Things can only get better? Rishi Sunak’s election chant reckoning was perfectionCountless politicians have tried to co-opt pop hits as campaign anthemsSat Jun 01 2024 - 05:00
A Googlepocalypse is sweeping the United States – and its devastating effects are on their way to IrelandHugh Linehan: The link economy is dying, and with it an entire ecosystem that supported content creation and communication is coming to an endSat May 25 2024 - 05:15
‘You mean to say we spent £80 and we don’t even get to see her tits?’: Roger Corman’s Irish studio was from another ageHugh Linehan: Director set up in Galway in the mid-1990s, when he was in his 70s, and churned out his trademark low-budget exploitation movies thereMon May 20 2024 - 13:04
Elon Musk: Brave truth-teller or weird pontificator about the IRA?Hugh Linehan: The billionaire has been telling Michael Milken about everything from AI to space travel to the decline and fall of western civilisationSat May 11 2024 - 05:00
There’s nothing very dramatic about That They May Face the Rising Sun. Which is why it’s such a good filmHugh Linehan: Stanley Kubrick said a film should be more like music than like fiction. The Irish director Pat Collins knows why that mattersSat Apr 27 2024 - 05:00
Who watches the watchers when it comes to disinformation?Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit organisation, set out to counter misleading online content. Instead it seems to be stifling legitimate debateSat Apr 20 2024 - 05:00
A scoopless Scoop: What Netflix gets wrong about the news business in its re-creation of Newsnight’s Prince Andrew coupHugh Linehan: The streamer’s new drama is just another lethargic entry into the often unlovely genre of hero-journalist moviesSat Apr 13 2024 - 05:00
Colour-blind casting is the new normal. But we should still be alert to less palatable realitiesHugh Linehan: There are sound practical and ethical reasons for colourblind and colour-conscious casting. Other attempts to rewrite the past are absurdSat Apr 06 2024 - 05:00
The dream is clear: no hand-held device, no screens or keyboards. Just you, jacked into the metaverse like Keanu ReevesHugh Linehan: Business and tech inevitably and increasingly define how culture is produced, distributed and consumedSat Mar 30 2024 - 05:05
It’s not just British royals who edit photos. Manipulated images are everywhere you lookHugh Linehan: The boundaries between news and entertainment keep shifting. But the idea of photography as somehow true has always been questionableSat Mar 23 2024 - 07:00
Should we be surprised that Leo Varadkar, in the most pressurised job of all, decided to step down?High points rate as reaction to Brexit and Covid along with social changes wrought by votes on marriage equality and abortion rightsThu Mar 21 2024 - 06:30
Metropolitan bubble: Referendum fallout for Irish politics and wider societyDoes last week’s anti-establishment revolt contain the seeds of a change?Sat Mar 16 2024 - 06:00
If you want a long career in government, don’t become minister for cultureHugh Linehan: The RTÉ tragicomedy has helped to show where the arts brief ranks in the political pecking orderSat Mar 09 2024 - 05:00
Catherine Martin: RTÉ’s biggest champion in Cabinet is now at war with broadcaster’s leadershipMinister’s move to effectively sack RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh on television escalated political aspect of crisisSat Mar 02 2024 - 06:00
Why does nobody hate rotten, rancid, sanctimonious, brain-rotting music any more?Hugh Linehan: When it comes to Taylor Swift, for example, only the tinfoil-hat-wearers of the US extreme right have a bad word to say about herSat Mar 02 2024 - 05:00
In One Day, Em and Dex’s extended mixtapes tell you everything you need to know about their worldsHugh Linehan: David Nicholls, whose novel the Netflix series is based on, posted the mixtapes on Spotify. Do they give a sense of history being rewritten?Sat Feb 24 2024 - 05:00
