Leo Varadkar needs better cultural reference points than Benefits StreetIt was a jaw-dropping moment that makes you wonder about the cultural diet of our political leaders. Never mind: here are some recommendations to get them back on trackMon Oct 02 2023 - 06:30
Why weren’t warnings about the far-right threat taken seriously?As transphobic rhetoric increased, a rise in street violence against LGBTQ+ people was widely documented. The violence is already happeningMon Sept 25 2023 - 06:30
Mary Lou McDonald understands that vulnerability can be a strengthSinn Féin is not changing Ireland; Ireland is changing Sinn FéinMon Sept 18 2023 - 06:15
Naomi Klein: ‘I felt like she had taken my ideas and fed them into a bonkers blender’Constantly being mistaken for Naomi Wolf gave Naomi Klein a way into the strange world she writes about in Doppelganger, her new bookSat Sept 16 2023 - 05:15
Una Mullally: Neither the council nor Government shouted stop as parts of Dublin’s character were erasedWe are in a doom-loop media cycle about the state of Dublin, with hyperbolic and classist commentary focusing on crime. Dublin City Council must focus on community and cultureMon Sept 11 2023 - 05:00
Una Mullally: It looks like a commercial property crash is looming for DublinIf workers were going to return to offices five days a week they would have done so by nowMon Sept 04 2023 - 06:30
Justin Vivian Bond: ‘I learned as a queer person very early in my life that we are the magicians of the workaround’Dublin Fringe Festival 2023: The pioneering American cabaret star on their long journey from a makeshift San Francisco venue to Carnegie HallMon Sept 04 2023 - 05:00
Una Mullally: Taylor Swift and Beyoncé tours show it’s no longer about the gig, it’s about being part of a momentIt’s not just about getting gig tickets, it’s about the themed manicure, the outfit, the free advertising you generateMon Aug 28 2023 - 06:30
Una Mullally: Too many conifers, too many sheep, too few birdsIreland needs to reach a point where wild ecosystems function top to bottomSun Aug 20 2023 - 15:27
Hozier: ‘This album was actually more not trying to be the control freak’The singer, whose new album is Unreal Unearth, on jamming with Joni Mitchell, rediscovering Irish and finding a new way to workSat Aug 19 2023 - 04:00
Ireland’s young are not going to arts events. Here’s what we can do about itUna Mullally: Initiatives across Europe prove that cultural consumption can be incentivisedMon Aug 14 2023 - 06:15
Una Mullally: If you think €10m is pricey for the Conor Pass, try going on DaftIreland looks green, but isn’t. Let’s live up to the perception, starting with the Conor PassMon Aug 07 2023 - 00:00
Selló: ‘I feel like the love us Irish rappers get is conditional’Clondalkin rapper believes he’ll be making ‘a very big statement for Irish rap’ at this year’s Electric Picnic with his new genre, Gaelic DrillSat Aug 05 2023 - 05:00
Sinéad O’Connor’s last lesson was staring at us from front pages when she died. Act on the Camhs reportCamhs is ‘creaking at the seams, with increasing risk to children for whom the service is provided’Mon Jul 31 2023 - 05:00
Rebel with a cause: ‘We’re here to show love, so just do it’Dublin rapper Rebel Phoenix has rebellion in his blood but he’s getting more strategic about his musical path to successSat Jul 29 2023 - 05:00
Sinéad O’Connor was quiet and loud. Brilliant and bashful. She oozed a kind of creative lavaThe singer rejected the easy life for one of truth-tellingThu Jul 27 2023 - 06:17
Una Mullally: Getting tough on Dublin ‘thuggery’ won’t solve the city’s fundamental problemDublin city is suffering from a lack of leadership and an absence of strategic thinkingMon Jul 24 2023 - 06:30
Una Mullally: Kevin Bakhurst’s ‘digital-first’ promise is a clichéWhat about creativity-first, or people-first?Mon Jul 17 2023 - 06:30
RTÉ was looking for a warehouse for the Toy Show musical set while TG4 was at the OscarsTG4’s breakout film, An Cailín Ciúin, cost less than half of what RTÉ’s musical frittered awayMon Jul 10 2023 - 06:45
Una Mullally: Don’t laugh, but it’s obvious what should happen with Dublin’s O’Connell StreetConsider the success of our Wild Atlantic Way. Nobody built anything, it was just about connecting the dots. We need to do the same for the capitalMon Jul 03 2023 - 06:45
Hozier at Malahide Castle: Playing music from his new album, it rises in a way that signposts towards the epicHollering voices of lovers converge for a man who speaks to so many, and sings for allSat Jul 01 2023 - 07:20
The Bechdel test ‘was just a little lesbian joke in the 1980s. I never meant for it to be some kind of rule’Alison Bechdel, whose musical Fun Home is coming to the Gate, on her work, film theory and growing up gay without a mapSat Jul 01 2023 - 06:30
Una Mullally: Spotlight now on chasm between pay for ‘the talent’ at RTÉ and everyone elseWorking for RTÉ should be something to be proud of. That pride has been shattered by what is now being revealedMon Jun 26 2023 - 06:45
Ispíní na hÉireann: ‘We’re f**king things up with trad and making our own sounds’Raucous and irreverent, the band formed out of sessions in the Cobblestone in Dublin are surfing the new wave of traditional music with gustoSat Jun 24 2023 - 06:00
Una Mullally: 40 years after the first Pride, we’re still fighting for LGBTQ+ people to live safe and free livesWe will continue to stake our claim as people and as a community deserving of a fully realised future without fear, and to live authentic, joyful livesSat Jun 24 2023 - 05:00
