Memo to Elon Musk: Be like the bluebirdHugh Linehan: It takes preternatural chutzpah to replace the traditional symbol of hope and happiness with a letter of the alphabet associated with nihilism, crypto-fascism and pornSat Jul 29 2023 - 05:00
Sinéad O’Connor: A take-no-prisoners defiance in the face of traumaThe acclaimed Dublin singer, who shot to global fame with her 1990 hit song Nothing Compares 2 U, has died at the age of 56Wed Jul 26 2023 - 21:39
Talent is now a dirty word at RTÉ, even though the broadcaster badly needs more of itIt’s plain wrong to suggest the country is full of people who could easily take on the job of presenting for a modest feeSat Jul 22 2023 - 05:00
Ryan Tubridy is the inoffensive figurehead RTÉ wantedThe broadcaster’s conservatism, reliant on a few big names for decades, will have to change nowWed Jul 12 2023 - 19:40
Kevin Bakhurst’s arrival gives RTÉ a much-needed leaderPublic service experience of new director general fuels his first moves but real meat needs to be put on bones of plansMon Jul 10 2023 - 18:20
Would Oscar Wilde have survived in the #MeToo era?Hugh Linehan: Wilde and Roman Polanski both took advantage of positions of power and privilege to sexually exploit young peopleSat Jun 24 2023 - 08:00
RTÉ's shocking breach of trust over Tubridy’s unusual pay deal weakens broadcaster’s financial pleasRevelation that broadcaster consistently under-reported earnings received by presenter is deeply damaging – for both partiesThu Jun 22 2023 - 19:00
Berlusconi’s political stand-up comedy routine was hugely influential but the joke isn’t funny any moreHugh Linehan: The potent blend of machismo, shamelessness and corruption set the mould for Trump and JohnsonSat Jun 17 2023 - 05:45
Ian Paisley jr and the mock-cock-rock of Kiss: Strange things happen behind the privet hedges of North AntrimHugh Linehan: Gene Simmons and Nick Cave represent two very different strands of musical conservatismSat Jun 10 2023 - 05:00
Public Morality and the Culture Wars; Left is Not Woke: Reviewing contemporary political thought Both books provide robust interrogations of compelling ideas shaping societies for good or illMon Jun 05 2023 - 04:47
That AI-generated Magdalene selfie: a lot of fuss about very littleHugh Linehan: Why did a banal picture in a Dublin exhibition elicit such a furious response?Sun Jun 04 2023 - 09:32
Andy Warhol gets another 15 minutes of fame – a reminder we all still live in his worldHugh Linehan: A judgment by the US supreme court may have all sorts of legal implications for copyright in the futureSun May 28 2023 - 06:25
‘A lot of history is a very, very dark comedy in which people behave quite badly’The cult podcasters behind The Rest is History visited Dublin recently to record episodes about Ireland’s past with their trademark self-deprecating humour and lightly worn eruditionSat May 27 2023 - 05:00
We were promised jetpacks. Instead we got Outlook calendars and two-factor authenticationHugh Linehan: The metaverse is not the exciting and dangerous world science fiction once teased us withSun May 21 2023 - 05:00
There’s only one great British institution that’s really worth rooting forHugh Linehan: The contrast between events in Westminster Abbey and on Merseyside is starkSun May 14 2023 - 05:00
Viral death: how new media failed to live up to its promiseHugh Linehan: Over-reliance on social media and clicks undermined the promise of Buzzfeed, Vice and othersSun May 07 2023 - 05:00
The vinyl revival holds the prospect of an unappealing futureHugh Linehan: Premium physical products may survive the digital tsunami, but at what cost?Sat Apr 29 2023 - 05:00
Sixty years of evolution and revolution in videoHugh Linehan: A major exhibition in New York looks back at politically engaged video art since the 1960sSat Apr 22 2023 - 06:00
Joe Biden is probably the last great avatar of an Irish-American culture in terminal decline Hugh Linehan: Ireland doesn’t do nostalgia. We’re happy to let others do it for usSat Apr 08 2023 - 05:00
Artificial intelligence: the time for funny pictures is overHugh Linehan: There are growing fears that the AI arms race could pose an existential threat to humanitySat Apr 01 2023 - 05:00
Succession is back, and the super-rich are more popular than everHugh Linehan: What is driving the fascination with financial elites in contemporary drama?Sat Mar 25 2023 - 05:00
Does the Irishness of a film matter? No, except when it doesHugh Linehan: There was a time when debates about authentic Irishness had more of an edgeSat Mar 11 2023 - 05:00
How true crime took over media with victims being dehumanised in the search for the killer Hugh Linehan: Very few of us can claim to never have been drawn into these storiesSat Mar 04 2023 - 05:00
Roald Dahl, JK Rowling and Dr Seuss: Language police to the left, book-banning zealots to the rightHugh Linehan: If sensitivity readers are willing to bowdlerise an author such as Roald Dahl, what’s going on with first-time writers?Fri Feb 24 2023 - 05:30
Why is trust in media declining? Maybe it’s not us, it’s youHugh Linehan: Trumpist framing of the media as the enemy is commonplace among both the far right and far leftSat Feb 18 2023 - 05:00