RTÉ’s real failing is risk aversion, not risk-taking Hugh Linehan: The still largely untold saga of Toy Show the Musical has the makings of that rarest of RTÉ beasts: an actually funny comedySat Feb 17 2024 - 05:00
RTÉ before the Oireachtas: More insights into bad governance, arrogant culture and inadequate safeguardsToy Show the Musical and executive exit payments among the topics at today's hearing. But where do we go to from here?Wed Feb 14 2024 - 20:00
Jon Stewart is swooping back to The Daily Show to save the US from an orange-skinned huckster. The hubris is dizzyingHugh Linehan: His backers believe the comedian can help turn the tide against a Trump victory in November. The media has changed too much for thatSat Feb 10 2024 - 05:13
Do your Eurovision duty and get behind Bambie Thug. Irish democracy depends on itHugh Linehan: The desperate far right thinks a witchy nonbinary performer might offer them an opportunitySat Feb 03 2024 - 05:00
Smoking hot: The strange story behind the return of cigarettes to the moviesHugh Linehan: Cillian Murphy puffs his way through Oppenheimer, as Bradley Cooper does through Maestro. Blame cigarettes’ classification as ‘adult content’Sat Jan 27 2024 - 05:15
From this day forward, feel free to describe me as an openly heterosexual columnistHugh Linehan: The actor Andrew Scott is right. It’s time to get rid of the expression ‘openly gay’Sat Jan 20 2024 - 05:00
No whooping audience, no stupid competitions: What RTÉ could learn from The Tommy Tiernan ShowHugh Linehan: With the scourging of the broadcaster well under way, one of its recent successes could help it reinvent itselfSat Jan 13 2024 - 05:15
Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right?Hugh Linehan: Their take on Middle-earth mixes arrested adolescent kitsch with an undercurrent of menaceSat Jan 06 2024 - 05:00
History of Ireland in Maps and Dublin: Mapping the City – Chart toppersOur relationship with the science of cartography has changed profoundly, and we use maps more than ever beforeThu Dec 21 2023 - 05:00
Kevin Rafter leaves the Arts Council with a stonking budget. By that crude measure he’s its most successful chairmanHugh Linehan: It took a crisis to create an opportunity. The resulting ‘fiscal gimmickry’ appears to be the Irish way of getting things doneFri Dec 15 2023 - 06:00
Is this the worst of times for critics’ end-of-year lists?Hugh Linehan: The dialogue between commercial success and theories of artistic quality has been broken in the era of data hoggingSat Dec 09 2023 - 05:00
Disney in the doldrums: What’s gone wrong at the Mouse House? Hugh Linehan: Once upon a time the company seem set for world domination, now it is struggling. The victim of a series of unconnected events? Or the author of its own misfortunes?Sat Dec 02 2023 - 05:00
RTÉ’s rescue plan is all very well in practice, but does it work in theory?Ireland’s national broadcaster needs to define its purpose clearly and ruthlessly. It’s not clear this week’s proposals do thatSun Nov 19 2023 - 05:00
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but doesn’t – especially on an Aer Lingus planeHugh Linehan: ‘Trapped in a confined space with loud music played at you is what they do to terrorists,’ one commenter said about last weekend’s impromptu sessionFri Nov 10 2023 - 05:20
To err is human. Or it used to be, before we outsourced the job to techThe Dublin Marathon medal howlers raise the question of what is going on in a culture supposedly more educated than ever beforeSat Nov 04 2023 - 05:20
Rory Stewart: ‘I fought an existential fight against Boris Johnson, who is a terrible human being’The former Tory MP on the Brexit vote, serving as minister under David Cameron and Theresa May, and running against Johnson for the party leadershipSat Oct 28 2023 - 06:00
Patrick Kielty’s Late Late Show: The host is excellent. Everything else... not so muchHugh Linehan: Does RTÉ have the resources, the technical firepower or, most of all, the guests to make the new format work?Fri Oct 27 2023 - 12:00
