Ireland's political and cultural magazine
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By John Gibbons There is nothing new about newspapers striking postures over climate change. On December 7th, 2009, some 55 major newspapers from all over the world (including the Irish Times) ran a joint editorial just ahead of the opening of the Copenhagen UN climate conference. Who could forget the dramatic call to arms from […]
By Sadhbh O’ Neill Twenty years after the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in 1992, there is still no comprehensive agreement that regulates emissions from all countries, or which would divide up the remaining carbon budget fairly between developed and developing countries. Indeed there is a strong case to be made that emissions […]
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By Oliver O’ Connor The ending of milk quota has been greeted with almost unbridled hoopla in Ireland. From the countdown clock in Ag House, where the Department of Agriculture has its HQ to features on foreign media about Ireland and milk, the coverage has been, mostly, glowing. So what was this quota thing the […]
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By Frank Armstrong and Michael Smith. The Charlie Hebdo attacks by individuals purporting to represent Islam once again linked that religion to violent behaviour anathema to Western, liberal values. From stoning of adulterers to beheadings and burnings alive of infidels, flogging bloggers and even female genital mutilation, a picture registers of a religion stubbornly rooted […]
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By Frank Armstrong In her recent Michael Littleton lecture for RTé, ‘Has Poetry a Future?’, Eavan Boland identified the “vertical” audience poetry has enjoyed throughout history. Many hallowed poets, such as Keats, did not find a public in their own time but their words may echo down the ages unlike other forms of culture which […]
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By Gerard Cunningham If one thing was apparent from the parade of senior newspaper executives and editors before the Oireachtas banking inquiry and the subsequent opinion pieces, it is that newspaper-folk are far less upset at missing the bubble that at the idea that they did so because of anything the advertising department said. Take […]
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By Gerard Cunningham At one point during his workshop at MoJoCon, the mobile- journalism conference organised by RTÉ in late March, BBC reporter Nick Garnett paused during his demonstration of the audio editing software he was using to edit the sound recordings he had made earlier. Garnett’s NoJo website opens with an impressive promise. “Recording […]
The cost of using social networks and email services may usually come without a financial price but most of us are aware that the companies providing these services expect something else in return: our information. That these technological superpowers gather, analyse and, ultimately, monetise this data is no longer a trade secret. In recent years, […]