Where has the rock star male novelist gone?The #MeToo movement has made men in literature more cautiousThu Apr 20 2023 - 05:00
Don’t dismiss Charles III’s coronation as a trivial spectacleEvery nation needs its mythology to forge national identity and the Monarch is part of that in BritainThu Apr 13 2023 - 05:00
We risk losing our cultural legacy if we constantly cater to changing sensibilitiesThe trouble with the contemporary ethos is that almost by definition it is liable to change - it always has been. And then what?Thu Apr 06 2023 - 05:00
Highest dramas of Brexit may finally be over as Britain becomes boring againFinn McRedmond: Whatever bug that infected British politics over the past few years might finally be on its way outThu Mar 30 2023 - 05:00
Holly Cairns says our generation is worse off than parents, but what about the huge benefits from modernity?Finn McRedmond: Life isn’t particularly easy for young people in Ireland but the way we measure our wealth extends beyond immediate material factorsThu Mar 23 2023 - 05:00
How is it feminist to feel a moral obligation to look beautiful?The weight-loss drug Ozempic has soared in popularity, generating shortages for those who require it medicallyThu Mar 16 2023 - 05:00
Gary Lineker is politically juvenile, but the BBC is utterly naiveBy suspending the sports commentator under the guise of impartiality, the BBC has shown up its own inadequaciesSun Mar 12 2023 - 13:20
Sunak replacing the bumbling Johnson marks the return of the traditional, serious Tory leader The party is back in its natural habitat – traditional, serious, unsexy – and its current leader understands the brief better than Johnson ever couldThu Mar 09 2023 - 05:00
Volte-face on lab-leak origin of Covid-19 a cautionary lesson about ‘disinformation’Proper inquiry and benign scepticism about the origins of the virus were sublimated to serve partisan aimsThu Mar 02 2023 - 05:00
Is Ireland addicted to the PR kudos of superficial diversity?Demonstrating tolerance for ideas we are already convinced about isn’t really tolerance at allThu Feb 23 2023 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Zelenskiy has not written off Britain and neither should weNo matter how many yarns we can spin about a crumbling nation devoid of spirit, Britain’s place as a serious actor on the international stage is robustThu Feb 16 2023 - 05:00
Liz Truss still has an allure for delusional ToriesShort-lived prime minister knows there is a constituency for her low-tax and high-growth fantasyWed Feb 08 2023 - 15:32
Finn McRedmond: Do you have to be cruel to be brilliant?The film Tár raises fascinating questions about how we think about geniuses – and ourselvesThu Feb 02 2023 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: When did we begin to become such puritans?Plans to label wine as cancerous are the latest way of finger-wagging at an oafish public who don’t know how to look after themselvesThu Jan 26 2023 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Now it’s gas stoves – can we ever escape the claws of the culture wars?Anything can be held up by zealots as a means to demonstrate their political affiliation before everyone unwittingly falls into lineThu Jan 19 2023 - 05:00
Row over Parthenon Marbles a pure distillation of culture wars that wrack British psycheFinn McRedmond: Aesthetic case for returning artefacts to Greece is also the moral oneThu Jan 12 2023 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Leo Varadkar has opened a route out of the Brexit quagmireThe admission that mistakes have been made on all sides was an act of realpolitk of which Brexiteers thought the Taoiseach incapable, and of which they seem incapable themselvesThu Jan 05 2023 - 05:00
Doomerism is as addictive as it is contagious - but 2022 saw liberal values persevereThis was not the year of the thug, or the strongman, or the conspiracy theorist, or the celebration of violent anarchyThu Dec 29 2022 - 00:00
We got the celebrities we deserved in 2022It’s time we had a long think about what we have doneThu Dec 22 2022 - 08:30
Is Varadkar still the Tories’ bogeyman?Since Varadkar left office in June 2020, Britain has undergone a significant vibe shift. He may face lingering resentment but the energy has moved on from BrexitThu Dec 15 2022 - 00:01
Winter of discontent as frozen UK beset by chaosWe cannot meaningfully talk about a UK winter of discontent without thinking that some of the malaise may have been caused by Westminster’s handling of BrexitThu Dec 08 2022 - 05:00
Cultural force of Christianity resilient despite waning CatholicismCensus returns show an inexorable decline in religious observance but the influence of Christianity is woven throughout western societyThu Dec 01 2022 - 00:01
What activists can learn from Roy Keane speaking truth to power on Qatar World CupGood ideas and moral clarity can come from unexpected places — political purity is counterproductiveThu Nov 24 2022 - 05:00
Hancock’s jungle jaunt lays bare his sheer shallowness Former British health secretary’s decision to welcome the clammy embrace of reality TV shows him up as a politician without substanceThu Nov 17 2022 - 05:00
