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Constance Markievicz: The Rebel Countess – A comic by Dearbhla Kelly
  • Heritage
  • December 10, 2018, 06:00

A life of rebellion, revolution and politics

Aquaman star Patrick Wilson: ‘To talk about your own looks is a weird thing’ Aquaman star Patrick Wilson: ‘To talk about your own looks is a weird thing’
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 14, 2018, 05:30

The actor on moving from musicals to movies, #MeToo and the perils of being a good looking guy

Springsteen on Broadway: Riveting rollercoaster ride through the past Springsteen on Broadway: Riveting rollercoaster ride through the past
  • Album Reviews
  • December 13, 2018, 07:00

With Springsteen on Broadway due on Netflix on Sunday, this is the album version of his hit show

Let’s not beat around the badger. ‘The Irish Times’ wants to ban beards Let’s not beat around the badger. ‘The Irish Times’ wants to ban beards
  • Culture
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 14, 2018, 05:00

And Christmas. I may not have that quite right. But would everyone please calm down?

The movie quiz: What film leads the Golden Globe nominations? The movie quiz: What film leads the Golden Globe nominations?
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 14, 2018, 05:55

Also: Which character has appeared in all of the Star Wars movies

Owen Roe to get special tribute award at Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards Owen Roe to get special tribute award at Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards
  • Stage
  • Deirdre Falvey
  • December 14, 2018, 06:00

‘His ability to freeze the elusive and contradictory essence in a physical gesture is the mark of a great actor’

The House that Jack Built: Lars von Trier delights in sadism for sadism’s sake The House that Jack Built: Lars von Trier delights in sadism for sadism’s sake
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 14, 2018, 05:00

Review: The director embraces all his worst instincts in this horrible film

Six of the best films to see at the cinema this weekend Six of the best films to see at the cinema this weekend
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 14, 2018, 08:51

New this week: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, Free Solo, Keepers of the Flame, Dead Souls

Taylor Swift used facial recognition software to detect stalkers at concert Taylor Swift used facial recognition software to detect stalkers at concert
  • Music
  • December 13, 2018, 18:57

Los Angeles venue collected images at a kiosk showing Taylor Swift rehearsal clips

Steroid abuse: ‘I hated my body. I had to do something about it’ Steroid abuse: ‘I hated my body. I had to do something about it’
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • December 13, 2018, 13:58

‘RTÉ Investigates – Steroid Ireland’ leaves no stone unturned, no kilo unburned

Latest Film

New this week: Amber Heard in Aquaman Latest movies reviewed: All films in cinemas this week rated
The agile arthropod: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse Six of the best films to see at the cinema this weekend
The movie quiz: What film leads the Golden Globe nominations?
  • Aquaman star Patrick Wilson: ‘To talk about your own looks is a weird thing’
  • ‘I very much relate to that Peter Parker – he wears sweatpants’

Film Reviews

Uma Thurman and Matt Dillon: an attack on misogyny or a celebration of it? With Von Trier, you never get a chance to find out The House that Jack Built

 
Keepers of the Flame

 
Dead Souls emerges as part of a larger, urgent national project to chronicle the re-education camps before the survivors are gone. Dead Souls

 
You will rub your eyes often Aquaman

 

Latest Music

Rolling Stone: Guitrist Keith Richards says he has cut back on drinking. Photograph: EPA/Peter Foley Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards (almost) quits drinking

The lead guitarist says he cut back on alcohol a year ago as he ‘just got fed up with it’

Taylor Swift performing at Croke Park in June. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times Taylor Swift used facial recognition software to detect stalkers at concert
File photograph from 2013 of Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams performing. File photograph: Ian West/PA Wire Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke ordered to pay $5m in ‘Blurred Lines’ plagiarism row
  • Bob Dylan and Neil Young announce major concert in Ireland
  • Avicii: ‘It will kill me’ – behind the devastating documentary

Album Reviews

Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen on Broadway

 
The Melancholy Thug: A Trip to the Sewers of Paris

 
Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert: Ghost Stories for Christmas

 
Willard Grant Conspiracy: Untethered

 
Kirsty Bertarelli: Sweet Summer Rain

 
Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks

 

Latest Books

Sean Kearns, Ciaran McMenamin and Kieran Lagan in Second-Hand Thunder. Photograph: courtesy of Tinderbox Theatre Company The Crilly Trilogy: staging The Black North

