irishtimes.com blogs

  • Pricewatch

    Little cash for a lot of gold

    It’s a cold morning and I’m in a n shockingly decorated hotel room on a leafy road in Dublin, trying to sell my wedding ring to a lonely man with a thick Geordie accent. He’s been in this place for more than five hours waiting for a gold rush which has yet to materialise. [...]

  • outsidein

    Why isn’t George Lee a hero?

    George Lee speaking outside Leinster House yesterday, following his resignation from both the Dáil and Fine Gael. Photograph: Eric Luke. It pains me to think of myself as jumping onto the George Lee bandwagon, but jump on it I shall. Actually, I’m not really jumping on the bandwagon. I don’t have very much to add to [...]

  • Politics

    Best Political Film

    The issue of nation-building is an important one for any society seeking to overcome major problems such as racial division, economic collapse, class differences, etc., etc. Share This

  • Fash Mob

    Kling a song of sixpence

    Honestly, you have no idea that headline took me to come up with. I was trying to think of something that rhymes with “Kling”, in that it has an L in it and really, I’m stumped. Fling? But, like, what headline can I come up with there? Really, who cares. . . And I finally [...]

  • On The Record

    Drop Haiti’s Debt gig cancelled

    The benefit gig featuring Cathy Davey, Julie Feeney, Villagers, The Chapters, The Chakras and many more which was to be held in Dublin’s Vicar Street on February 11 has been cancelled. The reason cited is “unavoidable circumstances”, which is a new one on me. Wonder how many tickets were sold for this gig and if [...]

  • Pursued by a Bear

    I wanna talk about how bad you make this room look

    I love country music. I’m also very fond of Jeff Bridges, so I was particularly well disposed towards Crazy Heart, the film that’s already garnered him an Oscar nomination, as well as one for his co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal. Based on a novel by Thomas Cobb, it’s the tale of one Bad Blake, a whiskey-sluggin’, geetar [...]

  • Six Nations

    Fingers crossed that Ferris makes it

    Ireland Team v France announced. My reaction…..  Last weekend asked a lot of Cian Healy. Locking horns with seasoned campaigner Castrogiovanni is no mean feat and he stepped up to the plate in a big way. As I mentioned in my post-match blog on Saturday, Italy were targeting the scrum as the one area they could [...]

  • Ultach

    Beijing Irish

    Minister for the Gaeltacht, Éamon Ó Cuív TD, has approved €21,900 over three years to fund the teaching of Irish in Beijing Foreign Studies University in China. Beijing is the first university in China to seek funding to teach Irish and joins over 30 centres outside of Ireland which have Irish-language courses as part of their academic [...]

  • Current Account

    Not too many winners amongst Super Bowl ads

    The people’s favourites, the New Orleans Saints, may have won the Super Bowl in Miami last night but for many the real action doesn’t take place on the pitch but during the ad breaks. Share This

  • The Book Club

    Colm Tóibín’s Writing Room - and Robert Frost’s bed

    The creative process is an endlessly fascinating one. How does the book emerge from the head and onto the page? Nobody really know that, apart from the individual writer. This is the study where Colm Tóibín works. He writes long-hand, which is highly unusual these days when most writers of novels opt for computers - however, lots of poets still [...]

  • Screenwriter

    Get ready for Shutter Island with Isle of the Dead.

    Last autumn, when the first of several release dates for Shutter Island loomed, Martin Scorsese unveiled a list of his favourite 11 horror films. It’s an eccentric collection but, oddly, quite a few entries — the British ones for starters — might appear on my own list. Even Peter Medak’s undervalued The Changeling is worth [...]

  • Minibyte

    Tech Tools: Eye-Fi Pro X2

    There are several things that will remain certainties for me: I will always lose the USB camera from my at least once; despite owning about 16GB of memory cards, I will always run out of space too soon ; and photographs from holidays will, if not uploaded almost immediately, get forgetten about until I find [...]

  • Mechanical Turk

    Future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades

    Behold Bertie Ahern watching his beloved Man U trashing the Gooners in glorious 3D yesterday, courtesy of those astute marketing people at Sky, who pitched up in Fagan’s with their fancy new gear and two sackfuls of cheap plastic specs.  Share This

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