Annual kerfuffle over the poppy does not point to an island ready for reunificationMuch chatter is given to respecting all traditions, thinking about what a new Ireland might look like - but rows over the wearing of the poppy show the realityThu Nov 10 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Why did we put up with Kanye West for so long?The rapper received special allowances – and millions of dollars – simply because he embodied the trope of the tortured geniusThu Nov 03 2022 - 05:00
Johnson might just be the greatest leader of the opposition Britain never hadFormer prime minister’s fumbled bid to return to office is unlikely to be the end of the UK’s prodigal sonThu Oct 27 2022 - 05:00
London’s Irish pubs aren’t hip, but they’re hard to beat as ambassadors for the diaspora Fully integrated into a multicultural metropolis, they’re also proud of their heritage. And that includes the Guinness, Ballygowan, Club Orange and TaytoFri Oct 21 2022 - 06:01
Increasingly absurd climate protests show how society has failed younger generationPolitical climate has stripped young people of the grounding forces of family and community and the promises of a fair societyThu Oct 20 2022 - 05:15
Finn McRedmond: London does not feel like a city in decline and is still drawing the IrishIt is fashionable to see Britain as a waning world power, but the draw of London, for the Irish in particular, remains strongFri Oct 14 2022 - 06:00
Finn McRedmond: Be wary of notion that women make inherently better leadersWhat we are saying — in essence — is that women are not just better because they are women, but that they should be better tooThu Oct 06 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Ubiquity of ‘toxic masculinity’ renders it meaningless We are too quick to reach for it as a label and no one has agreed what the phrase meansThu Sept 29 2022 - 05:00
As public religion wanes, monarchy moves into the voidIn lieu of a public faith people need somewhere to direct their desires for the ephemeral and universalThu Sept 22 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Reports of the demise of United Kingdom are greatly exaggeratedSome speak with such passionate intensity about the collapse of Britain that it is impossible to ignore the poorly concealed subtext: do they want it to be true?Thu Sept 15 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Millennials aren’t work-shy and they are certainly not bohemian Phenomena such as quiet quitting and digital nomadism are not at odds with corporate culture in the digital ageThu Sept 08 2022 - 05:00
Arrival of Pret a Manger is not actually an act of cultural vandalismThe sandwich chain holds a mirror up to working life and is a vote of confidence that office life will return to normal in Dublin city centreThu Sept 01 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: The problem for Finnish PM Sanna Marin is that she is normalDespite their efforts to be relatable, it seems we don’t want our politicians to be like usThu Aug 25 2022 - 05:00
There may be trouble ahead, so let’s face the music and danceMake most of anxious August ahead of upcoming winter of discontentThu Aug 18 2022 - 05:00
We are living in a time of chronic infantilisation and it’s hurting our environmentThis refusal to believe personal action matters in fight against climate change is foolish on multiple levelsThu Aug 11 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: The tide is turning against the sexual revolutionIreland may be late to the party but the harmful impacts of the sexual revolution have come into focusThu Aug 04 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Pretending Northern Ireland is not there will not make it vanish for Truss and SunakWhatever about deflecting focus from Northern Ireland while campaigning, winning Conservative candidate will have to face Border facts on day one in jobThu Jul 28 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Something serious has shifted amid the recent stifling heatAlong with heat-induced listlessness there is an unavoidable sense that something serious has shiftedThu Jul 21 2022 - 05:00
Who cares if Catherine Martin flies business. Is she any good at her job? Obsession with ideological purity comes at the expense of legitimate accountability for what really mattersThu Jul 14 2022 - 00:00
Martin’s Ukraine visit is something of a double-edged sword Taoiseach risks a row over neutrality at home as he asserts an Irish post-Brexit identity that’s far closer to the EUThu Jul 07 2022 - 01:00
Finn McRedmond: Why you should do an arts degreeStudying humanities helps us understand the world, allowing society to express and explain itselfThu Jun 30 2022 - 05:00
Climate fatalism should not stop anyone from having childrenPropagating doomsday narratives that strip young people of hope is no way to save the planetThu Jun 23 2022 - 05:00
The intractable problem is that Britain does not understand the EUJohnson doesn't understand and doesn't careThu Jun 16 2022 - 05:00
Brexit may be a bust but British carpets will have never been cleanerRees-Mogg’s efforts to reap economic benefits from Brexit has come up woefully shortThu Jun 09 2022 - 05:00
Catholic is back, it’s countercultural, and it’s coolThe world’s most famous reality TV family have begun to accessorise with holinessThu Jun 02 2022 - 05:00
Finn McRedmond: Rubbing calorie counts in diners’ faces is going too farThe Government needs to look after people's health but insisting on calorie counts on menus just destroys a night outThu May 26 2022 - 05:00