Deathly dull Grammys and Oscars are heading for either oblivion or reinventionHugh Linehan: How did the word’s richest and most sophisticated media industry get to be so bad at the basics?Sat Feb 11 2023 - 05:00
What are the real divides between North and South?If politics is downstream of culture, then culture is where we need to lookSun Feb 05 2023 - 06:15
No laughing matter: The Snapper asks troubling questions that weren’t noticed at the timeHugh Linehan: Both book and film offer an insight into how unconscious misogyny and ambiguity about sexual violence are deeply embedded in Irish societySat Jan 28 2023 - 05:00
Yes, The Banshees of Inisherin is up for 10 Baftas. But is it just more Martin McDonagh shtick?Martin McDonagh’s film has been widely acclaimed and looks set for Oscar success. There’s so much to admire about it, and yet...Fri Jan 20 2023 - 09:47
John Lydon’s Eurovision entry is a logical next step for the Widow Twanky of punkHugh Linehan: Public Image Limited’s Hawaii is unlikely to find favour with televotersSat Jan 14 2023 - 05:00
The Dead: Indisputably Ireland’s greatest work of Christmas artHugh Linehan: It’s the time of year when I bend people’s ears about James Joyce’s Epiphany-set masterpieceSat Dec 24 2022 - 05:00
Hugh Linehan: Architecture and morality boast an uneasy relationship It’s architecture that’s bound up most with raw expression of power, with all the cruelty and human misery that entailsSat Dec 17 2022 - 05:00
Hugh Linehan: Will the latest chatbot replace this column?A rapidly improving technology opens up unsettling visions of all our futuresSat Dec 10 2022 - 07:00
Signed, sealed, delivered: the strange history of the mechanical signatureHugh Linehan: Bob Dylan has been caught out badly, but do we overvalue the supposed authenticity of the signed edition?Sat Dec 03 2022 - 07:00
Blackrock College abuse: Why did leading voices stay silent for so long?The south Dublin private school has produced some of modern Irish society’s loudest voices. It’s baffling that what went on there didn’t seep out soonerFri Nov 18 2022 - 06:01
How Amazon, Spotify, Google and Facebook lock you in and rip you offChokepoint Capitalism authors Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin say it’s time to fight back against firms that siphon money from artists and their audiencesSun Nov 13 2022 - 05:00
The Abbey controversy should have been more transparent from the outsetHugh Linehan: This tangled tale has led to serious friction between some of the protagonistsSat Nov 12 2022 - 05:42
Hugh Linehan: Welcome to season 15 of RTÉ’s Let’s Not Make a DecisionMoya Doherty was right to have challenged Micheál Martin about the Government’s inaction on public-service broadcasting reformSat Nov 05 2022 - 05:00
Toy Show the Musical may be inevitable but is it a good idea?Hugh Linehan: The Late Late Toy Show is a ratings winner for RTÉ so this much-hyped brand extension is not a surpriseSat Oct 29 2022 - 05:00
Stop singing, start talking: Why has sprechgesang become so popular in contemporary music?Hugh Linehan: Part of the answer, as always with pop music, is simple bandwagon-jumpingSat Oct 22 2022 - 06:15
John Cleese: He’s not the free-speech messiah, he’s a very naughty boyHugh Linehan: Will grumpy old men really save us from cancel culture?Sat Oct 15 2022 - 06:00
Hugh Linehan: The Irish reunification debate too often takes a simplistic approachHugh Linehan: Debate over reunification too often takes a simplistic approach to the complexities of identitySat Oct 08 2022 - 05:00
House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power have made the same mistake: posh blonde heroesHugh Linehan: Upper-crust heroes don’t cut it in the fantasy warsSat Sept 24 2022 - 05:00
‘Celebrating Brexit’ with an hallucinogenic experience in a decommissioned ice rink Hugh Linehan: At an art show in Edinburgh, the Dreamachine unlocked something in my brainSat Sept 17 2022 - 05:00
Hugh Linehan: Live cultural events are back. Now we just need audiencesCovid closed much of the arts world, and attendance still has not returned to pre-pandemic levelsSat Sept 10 2022 - 05:00
Jon Ronson: In 2008 Graham Linehan told me ‘Join Twitter, the place where no one fights’Chronicler of contemporary society explains battle for dominance over conflicting valuesFri May 27 2022 - 06:00
Cathal Coughlan, influential Cork musician, dies at 61Known for his ambitious, sometimes abrasive work with Microdisney and Fatima MansionsMon May 23 2022 - 16:20
Hugh Linehan: What can I do to trick you into reading this article?Clickbait headlines are usually more subtle these days, but their effect may be more insidiousSat May 07 2022 - 07:00
Hugh Linehan: Lessons of the Avoca-Aramark-National Gallery controversyIt would be a shame if the National Gallery Aramark controversy failed to prompt debateSat Apr 30 2022 - 07:00
Hugh Linehan: We have reached peak Netflix. The world has changedNews last week that the streamer lost subscribers for the first time in a decade resulted in a €50 billion drop in the company’s valueSat Apr 23 2022 - 07:00
