From Billie Holiday to The Clash and on to modern Irish artists Zrazy and Jinx Lennon, activism has a long and illustrious history

That might be true, but on her new album, Pothole in the Sky, the Cavan woman has become a self-assured songwriter, a process catalysed by a tour with David Gray

You know what you have to do on May 22nd – vote Taylor Swift

Cormac Ó hEadhra brings shock jock chutzpah to RTÉ’s panel show, while ‘Liveline’ shows the budget hasn’t ended people’s pain

Donation of late Pogues star’s guitars part of rehabilitation initiative

Godfather of punk hits out at modern music industry but empathises with ‘abandoned’ fans

Let’s take a quick look at the bleak future facing all forms of popular music

Every generation has a soundtrack of its struggle. Ian Maleney marches on, shouting slogans and carrying the banner of music into a new dawn. Are we ready to rock the system?

New movie Pride celebrates the unlikely meeting of Britain’s striking miners and gay rights campaigners in the 1980s. Poverty, homophobia, Aids and the defeat of the miners provide an unlikely backdrop. Donald Clarke takes pride in a cultural rebellion

Purists hopping mad over Metallica should just grin and bear it

Brian Boyd and Emma Somers root through a bumper crop of TV, film and music to find gift ideas for the loved one who thinks they’ve seen it all

On its 10th anniversary, Electric Picnic turned on, tuned in, and sold out. ‘The Irish Times’ went down to the woods to get a big surprise. Here are the best bits …

Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and The Knife among acts bringing festival to a close

irishtimes.com features the first of a series of online ‘musical columns’. Temper-Mental MissElayneous, Doctor Millar and other songwriters will sing about Ireland and its crises, to rekindle the social fire at the heart of music

From Adrian Mole to Ben Elton and Billy Bragg, everyone had an opinion on the Iron Lady

Even the most liberal of us tend to become contempt-filled hardliners as the decades pass