The recent visit by Ken Loach and Eric Cantona to Dublin for the première of Looking for Eric drew a surprise guest who Loach, at least, was unpleasantly surprised to see. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern muscled in on the occasion, accompanied by his hapless brother Maurice on the latter’s doomed election campaign. The Aherns presented [...]

Although I am not by any stretch of the imagination an urban sophisticate and I always make a point of spitting after I say the word “cosmopolitan,” it has been impossible for me this summer not to notice the significant cultural trend shiftings, particularly while I have been watching the topless beach volleyball through my [...]

SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains spoilers galore, so it’s best not to read it unless you’ve followed The Wire to the very end.
There have been few television shows that have enjoyed a posthumous fame as great as The Wire. Generally ignored by the public and the Emmys ever since its debut in early 2002, [...]

“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”
Nancy Mitford

Amidst the collapse of the Irish economy, the inhabitants of a rural hinterland begin to feel the touch of the dead hand of the housing market.
This [...]

Another year at the movies and another good one. Too often we hear jeremiads about the decline of cinema and the lack of good films out there (of course, such gripes are usually based on a diet of English-language cinema, which is far from being the world’s most interesting at the best of times). But [...]