Radio: Racial discrimination versus gushing tributes to Nelson MandelaOn Newtalk, George Hook tackles a black-and-white issue while Ivan Yates airs some shibboleths of his ownSat Dec 14 2013 - 01:00
Poaching listeners and presenters is becoming a habitRay D’Arcy proved his mastery of popular radio, while John Murray took a wrong DirectionSat Dec 07 2013 - 01:00
Radio: If you’re going to run off at the mouth, do it like Dave: with flair and perceptionHe may talk a mile a minute, but Dave Fanning’s quickfire chat is always entertainingSat Nov 30 2013 - 01:00
Radio: The longest fortnight finally ends with Miriam O’Callaghan’s return to the RTÉ airwavesFor fans of the presenter’s soft-focus style, two weeks away seemed like a lifetime, but now she’s back in the cosy seat in ‘Sunday with Miriam’Sat Nov 23 2013 - 01:00
Radio: The claws are out for a week of bitchy chat and baby talkIt was weird hearing Ryan Tubridy using the B-word in a discussion about women, but at least he showed a little bite. Elsewhere on RTÉ, ‘Pregnant on My Lunchbreak’ was an enlightening documentary about artificial inseminationSat Nov 16 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Money talk is taxing, but happy talk doesn’t come cheapSean O’Rourke still has a newsreadery tendency on his RTÉ show – but his colleague John Murray made a poignantly light return to the airwaves this weekSat Nov 09 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Why Sean Moncrieff’s never short of ammoThe Newstalk host’s irreverent approach shed new light on a lethal subject while Marian Finucane heard a troubling hidden historySat Nov 02 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Roma kids get a new bogeyman for Halloween. David Norris gets a clean shaveArmageddon, abduction and aliens: amid the scary stories on The Last Word and Drivetime, the senators appearance on The Ray D’Arcy Show to talk about his cancer provided unexpected reliefSat Oct 26 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Cold blood and hot airRyan Tubridy preferred crime stories to budgetary matters as Sean O’Rourke hosted an awkward encounter for Minister HowlinSat Oct 19 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Marty Morrissey takes the middle-of-the-road route to radio stardomThe sports presenter brings a new degree of inanity to the ‘Mooney’ slot on RTÉ, but Tom Dunne’s move to night time has helped the Newstalk presenter find his rock ’n’ roll voice againSat Oct 12 2013 - 01:00
Radio: A thin turnout on air, but Pat Kenny may yet win the populist voteThe Newstalk presenter lacked big guests but made sparks fly. Over on RTÉ Radio 1, George Lee went gloriously off-pisteSat Oct 05 2013 - 01:00
Fear and loathing in BuncranaFrank McGuinness’s new play, The Hanging Gardens, and Arimathea, the novel he thought he should write as research for it, draw deeply on his experience of growing up in a threatening, oppressive IrelandSat Oct 05 2013 - 01:00
Radio: George Hook un-Laoises his comedic side while Ray D’Arcy does a bad boob jobIn an on-air battle of the belly laughs, the Newstalk presenter’s loud, from-the-hip patter was the clear winnerSat Sept 28 2013 - 01:00
Exile on Benburb StreetAnu’s immersive snapshot of a young emigrant has an authentic ringSat Sept 21 2013 - 14:00
Radio: Meet the new boss. Same as the old bossAs Sean O’Rourke and Pat Kenny settle into their new slots on RTÉ Radio 1 and Newstalk, it’s hard to tell what’s changedSat Sept 21 2013 - 01:00
Winning isn’t everythingRise Productions’ update of the Tír na nÓg myth is a mixed bagThu Sept 19 2013 - 13:00
Fatherland transcends Fringe clichesNic Green’s experimental show risks self-parody but is surprisingly mesmerisingWed Sept 18 2013 - 21:30
Performance piece strikes outThirteen: Protest Part 1 is more concerned with artistic self-importance than the hardship that supposedly informs itMon Sept 16 2013 - 11:11
Radio: Absence has made Ivan better, but Tubs still has the presenceThe former TD and minister Ivan Yates sounded subtly different on his return to Newstalk, but 2FM’s Ryan Tubridy was the week’s unheralded starSat Sept 14 2013 - 01:00
Small and perfectly, plastically formedOne man’s battle with a tiny Sherman tank makes for charming theatreFri Sept 13 2013 - 13:37
Putting computer theory into theatrical practiceThere is more than one problem at the heart of this diverting pieceThu Sept 12 2013 - 12:14
Dunne and dusted, Tom clears his daytime desk in familiar styleThe Newstalk presenter remained amiable as ever but proved an unexpected champion of public broadcastingSat Aug 31 2013 - 01:00
