A year of terrifying hallucinationsOver the past 12 months, the unimaginable became the new realityMon Dec 27 2010 - 00:00
10 treats that made 2010 bearableCULTURE SHOCK: AT LEAST THERE were the pleasures of the mind and heartSat Dec 18 2010 - 00:00
A dark Irish secret that few of us want to talk aboutCULTURE SHOCK: A SCAN OF Wednesday morning’s newspapers revealed three thingsSat Dec 11 2010 - 00:00
Purgatory is a nasty notion - someone should tell the IMFCULTURE SHOCK : IN THE FIRST act of Hamlet , after the prince has been visited by the ghost of his father, he swears “by Saint…Sat Dec 04 2010 - 00:00
Great plans to make us a backwater of despairThe all-too-intricate programme of the IMF, EU and State omits all thought of fixing our decrepit democracyTue Nov 30 2010 - 00:00
Hold on tight: why the past will be a model for our futureCULTURE SHOCK: IN DIARMAID MacCULLOCH’S A History of Christianity (surely the greatest work of historical synthesis of our time…Sat Nov 27 2010 - 00:00
The people must act or we will remain irrelevantBefore an election, a civic movement has to create a critical mass around the idea of radical political reformTue Nov 23 2010 - 00:00
Who'd have imagined our crisis would have been so predictable?CULTURE SHOCK: THERE ARE TIMES, however rare, when a piece of theatre has an effect way beyond its intrinsic merit.Sat Nov 20 2010 - 00:00
"Fear, rage, despair and distrust have been in the pot for two years. The new ingredient is shame"The long-threatened arrival of the IMF bogeymen was a major loss for Ireland as a proud, independent nationSat Nov 20 2010 - 00:00
There's one thing soaps do better than anyone else: deathCULTURE SHOCK: ‘EXTRAORDINARY,” says Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives , “how potent cheap music isSat Nov 13 2010 - 00:00
What would photos of the Great Famine have been like?CULTURE SHOCK: THERE ARE no photographs of the Great FamineSat Oct 23 2010 - 01:00
Put these plays together and they'd be dynamiteCULTURE SHOCK: IF IT WERE possible to formulate the play that Ireland most needs to see right now, it would be a genetically…Sat Oct 16 2010 - 01:00
Bold? Deep? No, it's more Oedipus SchmedipusCULTURE SHOCK: SEÁN O’CASEY’S The Silver Tassie is arguably Ireland’s first European playSat Oct 09 2010 - 01:00
The Wilde spirit that speaks the language of modern theatreCULTURE SHOCK: TEN YEARS AGO, for his Beckett on Film series, Michael Colgan, the artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin…Sat Oct 02 2010 - 01:00
A small price to pay?POLITICS : Snouts in the Trough: Irish Politicians and Their Expenses , by Ken Foxe, Gill & Macmillan, 227pp, €16.99Sat Oct 02 2010 - 01:00
Are Dublin's literary connections just accidents of birth?CULTURE SHOCK: DUBLIN’S DESIGNATION as a Unesco City of Literature raises an obvious questionSat Sept 25 2010 - 01:00
'Medea' is of our time, yet distant and strange - and savageCULTURE SHOCK: IT IS HARD to get your head around the fact that Medea was first staged 1,000 years before literacy took off …Sat Sept 18 2010 - 01:00
How Metsu's northern irreverence illuminates the joy of PuritanismCULTURE SHOCK: Dutch painters of the 17th century had to occupy safe - or religious - ground, but Gabriel Metsu saw this as …Sat Sept 11 2010 - 01:00
A rare breed of actorA highly sophisticated, educated and thoughtful man, Mick Lally may have looked as if he was carved from the side of a Mayo mountain…Wed Sept 01 2010 - 01:00
A musical spectacle to lift our hearts and lift us out of recessionCULTURE SHOCK: IN ONE of the many idle moments spent compiling playlists for my iPod, I had a flash of inspirationSat Jul 24 2010 - 01:00
Eugene McCabe: The great - but often forgotten - laureate of indeterminacyCULTURE SHOCK: The vague nature of his native borderland has defined Eugene McCabe – his work and his reputation – for much …Sat Jul 10 2010 - 01:00
TDs silent on other attacks on rural IrelandWhere is the passion of TDs when ‘the rural way of life’ is being slowly strangled by policies of more much consequence than …Tue Jul 06 2010 - 01:00
Time for a new look at the 'old enemy'Our relationship with our neighbour can still affect Irish behaviour in the most bizarre waysTue Jun 29 2010 - 01:00
Entertaining, even enraging, but without art this can't be theatreCULTURE SHOCK: AS WELL AS being an entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking exploration of Ireland’s economic catastrophe…Sat Jun 26 2010 - 01:00
Bringing Synge back in from a curious coldCULTURE SHOCK: RECENTLY, A letter writer to The Irish Times suggested that in order to “honour Dublin’s literary greats”, “once…Sat Jun 12 2010 - 01:00