Ireland’s first Pride parade, 40 years ago: ‘We had to suffer the beatings, the spittings, the jeerings, just for the right to walk down the street holding hands’To mark the 40th anniversary of Ireland’s first official Pride parade, Patrick Freyne and Una Mullally hear the stories of some of the people who took partFri Jun 23 2023 - 05:30
Una Mullally: The ‘middle Ireland’ Fine Gael thinks it is responding to doesn’t existPlenty of wealthy 60-somethings have adult children living with them. The housing crisis goes beyond the less well-offMon Jun 19 2023 - 06:00
Una Mullally: Dublin is a dirty, smelly, sticky old town once againGiven the state of the place, why is a massive shake-up in how the city is cleaned not being activated?Mon Jun 12 2023 - 05:00
Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters: Radical at the right time in the correct wayPart biography, part reflection, Allyson McCabe traces the achievements and media-generated scandals of O’Connor’s careerSat Jun 10 2023 - 05:00
‘Can you not get a lift?’: An Irish solution to Dublin Airport’s transport problemUna Mullally: Things are very hard to achieve when you don’t actually do them. Inaction is quite the obstacleMon Jun 05 2023 - 05:15
Una Mullally: Big question about the AI-generated Magdalene selfie is unansweredThe artist says his work is meant to be relatable and empowering. Others may find it trite or offensive. I just think it lacks depthWed May 31 2023 - 15:56
Lankum review: A blistering night at a packed Vicar Street from the best Irish band of their generation‘Finally back in the only place that really understands us,’ Ian Lynch announces as Lankum begin a three-night stint at the Dublin venueTue May 30 2023 - 09:19
Una Mullally: It wasn’t until we were a rich nation that tents on streets became commonplaceA decade ago, the idea that there might be homeless people living in tents was unthinkableMon May 29 2023 - 05:00
Una Mullally: I don’t recognise the person who stuttered in hospital any more. I’ve changedIn Vegas I thought about 2015 and that horrible, life-affirming, traumatising, beautiful, galvanising campaignMon May 22 2023 - 04:45
‘I wanted younger lesbians, gays, queers, trans and non-binary people to know the history ... I was told I would never get a job’In her debut novel, Katherine O’Donnell tells the story of a young lesbian emigrant to Boston in the 1990s in order to share Irish LGBTQ+ history with a younger generationSun May 21 2023 - 05:00
‘Leaving Dublin was really hard but I knew my quality of life would be miles better in Amsterdam’The cost of living and housing in Dublin is prompting young artists and creatives to move abroadFri May 19 2023 - 05:00
We know RTÉ can produce great programming but do its executives know what they are doing? Amateur hour began with Toy Show The Musical, progressed through the appointment of the director general and now the scramble to find a Late Late hostMon May 15 2023 - 03:00
Una Mullally: As humans, we still have choices. We can free ourselves from the digital trap We can already see the kind of insanity created by living too digitallyMon May 08 2023 - 05:00
Una Mullally: Discussions on neutrality miss the mark when we have subsea cables to protectIreland is in the tricky position of guarding the infrastructure of the internetMon Apr 24 2023 - 03:15
European tourist visits to outrageously expensive Dublin are declining because our capital has an ambience issue Una Mullally: Dublin is struggling to figure out what it has to offerMon Apr 17 2023 - 05:00
Una Mullally: Why does Dublin City Council’s latest water-based plan feel so shallow, never mind murky?Residents of Copenhagen, Zurich and Berlin enjoy river swimming. Even the Seine in Paris, once biologically dead, is being cleaned. Meanwhile, Dublin is getting an €18m glorified jettyMon Apr 10 2023 - 05:00
Conversations After Sex: ‘We’re naked at the top of the show. You can’t get more vulnerable than that’Actor Kate Stanley-Brennan explores her route to acting and her role in this ‘beautiful, truthful’ Mark O’Halloran playSat Apr 08 2023 - 05:18
Una Mullally: Enough of the bizarre furore, evictions are not new touchstones for artistsThe artwork, inspired by North Frederick Street eviction, is at the centre of the kind of bizarre furore this week that many Irish artists probably thought was confined to the pastWed Apr 05 2023 - 15:03
Una Mullally: I have never seen the kind of destitution in Dublin that exists todayActions speak louder than words and this government just doesn’t careMon Apr 03 2023 - 00:00
Una Mullally: Cars have to go. People can fight this all they want, but it has to happenWe need to start confronting the environmental factors that denigrate public health in Dublin cityMon Mar 27 2023 - 00:00
Vogue Williams and Joanne McNally: ‘She’s a business b*tch’ ... ‘She’s the diva’Their podcast, My Therapist Ghosted Me, was a lockdown hit, but the studio could not contain themSat Mar 25 2023 - 05:00
Something’s happening. The Irish have embraced self-expression and are underdogs no moreUna Mullally: We are witnessing a remarkable surge within Ireland and among the diasporaMon Mar 20 2023 - 05:00
Lizzo at 3Arena review: ‘What the f***’ – intensity of Dublin screams, cheers and Olé, Olé leaves star speechlessThe singer’s feelgood approach – positive, celebratory, uplifting, defiant – strikes a cultural chord on a cold Monday nightTue Mar 14 2023 - 06:10
Una Mullally: Government has lost control of the housing marketIdeological entrenchment of treating housing as a commodity, and not a social need, has been catastrophicMon Mar 13 2023 - 00:00
Una Mullally: Holly Cairns will draw people to the Social Democrats, especially young womenIf you’re looking for the most on-the-nose outcome of the social revolution of the 2010s, there you have itMon Mar 06 2023 - 05:00
