Rose of Tralee 2022: ‘My escort is called Podge. He thinks pasta is ‘fancy’, and bright colours give him sunburn’ The festival escort is an adult man sent there by his desperate mother in the hope he can be passed on to a new generation of female caretakerMon Aug 22 2022 - 13:10
Patrick Freyne: Psychedelic research could hold key to treatment-resistant depressionLatest data is ‘promising’, says psychiatrist and clinical senior lecturer at Trinity and Tallaght University Hospital and an investigator with the new trialSat Aug 20 2022 - 05:00
You’ll like this Netflix show if you like Michelle Monaghan, Foghorn Leghorn, twins and feeling confusedPatrick Freyne: Echoes, the new thriller TV series, is about twins because it is felt they haven’t suffered enoughFri Aug 19 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Today’s children won’t be able to afford a house unless it’s actively on firePatrick Freyne: If Shea McGee had a medieval job title it would be “cushioner” and if she had an Irish job title it might be “chancer”Fri Aug 12 2022 - 05:00
Farewell, Neighbours. Much like Rathgar or Blackrock, Ramsay Street was a troubled place that discouraged hopePatrick Freyne: Still, Neighbours offered a sunnily optimistic alternative to EastEnders’ grey dystopiaFri Aug 05 2022 - 07:49
It is now clear that heterosexuality is not working and that Love Island has been twerking on its gravePatrick Freyne: This is basically Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days with extra sun damage and top bantsFri Jul 29 2022 - 05:00
Katie Hannon: ‘It wasn’t just rage with Golfgate. People were so broken’The journalist on writing a social diary for the Herald to becoming one of RTÉ's most respected investigative reporters and presentersSat Jul 23 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: I had no idea how cool Bob Dylan thought war was until I saw Terminal ListChris Pratt plays a sick man on a rampage in Amazon Prime Video’s unpleasant new showFri Jul 22 2022 - 05:00
Resident Evil’s Umbrella Corporation would make short work of lobbying Irish politiciansPatrick Freyne: The problem with adapting video games is that you remove the player’s own hopes from the equationFri Jul 15 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Radden Keefe: ‘Gerry Adams is sort of similar to the Sacklers, in that he seems to sleep quite well at night’The long-form journalist reflects on a remarkable career investigating, among others, cartel bosses, arms dealers, mass shooters, fraudsters, whistleblowers and the TroublesSat Jul 02 2022 - 06:00
Industry insiders give their opinion on RTÉ: ‘There is generally a failure of imagination and innovation’Broadcast professionals and other interested parties give their opinions on the national broadcasterSat Jul 02 2022 - 06:00
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It’s Captain Kirk, without the sexual harassment lawsuitsPatrick Freyne: There's a grumpy blue guy with wiggly things on his head because this is Star Trek not The NewsFri Jul 01 2022 - 06:00
Féile Róise Rua, a magical weekend of song on Arranmore‘Will we get a song out of you?’ we are asked. 'The problem is stopping us,’ answers Patrick FreyneSat Jun 25 2022 - 06:00
Charlie Bird: I want a Pride flag on my coffinFormer RTE journalist with motor neurone disease says “getting through each meal without choking or coughing is like a victory for me”Sat Jun 25 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Can snowflakes survive a wilderness ordeal where avocados and twerking aren’t allowed?TV review: Netflix becomes a branch of social services as Snowflake Mountain endeavours to toughen up some feckless youthsFri Jun 24 2022 - 06:00
Rowan Atkinson: ‘In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything’The actor on disparate creations Mr Bean and Blackadder, cancel culture and his first starring TV role in decadesSat Jun 18 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: I like the way Stranger Things is set in the 1980s, just like Ireland was in the 1990sPatrick Freyne on a harbinger of the end times and admission of creative defeat in the face of past glories that is still great TVFri Jun 17 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne on Love Island: ‘Cheeky’ is barely a personality these days. It’s just the chemical steady state for lads in the UKIf this was 1980s Ireland, Mary would weep blood, and Luca would be declared a sexy shrineFri Jun 10 2022 - 05:00
Boris and his chums: Brexit’s beginnings as a posh Oxford counter-revolutionA new book by the Financial Times’ Simon Kuper recalls how Etonians at university in the 1980s forged the future of BritainSat Jun 04 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Obi-Wan Kenobi uses the same template as the Mandalorian, except without Baby YodaThe thing about this Star Wars project I can relate to most is Disney corporation’s love of moneyFri Jun 03 2022 - 05:00
‘I got chills’: Mountjoy prisoners give moving rendition of The Auld TriangleChoir performs in aid of Concern on what would have been Cash’s 90th birthdaySat May 28 2022 - 15:28
