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Stars of 2018 (from left, top): Saint Sister, Rejjie Snow, Lisa O'Neill, Kojaque. Front row: Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC, Le Galaxie and Wyvern Lingo Best Irish pop music of 2018: A year brimming with talent, confidence and swagger
  • Music
  • Una Mullally
  • December 9, 2018, 08:49

Year in Culture Review: Talented acts keep emerging, and a new grass-roots industry infrastructure is also taking shape

How to Be Invisible by Kate Bush review: Not a spare word anywhere How to Be Invisible by Kate Bush review: Not a spare word anywhere
  • Books
  • John Boyne
  • December 8, 2018, 06:00

Reading the lyrics is to experience Bush’s songs in an entirely new way

TV guide: 11 of the best shows to watch this week TV guide: 11 of the best shows to watch this week
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Kevin Courtney
  • December 9, 2018, 06:00

RTÉ goes back in time to the 1918 general election while Steroid Ireland expose those involved in the illegal trade in anabolic steroids

Leo Varadkar on the Late Late Show: Taoiseach has become ‘CEO’, Ireland ‘the organisation’ Leo Varadkar on the Late Late Show: Taoiseach has become ‘CEO’, Ireland ‘the organisation’
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • December 8, 2018, 10:59

If you imagine Varadkar as too corporate, Ryan Tubridy’s interview won’t change your mind

Michelle Obama: Seven things every girl and woman needs to know Michelle Obama: Seven things every girl and woman needs to know
  • Books
  • Róisín Ingle
  • December 8, 2018, 05:50

The author and former US first lady offers her life advice for girls and young women

The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland review The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland review
  • Books
  • Christopher Kissane
  • December 8, 2018, 06:00

Margaret Kelleher studies a man’s hanging in context of a legal world oblivious of Irish

Pat vs ex-pats: Kenny wonders if emigrants have paid their dues Pat vs ex-pats: Kenny wonders if emigrants have paid their dues
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Mick Heaney
  • December 8, 2018, 05:00

Newstalk host is at his most logical during spirited encounter, while Vicky Phelan tells her story to the world in BBC documentary

Patrick Freyne: From Kylie to Declan Nerney, a history of taoiseach rock Patrick Freyne: From Kylie to Declan Nerney, a history of taoiseach rock
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • December 8, 2018, 05:00

Leo Varadkar has been accused of trying to ‘get down with the kids’ via 1980s pop icon Kylie Minogue. Here’s how our former leaders rocked us in the Oireachtas

Ciara Kelly brings fresh perspective to male-dominated Newstalk Ciara Kelly brings fresh perspective to male-dominated Newstalk
  • Music
  • Mick Heaney
  • December 8, 2018, 05:00

Year in Culture Review: The news station proved a raucous alternative to staid formulaic radio

Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption
  • Visual Art
  • Aidan Dunne
  • December 8, 2018, 13:58

Year in Culture Review: Commercial galleries are under pressure despite rising economy but art still thrives

Latest Film

Captain America (Chris Evans) will try to take on Thanos. Photograph: YouTube First official Avengers 4 trailer revealed
Actor and comedian Kevin Hart ‘I’m sorry that I hurt people’. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters Kevin Hart steps down as Oscars host amid homophobic tweet row
Hot on the trail: Casey Affleck in The Old Man & the Gun Six of the best films to see at the cinema this weekend
  • Lars Von Trier: ‘I am disappointed only 100 people vomited’
  • The movie quiz: How many English-born actors played James Bond?

Film Reviews

‘Roma’ Roma

 
Lakeith Stanfield in Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You. Photograph: Peter Prato / Annapurna Pictures Sorry to Bother You

 
Richie Merritt and Matthew McConaughey in ‘White Boy Rick’ White Boy Rick

 
Pat Shortt The Belly of the Whale

 

Latest Music

Stars of 2018 (from left, top): Saint Sister, Rejjie Snow, Lisa O'Neill, Kojaque. Front row: Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC, Le Galaxie and Wyvern Lingo Best Irish pop music of 2018: A year brimming with talent, confidence and swagger

Year in Culture Review: Talented acts keep emerging, and a new grass-roots industry infrastructure is also taking shape

Tommy Keyes. Tommy Keyes is not your average ex-civil servant
Lily Allen. Photograph: Bella Howard Gig of the Week: Lily Allen
  • This Album Changed My Life: David Bowie – Low (1977)
  • A loose-limbed adventure of the avant garde: This week’s best jazz gigs

Album Reviews

Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks

 
Niall Horan: Flicker: Featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra

 
Low Sea: Portals

 
Def Leppard: The Story so Far – the Best Of

 
Arty McGlynn: Botera

 
Damien Dempsey: Union

 

Latest Books

Anthony J Quinn and his siblings as children. Quinn is the tallest of the boys(far right), followed by Jim, and then Paul, who both feature in the essay From reading in the trees to running from the British army

Coming of age during the Troubles: Anthony Quinn on his childhood hideaways

John McGahern: sacked when he should have been celebrated. Photograph: Frank Miller In praise of older books: The Dark by John McGahern (1965)
Una Brennan has her hand on her husband Robert’s shoulder in this group photograph of Wexford republicans How the parents of Ireland’s authors survived their past
  • Christmas is rescued! Great gifts for bookish children
  • Michelle Obama: Seven things every girl and woman needs to know

Book Reviews

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech review
In the Dark River review: A skeleton is found in Victorian Dublin’s Poddle
How to Be Invisible by Kate Bush review: Not a spare word anywhere
The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland review

