumentCULTURE SHOCK: IN THE 1970S AND 1980s, I was an active member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement and supported the cultural…Sat May 19 2012 - 01:00
Who's your daddy? Germany, apparently‘ONE WAY of putting the referendum that I like is that Brussels and Germany are the mother and father of the EU and the rest …Tue May 15 2012 - 01:00
King William's gauntlets, circa 1690A history of Ireland in 100 objects : On the morning of July 14th, 1690, King William III presented these fine doeskin gloves…Sat May 12 2012 - 01:00
Culture can't save us, but it sounds sweeter than ignoranceCULTURE SHOCK: IT EMERGED LAST WEEK that midranking officers at the US Joint Forces Staff College were being taught in one course…Sat May 05 2012 - 01:00
Books of Survey and Distribution, mid 17th centuryA history of Ireland in 100 objects: There are very few plainer objects in this series, but none that is more consequentialSat May 05 2012 - 01:00
Vatican loud on liberals but silent on abuseWe are witnessing the cruel humiliation of a generation of clergy that deserves betterTue May 01 2012 - 01:00
Mythological mediocrity: his early play shows how much Yeats needed IrelandCULTURE SHOCK WE LIKE TO think that artistic geniuses are born, not madeSat Apr 28 2012 - 01:00
The home placeCULTURE SHOCK: Many of the paintings of 19th-century rural Ireland that hang in a Boston exhibition aren’t particularly great…Sat Apr 21 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objects O'Queally Chalice, 1640This superb silver chalice declares its origins very clearlySat Apr 21 2012 - 01:00
The characters in 'Porgy and Bess' are comfortable in their skins; we should be, tooCULTURE SHOCK: IMAGINE A radical new production of The Playboy of the Western WorldSat Apr 14 2012 - 01:00
Deposition on Atrocities, 1641A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Some objects resonate with their own times, but a few intrude themselves again and again…Sat Apr 14 2012 - 01:00
Dummies in the shop window of a failing ideologyFor years Ireland has been seen not as a nation or a society but as a model for other poor suckers to followTue Apr 10 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Wassail bowl, late 16th centuryWhat could be more English than a good wassail? From the Anglo-Saxon ‘wael hael’ – good health – the word refers to the tradition…Sat Apr 07 2012 - 01:00
'Titanic' and the promise of an ageAt one level it was a simple if appalling tragedy: the destruction of a ship with the deaths of 1,500 peopleSat Apr 07 2012 - 01:00
Popular ideology legitimises corruptionWhy should politicians not be incentivised with huge salaries and enormous expenses?Tue Apr 03 2012 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsOne of the most poignant objects in Irish history is one that was deliberately and symbolically destroyed.Sat Mar 31 2012 - 01:00
'Once' a hit, always a hit: the little Irish film takes to the big stageCULTURE SHOCK: GIVEN THE CHARM of John Carney’s film and the melodic power of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová’s songs, it was…Sat Mar 31 2012 - 01:00
Giving the people of Ireland a chance not chancersHERE IS an obvious but startling fact: for roughly 20 of the last 30 years, Ireland has been ruled by men with, to put it mildly…Tue Mar 27 2012 - 01:00