Dethroning of a crypto king: ‘Sam Bankman-Fried’s brain couldn’t function doing one thing. It had become addicted to distraction’Author Michael Lewis has written a revealing and sometimes very funny book about the young former billionaire facing a huge US federal fraud trialSun Oct 22 2023 - 06:00
Smithfield the second-coolest place on the planet? It’s not even the second-coolest place in Dublin 7Time Out has form on this, having previously named Phibsborough as the 27th coolest place. So what’s it playing at?Thu Oct 19 2023 - 10:15
It’s not me, Twitter, it’s you: Why I’m saying goodbye to X Hugh Linehan: Elon Musk’s horrible social-media platform is no longer fit for purposeSat Oct 14 2023 - 05:20
U2 and the Las Vegas Sphere: You can admire the band without loving the spectacleHugh Linehan: Without their Achtung Baby pivot, U2 might now be doing shows in mid-sized arenas alongside Billy Idol or Simple MindsSat Oct 07 2023 - 05:20
Aertel brought Day-Glo immediacy into a drab, analogue worldEnd of an era as RTÉ announces shutdown of its teletext service first launched in 1987Tue Oct 03 2023 - 16:44
Laurence Fox’s misogynistic rant on Dan Wootton’s GB News show comes straight from the Murdoch playbookHugh Linehan: The channel suspended both hosts after Fox’s remarks about Ava Evans. But it owes its existence to such Fox News-style attacksFri Sept 29 2023 - 13:14
How did the anti-IRA Zombie by The Cranberries become an Irish rugby anthem?How did Rugby World Cup fans end up embracing a song about the futility of atavistic nationalist violence?Sat Sept 23 2023 - 07:00
Has the BBC secretly cancelled Róisín Murphy for her views on puberty blockers?Hugh Linehan: The Irish singer said she was sorry her comments had 'been directly hurtful to many of you' but did not withdraw themSat Sept 23 2023 - 06:30
Is the age of distraction killing indie cinema, or is that just old person talk?Hugh Linehan: Richard Linklater thinks filmmaking and fiction are losing their central place in the culture. He has a pointSun Sept 17 2023 - 05:15
RTÉ at Oireachtas committee: Less high drama, more a grim crisis. Expect ratings to slumpRatings will inevitably drop as high drama of the earlier hearings gives way to the grim crisis around the broadcaster's funding difficultiesWed Sept 13 2023 - 20:31
If Netflix and Disney+ have ditched your favourite shows, here’s what’s going onHugh Linehan: The era of peak TV is over – so the Hollywood strikes may be a blessing for studios that were making too many programmesSat Aug 26 2023 - 06:00
Shut up and play the hits: The dangers of rock stars getting politicalHugh Linehan: The Killers, The 1975 and Placebo have been getting into trouble with audiences around the world this summerSat Aug 19 2023 - 05:00
Did Kevin Bakhurst make the right call in showing Ryan Tubridy the door? Hugh Linehan: The decision sends a clear, tough message to public, staff and politiciansFri Aug 18 2023 - 13:44
What will Ryan Tubridy’s exit mean for his fellow RTÉ presenters?A significant drop in earnings is on the cards under a new regime that holds all the cardsThu Aug 17 2023 - 20:53
Does Ryan Tubridy have a future at RTÉ? Kevin Bakhurst seems to think soGrant Thornton report shifts blame further towards RTÉ’s shortcomings but new director general will hold all the cards in future contract negotiationsWed Aug 16 2023 - 16:29
Jim Crow nostalgia and a QAnon-adjacent film are among the big US entertainments of the summerThe success of Jason Aldean’s song Try That in a Small Town and the Jim Caviezel-starring film Sound of Freedom raise disturbing questionsSat Aug 12 2023 - 06:00
State and local government have failed to deliver urban spaces that feel functional or comfortableHugh Linehan: In Dublin rough, transitional parts of town get rough, unsympathetic treatment from the authoritiesSat Aug 05 2023 - 05:00