Radio review: 1913 Lockout documentary was a hit and myth affairThe documentary was weighed down by detail, but ‘Liveline’ brought the cult of Jim Larkin to lifeSat Aug 24 2013 - 01:00
Radio Review: Gently does it as Myles Dungan blows away hot air on wind farmsStand-in host handles RTE Radio 1’s coveted morning show with aplomb, while Ryan Tubridy unexpectedly shines on 2FMFri Aug 16 2013 - 17:47
Radio Review: Ray D’Arcy comes back on air with a frog in his throat, but soon finds his voice – and his personaThe Today FM presenter’s freeranging style works well, but he doesn’t always make the right transition from light to shadeSat Aug 10 2013 - 01:00
Conversation drags as Ní Shuilleabháin holds backRTÉ’s new host is a welcome female voice, but could learn from Miriam O’Callaghan’s empathetic styleSat Jul 20 2013 - 06:00
Radio review: Humble spud provides food for thoughtLyric’s new food series provided a diverting take on our past, while the Documentary On One lent a sympathetic ear to faith healersSat Jul 13 2013 - 06:00
Radio review: Golden oldie Hayes not really down with the kidsThe uneven tone of Colm Hayes’s show on 2FM echoes his station’s dilemmaSat Jul 06 2013 - 06:00
‘In fiction you’re free’ says Melyvn Bragg, ‘but if you’re lucky you get the truth’Melvyn Bragg is famous as a broadcasting polymath, but his new autobiographical novel is a reminder of his literary talentsSat Jul 06 2013 - 01:00
Radio Review: You could have powered continents with listeners’ rageFrustrated despair has been replaced by a vengeful tang after the release of the Anglo Irish Bank tapesSat Jun 29 2013 - 01:00
Radio review: George Hook turns off-colour at JFK’s gravesideThe Newstalk broadcaster had too much of an eye on the bottom line at a ceremony to remember the US presidentSat Jun 22 2013 - 01:00
Radio review: The sordid business of talking about the online sex industryDespite good intentions, Tom Dunne’s investigation into sex workers and their clients came close to airbrushing realitySat Jun 15 2013 - 01:00
Radio: A taste of women’s suffrage, then it’s back to the locker roomMiram O’Callaghan interviewed the great-granddaughter of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst on RTÉ while the sports stars on Newstalk indulged in boorish male banterSat Jun 08 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Joe Duffy keeps his cool amid the shouting and the scaremongeringThe Liveline host presided over the fraught issue of childcare and abuse after Prime Time’s A Breach of TrustSat Jun 01 2013 - 01:00
Radio: Digging up the dirty bits in Alan Shatter and Mick Wallace’s war of wordsThis week saw rotten tomatoes for Eurovision, ripe prose from the Minister for Justice and a bad Apple deal for IrelandSat May 25 2013 - 01:00
Radio Review: a week of sadness after Donal Walsh’s death, but one of uplifting insight tooDeath and illness dominated the on-air discussions this week, but the presenters managed to deal with the subjects adroitly and empathySat May 18 2013 - 01:00
From tat to taste: selling Irish cultureVisiting Ireland used to mean kissing the Blarney stone. A new focus could help to attract well-heeled touristsSat May 11 2013 - 01:00
Colm Hayes boldly goes where Ryan Tubridy is too meek to exploreThe 2FM jocks played their listeners against each other, with wildly different resultsSat Apr 20 2013 - 06:00
The Nordic Effect is one to savourA new show of Norwegian and Finnish work highlights the region’s bold design culture, a distinctiveness that Irish craft has struggled to achieveThu Apr 18 2013 - 07:00
Derek Mooney provides blank canvas for damning portrait of Margaret ThatcherThe most visceral reaction to the death of the late British PM was a bolt from the blandSat Apr 13 2013 - 07:00
Presidential reserve trumped by performer’s emotionJohn Bowman’s radio portrait of Mary Robinson was detailed but lacked the impact of the Aslan singer’s heartfelt interviewSat Apr 06 2013 - 06:00
Three is the magic number on LivelineThe Spunout sex advice controversy provided juicy material for Joe Duffy and Tom DunneSat Mar 30 2013 - 06:00
Where do you come from? What have you got?Ray D’Arcy’s cross-dressing guests highlighted Ireland’s different identitiesSat Mar 23 2013 - 06:00
Stories about bad parents don’t always make good radioRyan Tubridy’s preference for emotive impact over substantive discussion is a sign of the timesSat Mar 16 2013 - 06:00
They think it's all over. It is nowOff the Ball’s biggest story this week was off air, so could Ger Gilroy play super sub?Sat Mar 09 2013 - 06:00
