Removal of signs shows we are going wrong wayThe removal of the iconic Ballyvaughan signposts points to three different kinds of official stupidityTue Jun 21 2011 - 01:00
First impressions last, and Ireland's used to be badCULTURE SHOCK: Stamps are the first Irish-manufactured product that many people see and are capable of conveying a good or bad…Sat Jun 18 2011 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsKESHCARRIGAN BOWL, EARLY FIRST CENTURY: There was no Celtic invasion of IrelandSat Jun 18 2011 - 01:00
Loughnashade trumpet c.100 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: ONE OF the most famous pieces of ancient sculpture is The Dying Gaul , a Roman copy of …Sat Jun 11 2011 - 01:00
Rich enough to sustain a decent societyThe place is awash with cash and there is no excuse for targeting the vulnerable and blaming austerityTue Jun 07 2011 - 01:00
Why did 'Titanic' loom so large in our imaginations?CULTURE SHOCK: IN THE LATE 1930s, Alfred Hitchcock considered making a film based on the sinking of Titanic but concluded that…Sat Jun 04 2011 - 01:00
Amulet, Old Croghan Man, 362-175 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: The dazzling regalia that survives from ancient Ireland suggests that kings had enormous…Sat Jun 04 2011 - 01:00
Gravy train still stops at all the right stationsIvor Callely will get €63,000 a year for the rest of his life yet Richard Bruton targets the poorest workersTue May 31 2011 - 01:00
Broighter boat, circa 100 BCA HISTORY OF IRELAND IN 100 OBJECTS: This delightful gold boat, just under 20cm long but rich in detail, is a rare thing in …Sat May 28 2011 - 01:00
What's yours is Dylan's, and what's Dylan's is his ownCULTURE SHOCK: IT WAS, of course, Bob Dylan himself who put into mocking words the ultimate cultural nightmare of the 20th century…Sat May 28 2011 - 01:00
Obama not just another excuse for blarneyClaiming Obama as our own could be an exercise in self- aggrandisement – or it could help construct a new Irish identityTue May 24 2011 - 01:00
Iron spearhead, 800-675 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: The past is unpredictable.Sat May 21 2011 - 01:00
Shaw was an anarchist: where is all the chaos?CULTURE SHOCK: SO FAR AS I know, Annabelle Comyn’s delightful production of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is the first time it has…Sat May 14 2011 - 01:00
Castlederg bronze cauldron, 700-600 BCA HISTORY OF IRELAND IN 100 OBJECTS: Christianity was not the first Mediterranean religion to find its way to Ireland.Sat May 14 2011 - 01:00
Goodman apology would be apt memorialRTÉ’s tributes to Joe Murray fail to mention how they pilloried him over beef investigationTue May 10 2011 - 01:00
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a feckCULTURE SHOCK: WHAT IS an Irish novel? The question hovers over literary history – Is Elizabeth Bowen Irish? What about Iris…Sat May 07 2011 - 01:00
Mooghaun hoard, circa 800 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: A little under 3,000 years ago someone in Ireland was very, very richSat Apr 30 2011 - 01:00
Preservation of self is true measure of elite's geniusRuling class has used its incompetence to flee the consequences of its incompetence – an awe-inspiring featTue Apr 26 2011 - 01:00
Rising to the challengeWith such a long tradition of complex and contradictory responses to the 1916 Easter Rising, there’s no reason to expect the …Sat Apr 23 2011 - 01:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsTara torcs, c 1200 BC: IN 1810, a boy digging close to the ringed fort known as the Rath of the Synods on the Hill of Tara in…Sat Apr 23 2011 - 01:00
The eyes have it: what Frida Kahlo's gaze says about usCULTURE SHOCK : THE EYES have itSat Apr 16 2011 - 01:00
Bronze Age funerary pots, 1900-1300 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: Sometime in the early Bronze Age, Irish people began to bury their dead in single graves…Sat Apr 16 2011 - 01:00
Indebted generation must find their voiceThe negative-equity generation should be out on the streets – but it’s hard to embrace collective power when you’ve grown up …Tue Apr 12 2011 - 01:00
Bronze Age dugout canoe, circa 2200 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: It is so long – 15m in all – that it cannot be photographed as a whole inside the National…Sat Apr 09 2011 - 01:00