TV & Radio

tg4 TV guide: 11 of the best shows to watch this week

RTÉ goes back in time to the 1918 general election while Steroid Ireland expose those involved in the illegal trade in anabolic steroids

Leo Varadkar: HSE unfit for purpose 'as it is now' 0:43 Leo Varadkar: HSE unfit for purpose 'as it is now'
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defines job as ‘chairman and CEO of the organisation’ Leo Varadkar on the Late Late Show: Taoiseach has become ‘CEO’, Ireland ‘the organisation’
  • Letterfrack celebrates ‘bit of a looper’ mentor and activist
  • Cowell’s ‘X Factor’ fails to keep up with rapidly changing music industry

Stage

Centre stage: The Lost O’Casey, Asking for It, Ruth Negga in Hamlet, Tara Flynn, and Cillian Murphy in Grief is the Thing with Feathers Theatre in 2018: Looking back in anger and learning lessons

Year in Culture Review: Feelings of rage, injustice, grief and – hopefully – healing pervaded theatre

Come From Away deserves a warm welcome at the Abbey Theatre highlights: ‘Come From Away’ comes to the Abbey
The original broadway cast of Come From Away. Come From Away: a 9/11 side-story that offers hope for humanity
  • The Snow Queen review: Gaiety panto’s rambunctious take on Frozen
  • Hugh Jackman announces world tour and Dublin date

Art & Design

Art highlights from 2018 include the Roderic O’Conor show at the National Gallery (centre) Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption

Year in Culture Review: Commercial galleries are under pressure despite rising economy but art still thrives

Cattle in Winter, Phoenix Park, Oil on board, John Skelton. Jorgensen Fine Art Strange Bedfellows and stocking fillers: this week’s best visual arts
For GRS by Colin Davidson Art in Focus: For GRS by Colin Davidson
  • Do you want to see all of Vermeer’s works in the world? Now you can
  • Turner Prize 2018: Charlotte Prodger wins for films shot on iPhone

Unthinkable

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?

Unthinkable: Secular philosophies ‘lack the melodrama of religion’, says Stephen Asma

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?
‘My position is to recommend that people consider parenting a child with Down syndrome, if given the opportunity’. Photograph: iStock Is economics corrupting our idea of human worth?
  • Is it time to cut back on criticism?
  • What will replace ‘western civilisation’?

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

Taking a rest beside Cliodna Cussen’s sculpture at Beach Road, Sandymount, Dublin, dedicated to James Joyce. Photograph: Peter Thursfield The Times We Lived In: You’re never to young to get to grips with Joycean quotes

Published: June 14th, 1983.Photograph: Peter Thursfield

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
Eavan Boland reading a poem commissioned by the Royal Irish Academy and Ireland’s permanent mission to the United Nations to mark the centenary. UN marks centenary of Irish women winning right to vote
  • The Times We Lived In: JFK’s widow Jacqueline Kennedy at the Curragh
  • ESB unveils treasure throve of previously unseen films from the past

Treibh

Oidhreacht na hiomána. grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times Athrú réime

Moltar an iomáint – agus cuirtear peileadóirí CLG i mbun sacair

Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh – file. grianghraf: nick bradshaw/the irish times An chritic úr agus Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad
Aodán Mac Póilin – scríbhneoir Leabhar nua, Our Tangled Speech, le seoladh
  • Cruthaitheacht an mhic léinn
  • Crónán agus cur i gcéill an chait

Sponsored

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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

Most Read in Culture

1 Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defines job as ‘chairman and CEO of the organisation’ Leo Varadkar on the Late Late Show: Taoiseach has become ‘CEO’, Ireland ‘the organisation’
2 Former US first lady Michelle Obama on stage at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in London. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images Michelle Obama: Seven things every girl and woman needs to know
3 Maolra Seoighe (“Myles Joyce”): the Irish-speaker wrongly executed for the 1882 Maamtrasna murders after a trial conducted entirely in English. The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland review
4 Kate Bush has always been a storyteller. Photograph: Trevor Leighton/Fish People/AFP Photo How to Be Invisible by Kate Bush review: Not a spare word anywhere
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 Stars of 2018 (from left, top): Saint Sister, Rejjie Snow, Lisa O'Neill, Kojaque. Front row: Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC, Le Galaxie and Wyvern Lingo Best Irish pop music of 2018: A year brimming with talent, confidence and swagger
7 Pat Kenny’s interview with the CEO of emigrant support charity Safe Home Ireland turns into an unexpectedly spirited encounter Pat vs ex-pats: Kenny wonders if emigrants have paid their dues
8 Uma Thurman doesn’t know what’s ahead of her in The House that Jack Built Lars Von Trier: ‘I am disappointed only 100 people vomited’
9 In her prime: a youthful Whitney Houston on stage in June 1988. Photograph: RDA/Getty Images The sad, secret life of Whitney Houston
10 A screen shot from the official video of Fairytale of New York. Fairytale ending: Shane MacGowan explains ‘faggot’ reference in Christmas song
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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

Dublin's buildings light up this Christmas1:02 Dublin's buildings light up this Christmas
Leo Varadkar: HSE unfit for purpose 'as it is now'0:43 Leo Varadkar: HSE unfit for purpose 'as it is now'
The House that Jack Built - official trailer2:24 The House that Jack Built - official trailer
Irish-produced film 'The Favourite’ gets five Golden Globe nominations2:01 Irish-produced film 'The Favourite’ gets five Golden Globe nominations

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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