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The 20 Irish festivals that are outstanding in their own fields

It’s the summer and the time is right for raving, gigging and having the crack in fields, parks and the open air. Here are the 20 music festivals and events you have to see this summer

Commodified: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s re-creation of the CBGB toilets for its show Punk: Chaos to Couture. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Punk goes down the pan at the Met

Culture Shock

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Music

Booking the Cooks: The Silver Seas go vegan

Spicy West African Stew by Daniel Tashian of The Silver Seas

Padraig McKenna (a cousin of Barney’s), Seán Óg McKenna (a brother), and Gerry Tully: all performing at the Donnycarney Trad Festival next month. Dancing at the traffic lights

An Irishman’s Diary: A Dublin suburb goes back to its roots

Film

The Irish Martians launching a surprise Cannes invasion

Cannes has seen many sights, but few rarer than an Irish sci-fi film that is set on the red planet

A detail from the original poster for 1962’s Eegah It’s alive! The rise of Slum Cinema

A love of cult movies has turned into a semi-regular night of great bad films

Books

Colum McCann at Sandymount, Dublin in 2011. New York, however, is where he wants to live now. Photograph: Alan Betson Colum McCann’s latest high-wire act links home and America

Colum McCann’s ‘Irish book’ is an emigrant’s take on Frederick Douglass and George Mitchell in Ireland

‘Storytelling done better’?: the icon for Faber’s app of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps Word for Word: telling stories beyond the printed page

Media

Facebook has moved to defend and clarify its policies on gender-based hate speech amid pressure from advertisers. Photograph: Martin Keene/PA Wire. Facebook defends position on hate speech

Company says ‘no place’ for directly harmful content but ‘distasteful’ pages okay

The Facebook smartphone application. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters. Facebook hate speech should have advertisers running

It’s not good enough for companies to say they can’t control where their ads appear

HM4FEIS_WEB 2,000 participants take part in week-long drama festival
  • Stage
  • Judith Crosbie
  • May 20, 2013, 01:00

Skills of young people tested in poetry recital, improvisation, drama, mime and storytelling

On the menu: the Company’s production of As You Are Now So Once Were We Germans queue up for the Full Irish

In Germany, they love Irish storytelling in song and word. Now, at last, they are paying attention to our plays

A detail of a caricature drawing of the composer Igor Stravinsky playing the music for The Rite of Spring by Jean Cocteau Dublin Dance Festival’s opening night shows the rite way to do it
  • Dance
  • Michael Seaver
  • May 14, 2013, 02:00

Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography became a victim of the success of the music in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. A century later, choreographers are still trying to get to grips with the dance

FEARGHUS_Ã-_CONCHúIR_CURE_5B_CREDIT_ANDY_FEREIRA_WEB The naked truth about dance
  • Culture
  • Michael Seaver
  • May 14, 2013, 02:00

In Greek mythology, the gods were depicted nude to show their higher status, but these days little inflames indignation like the sight of the naked human body. For some artists, and dancers in particular, it’s an essential, everyday part of their work

Petrushka, choreographed by Tero Saarinen Dancing from Down Under to Dublin
  • Dance
  • Michael Seaver
  • May 10, 2013, 02:00

The Dublin Dance Festival returns next week with a distinctly Australian flavour

Graham Reid: “an Ulsterman would walk 10 miles to be provoked and there’s still a lot of that kind of thing going on here now – as Billy is about to find out.” Whatever became of Kenneth Branagh’s Billy?
  • Theatre
  • Jane Coyle
  • May 3, 2013, 07:00

Graham Reid’s Billy plays brought Belfast lives on to British screens in the 1980s. Now he is staging a sequel

Stage Struck: watching from afar
  • Theatre
  • Peter Crawley
  • May 3, 2013, 01:00

New words, a sex change and a Communist twist – what else happens when an Irish play goes abroad?