This Irish solution to a southern problem is a smart choiceCULTURE SHOCK: IN THE FIRST act of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, currently playing at the Gate in Dublin, Maggie…Sat Apr 09 2011 - 01:00
How were Ice Age cave painters able to create great art?THE ROCK paintings in the Chauvet cave in southern France that are the subject of Werner Herzog’s marvellous film Cave of Forgotten…Sat Apr 02 2011 - 01:00
To impunity and beyond: brazenness of tribunal's shamed is well foundedThe bullish behaviour of Michael Lowry, Denis O’Brien and Ben Dunne this week was that of men who know they have nothing to fear…Sat Mar 26 2011 - 00:00
Enough bad history and politics. Perhaps the past is best on TVCULTURE SHOCK: THE YEARS between 1901 and 1911 constitute the longest decade in Irish historySat Mar 26 2011 - 00:00
Pair of gold discs, 2200-2000 BCA history of Ireland in 100 objects: The working of metals may have come late to Ireland, but the island then became one of …Sat Mar 26 2011 - 00:00
A history of Ireland in 100 objectsBasket earrings, Amesbury, England, circa 2300 BCSat Mar 19 2011 - 00:00
If Ireland's looking for a hero, try St Phil, who made awkwardness coolCULTURE SHOCK: AN ANTHROPOLOGIST from a distant culture might conclude that when they are not worshipping St Patrick the Irish…Sat Mar 19 2011 - 00:00
Corporate tax a distraction from core issueThe tax transnational firms are paying in Ireland is not the problem, it is the tax they are not payingTue Mar 15 2011 - 00:00
Theatre's regrettable new rule: keep it simple, stupidCULTURE SHOCK : HERE IS A SWEEPING generalisationSat Mar 12 2011 - 00:00
Neolithic handbag, 3800-2500 BCIt looks at first like a piece of a rough, greenish mat from a 1970s student flat. In fact it is a 5,000-year-old handbag.Sat Mar 12 2011 - 00:00
Everything & nothing has changedSomething remarkable has taken place – an election that has changed Irish politics foreverSat Mar 12 2011 - 00:00
Lost in translation: a Wilde notion from Myles na gCopaleenCULTURE SHOCK: FLANN O’BRIEN was an enemy of the practice of dramatising novelsSat Mar 05 2011 - 00:00
Radical change is what we really needRevolutionary transformation is the only hope for future of the nation – and Eamon Gilmore’s Labour partyTue Mar 01 2011 - 00:00
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects: Neolithic bowl, c 3500 BCThe bowl is simple enough, very dark with burnished surfaces and relatively crude lattice-pattern decorationsSat Feb 26 2011 - 00:00
The Celtic leopard: welcome to the age of 'tranformismo'CULTURE SHOCK DURING THAT brief moment last year when the British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was still popular, he appeared…Sat Feb 26 2011 - 00:00
The darker side of 'Irelantis' was lost on us a decade agoCULTURE SHOCK: I F YOU leave Ireland, at least through Dublin airport, one of the last things you’ll see are the ads for a mobile…Sat Feb 19 2011 - 00:00
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects: Ceremonial Axe, 3600 BCEven now, its sheen and colour are magnetically alluring, the jade green surface, mottled with darker veins and glimmers of light…Sat Feb 19 2011 - 00:00
One of the crassest pieces of theatre I have ever seenCULTURE SHOCK: YASMINA REZA’S God of Carnage is one of the biggest hit international plays of the past five yearsSat Feb 12 2011 - 00:00
Do humans like to fantasise? Is the pope a Catholic?CULTURE SHOCK: EMMA IS, like, so disconnected from the real worldSat Feb 05 2011 - 00:00
We need to talk about money, MicheálTo be taken seriously, Fianna Fáil’s new leader must address some problematic aspects of his party’s cultureTue Feb 01 2011 - 00:00
The decision that I made on contesting this general electionOPINION: This columnist will not be seen on the hustings and to ask why not is entirely legitimateSat Jan 29 2011 - 00:00
Real-life dramas? We don't do those. But John B Keane didCULTURE SHOCK: IMAGINE THE FOLLOWING scenario. In 2008 a man is found strangled in a ditchSat Jan 22 2011 - 00:00
I would be a very different person without my stammerOther people’s embarrassment is the worst part of having a stammer – but it forces you to expand your vocabulary and gives you…Sat Jan 15 2011 - 00:00
