Ireland's political and cultural magazine
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The Abbey, Ireland’s National Theatre was established in 1904 and became the first State-subsidised theatre in the world, and ultimately one of the best brands in world theatre. Worthy, certainly; old, yes: the question is more whether it is any good, or any good bearing in mind the resources that go into it. The Abbey […]
By Eoin O’ Malley. Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt were very different men, with very different interests. One was a Protestant, a member of the Anglo-Irish elite, the landed gentry. He was an instinctively cautious man. The other was the son of Irish emigrants evicted from their land. He had radical ideas about land […]
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By Anton McCabe. For years, coming up to the the marching season news in the North was dominated by controversy over parades and street violence. That still simmers. However, this summer news coverage has been dominated by allegations of corruption in the sale of NAMA properties in the North. There has been blanket coverage of […]
Picking at Piketty “What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is in fact the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt, neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the […]
Few countries elevate rejection as far as celebrating a national “No” day. But every October 28th Greece’s Oxi Day holiday commemorates the No with which it replied to a humiliating Italian ultimatum in 1940, a refusal to acquiesce that led to invasion. Greece is also the country whose stereotype is plate-smashing. The New York Times […]
By Ronan Burtenshaw In late September 2009 I was walking through Dublin as the city prepared for the rerun of the Lisbon Treaty referendum. Outside Dublin Castle I ran into canvassers from Generation Yes, a young, liberal, pro-Europe group established early that year to campaign for the passage of the treaty. Drawing them into conversation […]
One of the many social changes that sociologists and social historians of the future will examine is the change associated with participation in competitive sport in Ireland over the past twenty years. Throughout the twentieth century rugby in Ireland was a participation sport centred on clubs throughout the 32 counties, with many clubs fielding […]
As politicians begin to throw around proposals for the last Budget before Fine Gael and Labour face an election, it’s worth remembering that this time is really the only window where citizens are encouraged to engage in economic debate. Even then the space of time is too short and the range of topics up for […]