Patrick Freyne: This TV school is a makey-up fantasy realm, like Hobbiton, Narnia or DalkeyTV review: TV: In Lovestruck High, a bunch of fully grown Britons attend classes and look for loveFri May 27 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: If he’s the Lincoln Lawyer, am I the Nissan Micra journalist?The lawyer has a simple personality: he lawyers the heck out of things while owning a carFri May 20 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: How the hell did Frank Spencer become Marvel’s latest superhero?In Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac talks like the bumbling twit in Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’EmFri May 13 2022 - 09:13
Eurovision 2022: Topless hunks, writhing women and Marty Whelan. It’s like my wedding day‘I think music is over now.’ Patrick Freyne watches the first semifinal of EurovisionTue May 10 2022 - 23:10
Ye Vagabonds: ‘We just felt like we were total weirdos in Carlow’The MacGloinn brothers on becoming part of the Irish folk sceneSat May 07 2022 - 00:00
John Connell: ‘I did an accidental trilogy on Longford’Author of The Cow Book has written a new book about canoeing on the Camlin riverThu May 05 2022 - 00:00
‘If you look like Penn & Teller, you have to have the best magic trick ever seen’‘Houdini used deception to help people recognise the difference between fraud and reality’Sat Apr 30 2022 - 00:00
Patrick Freyne: ‘Instead of relationship counselling, let us go dogging in the car park’Love is Blind, The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On – glossy modern courtship on NetflixFri Apr 29 2022 - 00:00
Patrick Freyne: A reality show about cold celebs – perfect TV for the fuel poverty eraIn Freeze the Fear, celebrities face oddly low-energy challenges, like showeringFri Apr 22 2022 - 00:05
Luke O’Neill: What really struck me was the hunger, which I wasn’t expectingTCD professor on his trip by van to provide badly needed medical equipment to UkraineSat Apr 16 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: The Kardashians are back, and they’ve been reading their LeninWe return to Kardashia and find it subtly changed. It’s now even betterFri Apr 15 2022 - 06:00
Building an audience for contemporary classical musicRecitals, workshops and the determinedly avant garde feature in Music Current festivalThu Apr 14 2022 - 00:00
Ireland’s asylum limbo: ‘We are beginning to say home was better’As Ukrainians are fast-tracked, those fleeing other dire situations face a different systemSat Apr 09 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: It’s about time toddlers were set to workPeople interested in innovative employment practices will enjoy a new Japanese seriesFri Apr 08 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Gordon Ramsay’s wetsuit seems snug as he tells 12 people to jump off a cliffFuture Food Stars sees the chef and his immaculate quiff grilling would-be entrepreneursFri Apr 01 2022 - 05:00
Damien Owens: ‘People confuse seriousness with intelligence. Life is a comedy-drama’The Monaghan-born writer on finding his voice and his fascination with other familiesSat Mar 26 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Anyone living in a cult or Ranelagh will know how oppressive conformity can beThe Simpler Life sees a bunch of addled suburbanites living the life of the AmishFri Mar 25 2022 - 05:00
Cancer in Ireland: From fatal sentence to liveable illnessThirty-four years after the first Daffodil Day, cancer treatments and attitudes have changedSat Mar 19 2022 - 06:00
Prisoner literacy: ‘I wrote to my girlfriend. She wrote back and I could read it’A peer-to-peer literacy programme in Portlaoise Prison is proving a huge successSat Mar 19 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Britain has four armed forces – army, navy, air force and Ross KempKemp is a celebrity vassal for Bridge of Lies, a whimsical TV entity that has needsFri Mar 18 2022 - 05:00
Writer Andrey Kurkov tells Ukraine’s story: ‘It’s my duty. This is my front line’The night before the war the author joked about cooking “the last borscht in Kyiv” but he didn’t believe Russia would actually invade.Sat Mar 12 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Where did a Star Trek space person learn to say ‘Sláinte’?Star Trek: Picard is lost in nostalgia and doing its best to be no funFri Mar 11 2022 - 05:00
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City – Shocking and movingBook review: Andrea Elliott has done meticulous work depicting the realities of US inequalitySat Mar 05 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: American teen dramas are intrinsically weird to the Irish mindNetflix series One of Us Is Lying has a big twist coming. And the twist is: I don’t careFri Mar 04 2022 - 05:00
Nursing homes revisited: It was the saddest year in my lifeLockdowns and fear took their toll in the pandemic. Now, the sector faces post-Covid challengesSat Feb 26 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Curious about the Scandinavian social model, I switched on ‘Vikings: Valhalla’The hunky, vengeful, axe-wielding warriors expose flaws in the Nordic social modelFri Feb 25 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: If I know anything about women, it’s that they love a man who whinesNetflix's Love is Blind: If a blue rectangle of light is your sexual fantasy, you should applyFri Feb 18 2022 - 05:00
Jacksepticeye, the millionaire YouTuber from OffalySean McLoughlin didn't have internet growing up. Now he has 28m YouTube subscribersSat Feb 12 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: The Masked Singer is a bit like an Eyes Wide Shut partyA traffic cone singing ‘If you like piña coladas’? This must be the DTs againFri Feb 11 2022 - 05:00