Plasys are ‘parodies of esteem’ puncturing loyalists’ and republicans’ political pieties

Bernard Sumner and Ian Curtis performing live onstage at Bowdon Vale Youth Club Photograph: Martin O’Neill/ Redferns Joy Division’s influences and enduring cultural legacy
Firoze Manji addresses the annual Ken Saro-Wiwa seminar in Maynooth. Photograph: Alan Monahan The legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa at Maynooth University
  • A sneak preview of Saturday’s books pages
  • Goodbye to All That is among the finest books about war ever been written

Book Reviews

Friday Black review: a bracing, ultramodern debut collection
How to Be Invisible by Kate Bush review: Not a spare word anywhere
The Mere Wife review: rich modern reworking of ‘Beowulf’
The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965–2005 review

TV & Radio

Steroids, like addictive substances, enslave the user Steroid abuse: ‘I hated my body. I had to do something about it’

‘RTÉ Investigates – Steroid Ireland’ leaves no stone unturned, no kilo unburned

A vote for a young maths teacher Eamon De Valera Twisty history: RTÉ is covering Election 1918 ‘as it happens’
Hits of 2018: Cant's Cope Won't Cope, Finding Joy, Taken Down, Daniel and Majella’s B&B Road Trip, Patrick Kielty’s My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me and Young Offenders The best (and worst) TV of 2018
  • Review of 2018: Reality TV becomes preferable to actual reality
  • Taken Down: Everybody here had blood on their hands

Stage

Owen Roe played the role of Frank Hardy in Faith Healer by Brian Friel, at the Gate theatre in 2010 Owen Roe to get special tribute award at Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards

‘His ability to freeze the elusive and contradictory essence in a physical gesture is the mark of a great actor’

Alan Hughes as Sammy Sausages, Mary Byrne as Fairy Mary and Rob Murphy as Buffy in the Cheerios Panto Snow White and the Adventures of Sammy Sausages & Buffy Snow White panto review: Gleefully naughty, infectious entertainment
Our hero is Boy, a large-headed, stick-limbed boy with a wondrous capacity for adventure. How to Catch a Star review: Visually stunning with a twinkling score
  • Panto review: Alice: The Musical at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast
  • Panto review: Jack and the Beanstalk

Art & Design

Windfall by Paul Ringrose A stark climate change warning in a devastated Cork woodland

Paul Ringrose’s new paintings address show a shattered place where trees have been snapped like matchsticks

Art highlights from 2018 include the Roderic O’Conor show at the National Gallery (centre) Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption
Cattle in Winter, Phoenix Park, Oil on board, John Skelton. Jorgensen Fine Art Strange Bedfellows and stocking fillers: this week’s best visual arts
  • Art in Focus: For GRS by Colin Davidson
  • Do you want to see all of Vermeer’s works in the world? Now you can

Unthinkable

Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?

Unthinkable: A new book on dossing and daydreaming seeks to challenge our traditional work ethic

Children prepare for a nativity play: “Religion is filled with fantastical superheroes and stories.” Photograph: Frank Miller Is religion better than atheism as a coping mechanism?
Muslim praying in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Islam has ‘given rise to remarkably free societies as well as depressingly intolerant ones’. Photograph: AP/Muhammed Muheisen What can the West learn from the rest?
  • Is economics corrupting our idea of human worth?
  • Is it time to cut back on criticism?

Michael Viney's Another Life

Illustration: Michael Viney Poisoned and preyless: obstacles to rewilding Ireland with eagles

Restoring the golden eagle to the west has found the limits to bringing back a carnivore

“Like our neighbours, we once depended wholly on the stream, piped to the house by gravity from one of its higher pools.” Nature takes refuge as drought dries the landscape
“The view from the top balcony can be sublime.” Illustration: Michael Viney Clifftops have given me some of the high point of my life
  • For peat’s sake, our uplands need rain – just not too much at once
  • Michael Viney: The beauty of weeping beeches

Heritage

Mary Clarke from Dundalk welcomes her daughter June from San Diago. Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times Home or away? Tell us how you are spending Christmas this year

Repatriating grief, Irish doctors down under, and other top stories from Irish Times Abroad this week

