Humour turns our discontents and anxieties into a joke and helps reconcile us to our fate

The New York Times columnist can aggravate diehard liberals but his latest book merits a fair hearing

Three-day conference to examine role of Catholicism in pluralist Ireland

Neil Middleton: December 8th, 1931 - November 20th, 2015

Moncrieff, whose new book is about the paradox of Irishness, talks about his own identity, the ‘village mentality’ at RTÉ and how the internet brings out ‘performance piety’ in people

The moors of Emily Brontë’s novel are raging and unruly, peaceful and polite. Is the new Gate adapation torn between two worlds?

The former US poet laureate believes in bringing poetry to the widest possible audience. Some critics have found his poetry to be lacking in complexity, but he’ll take that over wilful obscurity any day

Conversations turn Beckettian when this festival of all things tragicomic doesn’t turn out as planned. Could it be any other way?

Sean Doran wants to make Happy Days a ‘destination festival’, turning Enniskillen, where the playwright and novelist went to school, into a Mecca for his fans

No transparency when schools are not open to Freedom of Information

This cleverly provocative appraisal should be taken with a bushel of salt