Rob Crouch as Oliver Reed in Wild Thing. Oliver Reed: separating the man from the wild man myth

When Rob Crouch and Mike Davis began developing a play about Oliver Reed, they had no idea who would end up pitching in to help the show: Reed’s son Mark

Digging around in the past for a glimpse of the future
  • Stage
  • Patrick Lonergan
  • April 22, 2013, 07:00

Declan Hughes’s ‘Digging for Fire’ is more than 20 years old, but its current revival shows it was – and remains – ahead of its time for Irish drama

Ábhar mórtais iad Uachtaráin na hÉireann
  • Treibh
  • Alan Titley
  • May 22, 2013, 10:35

Cead ag Michael Dána labhairt go dalba ar son na hÉireann

Pat Butler Gradam cumarsáide do Pat Butler
  • Treibh
  • Pól Ó Muirí
  • May 15, 2013, 10:41

Is ar an iarchraoltóir Pat Butler a bhronnfar Buaic-Ghradam Cumarsáide an Oireachtais 2013

Chris Pine mar Kirk i Star Trek: Into Darkness Solas le fáil sa dorchadas ag Trekkies
  • Treibh
  • Robert McMillen
  • May 15, 2013, 10:21

Ní Cumberbitseach nó Cnó Péine mé ach an tseachtain seo caite, chuaigh mé go muiníneach go háit nach ndeachaigh mé riamh roimhe, go scannán Star Trek.

HMBILEOGTORLACH_WEB Tá dlúthbhaint idir an creideamh sa Ghréig agus féiniúlacht náisiúnta
  • Treibh
  • Torlach Mac Con Midhe
  • May 15, 2013, 10:09

Tá dlúthbhaint idir an an Eaglais Cheartchreidmheach agus an fhéiniúlacht náisiúnta sa Ghréig

Boris Johnson: níl a leithéid in Éirinn againn. Grianghraf: Katie Collins/PA Wire Cá bhfuil ár bhFionn féin?

Tá splanc ar leith le bheith sa pholaiteoir a shantaíonn ceannasaíocht a bhaint amach

Alan Shatter, Aire Cosanta Saighdiúirí a sheas – agus a d’imigh
  • Treibh
  • Alan Titley
  • May 15, 2013, 08:58

‘Bhuamarna an cogadh; ní rabhamar páirteach ann!’

Buille gan éifeacht den bhachall
  • Treibh
  • Póilín Ní Chiaráin
  • May 8, 2013, 16:57

Tá cead ag an Eaglais Chaitliceach treoir a thabhairt dá tréad ach an bhfuil an tréad ag éisteacht?

An cogadh sa tSiria. Tóraíocht na bprionsabal
  • Treibh
  • Alan Titley
  • May 8, 2013, 07:29

“Thuas staighre, domhan eile ar fad atá ann. Níl sé inghlactha suí ansin ach amháin ar maidin agus an bus plódaithe.” Photograph: Cyril Byrne Níl olc ar bith agam don taisteal poiblí – is iad an pobal a chuireann soir mé
  • Treibh
  • Caoimhe Ní Laighin
  • May 8, 2013, 06:00

168314319_WEB Punk goes down the pan at the Met

Culture Shock

A detail of We The People by Danh Vo, now at Lismore Castle Arts Five artists reinvent the Monument at Lismore Castle

Danh Vo’s Statue of Liberty segments top the bill in a monumental setting

Visitors talk near Paul Cezanne’s ‘Les Pommes,’ during a preview of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby’s in New York. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters Big numbers for Impressionist art as New York auctions kick off

Sotheby’s sale takes in $230 million, led by a $42 million Cezanne still life

LQ06LIMERICK-IA3_WEB Limerick: a city in search of its cultural identity

The arts community in Limerick is in crisis, thanks to cuts and closures, so how will the city live up to its city of culture status next year?

Haegue Yang’s Strange Fruit sculptures Imma looks for the money shot with its new exhibition

The gallery’s new group show is about cash and all the other currencies that are shaping European identity

Consumer Landscape by Patrick O’Reilly Patrick O’Reilly: making hay and other art that shines

Patrick O’Reilly’s wild eclecticism can be perplexing, but his latest work, a giant haystack in a church, is a thrilling success

WK27KEATINGSACRED_WEB It’s not great art, but it is good mythmaking

Seán Keating wanted to establish an authentically Irish school of art. It’s debatable how successful he was, but there’s no denying the importance of his paintings to our history

Above, a detail from Max Beckmann’s The Hell of Birds. Photograph courtesy of the Louvre An international exhibition that’s become an international incident

An exhibition of art in the Louvre has provoked fury in Germany for portraying the country as a dark and dangerous neighbour – has it ignored key movements deliberately, or is it all a matter of taste?

