Culture

By Kieran Fagan. The recent pardon for Harry Gleeson, hanged in 1941 for a murder he did not commit, brings into focus the early career of Seán MacBride. MacBride, then barely four years after relinquishing the role of chief of staff of the IRA, was a controversial choice as Gleeson’s junior counsel, working with James […]

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 […]

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 […]

Capitalism and history are bad for Irish health

Enjoyable agitprop with no sledgehammers. Review

We should marshal Ireland’s musical genius for political not economic ends

By Frank Armstrong. “In the presence of great music we have no alternative but to live nobly” – Seán ó Faoláin     Donal Dineen recently described this as a “golden age” in Irish music. We might take heart when a DJ of his calibre with knowledge crossing genres and continents makes such a pronouncement. […]