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Jim Carroll

Music, Life and everything else

Politics

On the Polls: the heat is on

There are probably many potential voters out there in their twenties and early thirties who have never voted in an Irish presidential election before who are wondering “is it always this eventful?”. The race for the Aras is turning out …

On the Polls, the presidential issue

Barring a late, late entry by Vladimir Putin before noon (a man who truly loves the office of president), we now know that there will be seven lads and lasses on the ballot paper on October 27 competing for the …

The art of acting presidential

You’d miss the traditional silly season. Once upon a time, August was a month when nothing happened so we made up stuff to pass the time, fill the pages and occupy the radio hours. It was great fun altogether and …

The rocky road to the Áras

No-one said getting to be president of this great little country was ever going to be easy. Of course, it was different back in the day when seven years in the Park was seen as a reward for being a …

What’s next for los indignados?

There is nothing like the sight of a bunch of riot police armed with batons and rubber bullets wading into the middle of a peaceful protest to change public opinion within 24 hours. All was quiet on Thursday afternoon at …

The Irish Times’ Culture podcast

This week’s Irish Times’ Culture Podcast was hosted and presented by arts editor Shane Hegarty and features Hugh Linehan, Sinead Gleeson and myself yakking about Queen Elizabeth, Barack Obama, Irish media coverage of these visits, Primavera and summer festivals. Have …

That queen and this country

During yesterday evening’s news, RTE reporter David Davin-Power made an interesting observation. Talking about the huge security presence which meant that the streets were not thronged with onlookers, Davin-Power reckoned that the streets would have been empty anyway, even if …

Cheering on the homebirds

There are several moments which stick in your mind from a performance of “I’m A Homebird (It’s Very Hard)”, which closed its run at Dublin’s Project on Saturday night. There’s the Nadine Coyle love-in, the championing of the Girls Aloud …