Could religion be the antidote to declining birth rates, celebrity worship and political polarisation?
This new religiosity is a backlash to the the hyper-secularisation that Britain and the US went through. But don’t expect it to take off in Ireland just yet
Ireland cannot rely on a soft and woolly international reputation anymore
Greatest task facing the new government is restoring Ireland’s standing in Europe and the world
The worst of this strange decade of wokeness is over
Measures designed to change material realities matter more than sociocultural pieties
Restoration of Notre Dame shows hard things can be achieved if we’re not afraid to be ambitious
We must stop mistaking a lack of ambition in planning and building for caution and rule-following
To the French, Germans and even the Brits, Ireland is blessed with boring politics
Amid criticism of Ireland’s domestic politics making it hard for new ideas to break through, there’s something to be said for ‘same old, same old’
I cringed at Paul Mescal’s Brit-bashing
If Ireland wants to maintain the self-belief that it is a nation of wisecrackers and comedians then it will need to work a bit harder than this
MasterChef star Gregg Wallace’s bad behaviour was not ‘uncovered’, it was widely known
All it took was for someone to finally decide that it was time to care
The thought of Conor McGregor draped in an Irish flag on a global stage is shameful
To think of all that time we spent embarrassed by Bono’s oppressive sincerity
I could live with celebrity politicians if they were all like Jeremy Clarkson
Clarkson’s personal crusade against the British government feels very of-the-moment, symbolic of a mode of politics sweeping Europe
Ireland needs its own Joe Rogan, someone to question liberal orthodoxies
There are lessons for Ireland from the US election about the disconnect between establishment voices and the feelings of the electorate
Young, aggrieved men may not have won the election for Trump, but he knows how to speak to them
Lesson from the US election is that liberals must realise young men have problems too
We’re meant to bask in Saoirse Ronan’s feminist triumph, but I find it all a bit nauseating
An actor’s entire job is to occupy the mind and body of someone else, not to be interesting themselves
The genius of Donald Trump’s McDonald’s stunt
Discrediting his moments of rhetorical or aesthetic flair as the work of nasty impulses ensures the Democrats will never learn from them
God help us all, Russell Brand has found religion
Christianity has been around for some time and will weather this particular trend cycle, no matter Russell Brand’s risible public display. And these online Christian gurus will find a new cause celebre
It’s worse than George Orwell imagined. There’s no need to ban books no one wants to read
What Aldous Huxley feared has come to pass: we are drowning in a sea of irrelevance