A detail from Fight Scene III – Study for Two Figures by Eoin Llewellyn Irish art on Berlin’s blank canvas

‘Neither Here Nor There’, a show by Irish artists in Berlin, turns nowhere into something

Century cropped Contributors to Stories from the Revolution

An Irish Times “Century” supplement

James Goulden’s mother with his father, Sgt Henry Goulden of the RIC. Excluded by history
  • Heritage
  • Eve Morrison
  • May 23, 2013, 10:01

James Goulden, son of an RIC sergeant, devoted his life to challenging how the force was portrayed

Philip Walshe joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and was killed in the Easter Rising. ‘Should the worst befall me . . .’
  • Heritage
  • Fiona Gartland
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Philip Walshe was shot dead in the Easter Rising, unaware that a ceasefire had been called

SRCTINTRO_8_WEB Pivotal role in Kerry ‘Troubles’
  • Heritage
  • Richard McElligott
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Tadhg Kennedy played key part in tumultuous years in the Kingdom

Sean Kavanagh (1897-1984), was a confidant of Michael Collins, commandant in the Free State army, and a governor of Mountjoy prison. From spy to governor of Mountjoy
  • Heritage
  • Eoin McVey
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Sean Kavanagh went from espionage for Michael Collins to running Mountjoy

James O’Mara organised the Irish government’s first bond-certificate drive in the US from 1919 to 1921. Over $5.1 million was raised in the campaign. Millionaire helped finance War of Independence

James O’Mara played a vital role in Ireland’s fight for independence by organising a bond drive in the United States that raised $5.1m for the first Dáil

JOYCE_CAKE_WEB Guarding family treasure from the Black and Tans
  • Heritage
  • Joyce Hickey
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

A culinary act of defiance

Michael McDowell on Ben Bulben in Co Sligo, where his uncle Brian was shot dead by Free State soldiers in 1922. Family of divided loyalties that was reunited in grief
  • Heritage
  • Michael McDowell
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

All my sons’ great-grandparents were dramatically affected by the ‘decade of centenaries’ but Brian Mac Neill particularly epitomises civil war’s tragedy

Kathy Barry ran communications between anti-Treaty commander Liam Lynch in Cork and the Dublin IRA. One woman’s Civil War in Ireland
  • Heritage
  • Eve Morrison
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Kathy Barry refused to play a subsidiary role as the war got under way with battles in the streets of Dublin

Irish Times Culture


Reviews

Review: Grigris - a tale of an eccentric hero

 
Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, his second successful collaboration with director Nicolas Winding Refn after 2011’s Drive Only God Forgives, first look: brutal, terrifying, fabulous

 
Cannes Film Festival: The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza

 
Cannes Film Festival: Behind the Candelabra

 
Cannes Film Festival 2013: Last Days on Mars

 
The National: Trouble Will Find Me

 
And So I Watch You From Afar soundchecking before their explosive Whelan’s show. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons Elbows, feet, flying pints, killer guitars
Laura Marling: Once I Was an Eagle

 
Delta Mainline: Oh! Enlightened

 
Senakah: Human Relations

 
Ian McCulloch: Holy Ghosts

 
All That Is, by James Salter
Love Is the Easy Bit, by Mary Grehan
Is That All There Is?, by William King

Screenwriter

Is it Dern versus Douglas for best actor?

Two veteran American actors look set to fight it out for a Cannes award.

On The Record

Trouble will find me: an interview with Matt Berninger

The National's lead singer talks about the band's new album, creative pressure, taking risks and his brother

Pop Life

Fifty Shades of Feminism

Check out this event at the Dublin Writer's Festival tonight (May 20th)

Our Columnists

Shane Hegarty Shane Hegarty -

Check out this brilliant technology. It’s called a ‘book’

Donald Clarke Donald Clarke - Chief Film Correspondent

Gatsby’s last-gasp review blackout

Harry McGee Harry McGee - Political Correspondent

Cá bhfuil ár bhFionn féin?

Tara Brady Tara Brady - Film Critic

Rotten Potatoes on why we hate Britain getting movies first

TV Guide

Book Club The Irish Times & Eason Book Club The Irish Times & Eason

This week's book: The Cleaner of Chartres by Sally Vickers - Available from Saturday, 18th May to Friday, 24th May

Book Offers Book Offers

From The Irish Times Book of the Year to Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, you'll find books for all tastes and ages.