Building scan image of Main Hall, Trinity Museum Building revealed in Making Victorian Dublin Hidden history of Trinity’s Victorian marble wonder revealed
Women queuing to cast their votes for the first time in the 1918 general election. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images Getting women out to vote: The 1918 election campaign
  • Encouraging women to participate in politics from the ground up
  • Ivana Bacik: We need to hold true to the feminist ideals of the suffragists

Treibh

grianghraf: debbi smirnoff/getty images Na críocha déanacha

Má tá fonn ort an pláinéad a shlánú, ba cheart duit níos lú stuif a cheannach

grianghraf: getty images/istock An crann a thit ina chodladh
Duilleoga seaca. grianghraf: nick bradshaw/the irish times An sioc agus an dorchadas
  • Athrú réime
  • An chritic úr agus Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad

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The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts

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Believe in dreams: step inside Wonderland with Tiffany & Co. this Christmas Believe in dreams: step inside Wonderland with Tiffany & Co. this Christmas

Zoe Kravitz falls into a spectacular New York daydream at Tiffany & Co.'s Fifth Avenue store in the latest campaign from the luxury jewellery brand

Vote 100 Celebrating a century since Irish women won the right to vote
 

Most Read in Culture

1 Brian Blessed: Our cities’ gentrified districts now groan with bespoke milliners who, from the nose to the neck, could pass for Brian Blessed. Photograph: Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images Let’s not beat around the badger. ‘The Irish Times’ wants to ban beards
2 The movie quiz: What film leads the Golden Globe nominations?
3 Patrick Wilson: I am conscious of my good fortune. Aquaman star Patrick Wilson: ‘To talk about your own looks is a weird thing’
4 Constance Markievicz: The Rebel Countess – A comic by Dearbhla Kelly
5 Protest meeting in 1918 in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, against conscription in Ireland. In April that year, Lloyd George’s government had given itself the power to extend conscription to Ireland. Photograph: Photo12/UIG/Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: The 1918 election was an amazing moment for Ireland
6 Bob Dyland and Neil Young to play Ireland concert in July 2019 Bob Dylan and Neil Young announce major concert in Ireland
7 Pigeon fancier: A camera-shy Rosemary Jenkinson with her uncle Donald, mother Denise and father James in Trafalgar Square, 1970 Brexit, a view from over the Border
8 Waterford Whispers 2019 predictions: GAA to replace matches with 30 man brawls
9 Uma Thurman and Matt Dillon: an attack on misogyny or a celebration of it? With Von Trier, you never get a chance to find out The House that Jack Built: Lars von Trier delights in sadism for sadism’s sake
10 Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?
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Theresa May gives a statement at Downing Street. It is easier to keep pretending that, if only May had stuck it to the Europeans in the negotiations, the perfect have-cake/eat-cake Brexit would have been delivered. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Fintan O’Toole: Brexit ultras haven’t the guts to do the only logical thing
(Original Caption) 'Germany: World War I Armistice: Officers celebrate at captured German canteen.' In reality, the industrial nature of the slaughter destroyed all the notions of individual heroism and chivalry. Fintan O’Toole: The first World War is still being fought
Leo Varadkar is hoisted on shoulders after being elected as leader of Fine Gael at the Mansion House, Dublin. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times ‘Leo Varadkar: A Very Modern Taoiseach’ is shallow, flimsy and exaggerated

On My Culture Radar

Seána Kerslake: On My Culture Radar Seána Kerslake: On My Culture Radar

The actor on her love of Gena Rowlands, FaceGym and why she’s impressed by Summer 1993

Lisa Harding: “handles a profoundly difficult issue with absolute care and multitudes of heart”
The Book Club Click to join in the discussion about this month's book, Harvesting by Lisa Harding
 
Shelved: a selection of books by Irish women writers. Might some of these names figure in the final 12?
Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture
 

Culture Videos

Aquaman - official trailer 2:25 Aquaman - official trailer
Hidden history of Victorian Dublin revealed8:27 Hidden history of Victorian Dublin revealed
Avicii True Stories - official trailer1:21 Avicii True Stories - official trailer
Mortal Engines - official trailer 2:24 Mortal Engines - official trailer

Galleries

Bono and Adam Clayton on stage... Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times In pictures: U2 at 3Arena, Dublin
Photograph: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker In Pictures: U2 live in Belfast
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