Theatre has nothing to declare but an innate uncertaintyCULTURE SHOCK: A playwright has gone to court to defend his ‘moral rights’ over an adaptation of The Playboy of the Western …Sat May 22 2010 - 01:00
This is the golden age of TV drama - if you can find itCULTURE SHOCK: Television continues to thrive, but multi-channel viewing, downloading and DVDs have dispersed its old audience…Sat May 01 2010 - 01:00
Finding a future for Dublin Bus requires more than downsizingPlans to reshape its confusing network of routes and slim down the size of its workforce might benefit Dublin Bus, but it will…Sat Apr 24 2010 - 01:00
A prescient vision of Ireland, through a 1960s lensCULTURE SHOCK: IN RECENT YEARS, we’ve had lots of zombie and horror movies in which familiar landscapes have been emptied of…Sat Apr 17 2010 - 01:00
Neglect of archives shows contempt for citizensCULTURE SHOCK: The chaos in public policy concerning archives in general, and health records in particular, demonstrates the…Sat Apr 10 2010 - 01:00
The finance manager who tried to play by the rulesThe experience of this former IFSC banker is a parable of Celtic Tiger Ireland, illustrating the culture of light-touch regulation…Sat Apr 03 2010 - 01:00
Arch McDonagh takes a wrong turn to dead-end AmericanaCULTURE SHOCK : For this awful, knowing parody in the Tarantino genre, McDonagh should return to his superior, terrible beauties…Sat Mar 20 2010 - 00:00
Snuffing out our creative industry is not 'smart' economisingCULTURE SHOCK: ART, LIKE NATURE, is an ecosystemSat Mar 13 2010 - 00:00
Top Irish businessman rails at 'intertwining with politics'ONE OF Ireland’s most successful businessmen, Niall Fitzgerald, has told The Irish Times he did not feel that he could have pursued…Sat Mar 06 2010 - 00:00
Owen Roe - now the most magnetic figure on the Irish stageThe born stars of Irish theatre head for the Hollywood hills, but – with a bit of luck – less obvious greats such as Owen Roe…Sat Feb 13 2010 - 00:00
Why must agnostics be obliged to teach faith?IMAGINE A country in which entry to a major profession is subject to a test of one’s private beliefsTue Feb 02 2010 - 00:00
Why 'Avatar' will never surpass the wizardry of 'Oz'CULTURE SHOCK: IN RELATION TO James Cameron’s film Avatar, which now looks certain to triumph at the Oscars and at the global…Sat Jan 23 2010 - 00:00
Why 'Avatar' will never surpass the wizardry of 'Oz'CULTURE SHOCK: IN RELATION TO James Cameron’s film Avatar, which now looks certain to triumph at the Oscars and at the global…Sat Jan 23 2010 - 00:00
Ahern is no artist struggling in a garretIf you have a well-paid job and if you’ve written a book about Irish politics you should pay tax on earnings from itTue Jan 12 2010 - 00:00
Ahern is no artist struggling in a garretIf you have a well-paid job and if you’ve written a book about Irish politics you should pay tax on earnings from itTue Jan 12 2010 - 00:00
We have choices on our public valuesUnless we believe the current crisis is a temporary glitch, we must chart a new wayTue Dec 29 2009 - 00:00
Time to atone for the sins of the fathersCHURCH SCANDALS: This was the year when the Catholic Church was finally forced to account for its actions, in the face of two…Mon Dec 28 2009 - 00:00
Troubadour who didn't do justice to his talentCULTURE SHOCK: Liam Clancy's seductive voice, with its warmth and precision, ensured he helped lead the folk revival movement…Sat Dec 12 2009 - 00:00
Why artists can't quite give up on CatholicismCULTURE SHOCK: IN MARTIN McDONAGH’S play, The Lonesome West , the ineffectual Fr Welsh complains in anguish that “I’m a terrible…Sat Dec 05 2009 - 00:00
An abysmal abdication of responsibilityOPINION: If Bishop Willie Walsh doesn’t get it, what hope is there for the rest of the institutional church?Tue Dec 01 2009 - 00:00
Church relationship with Irish society has itself been abusiveOPINION: The Roman Catholic Church’s great achievement in Ireland has been to so disable our capacity to think about right and…Sat Nov 28 2009 - 00:00
From Chandler and the 'Playboy' to the contemporary crime waveCULTURE SHOCK: MOST POTTED BIOGRAPHIES of Raymond Chandler will tell you that, in 1895, after his parents divorced, his mother…Sat Nov 21 2009 - 00:00
A republican writer with 16th-century sensibilitiesCULTURE SHOCK : For all its liberalism, English mainstream culture is still uncomfortable with its radicals such as John Arden…Sat Nov 14 2009 - 00:00
Why official complacency about public rage is misplacedThe Government seems blasé about recent expressions of public unhappinessSat Nov 14 2009 - 00:00
