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The Irish Times
Sat, Jul 24, 2021
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Sexy Beasts: James, who goes on a date with a drone-flying zombie, an ex-army pixie and a songwriting leopard Patrick Freyne: After several episodes of Sexy Beasts, I'm attracted to many animals
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • July 23, 2021, 05:00

You’ll either hate Sexy Beasts, Netflix’s new dating show, or like it so much it disturbs you

Ian Rankin on a Celtic cult legend: ‘Why isn’t he better known? He should be revered’ Ian Rankin on a Celtic cult legend: ‘Why isn’t he better known? He should be revered’
  • Music
  • Ian Rankin
  • July 23, 2021, 06:00

The novelist recalls his relationship with the singer Jackie Leven, chronicler of alienation

Old: M Night Shyamalan’s time-compressing mystery overstays its welcome Old: M Night Shyamalan’s time-compressing mystery overstays its welcome
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • July 23, 2021, 05:00

Another chapter in the Sixth Sense director’s peculiarly underwhelming career

Wide-eyed Joe Duffy: Wet behind the ears or dunked in amniotic fluid? Wide-eyed Joe Duffy: Wet behind the ears or dunked in amniotic fluid?
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Mick Heaney
  • July 23, 2021, 05:00

Radio: Playing the naif is tricky when the topic is the glorification of criminality at a funeral

The Movie Quiz: Who was the first woman nominated for a director Oscar? The Movie Quiz: Who was the first woman nominated for a director Oscar?
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • July 23, 2021, 07:26

Plus: How many of the original Magnificent Seven are also in The Great Escape?

I Never Cry: A Polish-Irish comedy of difference with a revelatory lead I Never Cry: A Polish-Irish comedy of difference with a revelatory lead
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • July 23, 2021, 05:00

Piotr Domalewski’s new film works best as a showcase for the terrific Zofia Stafiej

How Beautiful We Were: African trauma and corporate greed How Beautiful We Were: African trauma and corporate greed
  • Books
  • Rabeea Saleem
  • July 23, 2021, 06:00

Imbolo Mbue’s shifting narrative tells of revenge after oil company’s carnage in village

Amy Winehouse, my godmother: I couldn’t talk about her for years Amy Winehouse, my godmother: I couldn’t talk about her for years
  • Music
  • Kate Solomon
  • July 22, 2021, 06:00

Ten years after the singer’s death, Dionne Bromfield has addressed the grief she couldn’t deal with at 15

Artisan chocolatier is a story of resilience and reinvention Artisan chocolatier is a story of resilience and reinvention
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Britney Spears: US House of Representatives introduces Bill to end conservatorship abuse Britney Spears: US House of Representatives introduces Bill to end conservatorship abuse
  • Music
  • Laura Snapes
  • July 22, 2021, 10:55

Inspired by singer’s case, Free Act would bring protection and oversight to ‘broken system’

Latest Film

Chloe Zhao, shown here in 2015, this year became the second woman to win an Oscar for best director (for Nomadland), following Kathryn Bigelow in 2009. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty The Movie Quiz: Who was the first woman nominated for a director Oscar?
Mona Fastvold Director Mona Fastvold: ‘It’s like people don’t associate female filmmakers with auteurs’
John Cena and James Gunn: Peacemaker is an upcoming superhero TV show James Gunn: ‘If superhero movies don’t change, it’s gonna get really boring’
  • ‘Near-death experiences happen a lot. But I pray to ask for protection and for my horse to be okay’
  • Léa Seydoux: ‘Being objectified is a really horrible feeling’

TV & Radio

The funeral of Dean Maguire, who died along with two other men when the car they were travelling in hit a lorry while they were driving the wrong direction up the N7 near Baldonnel. Photograph: Collins Wide-eyed Joe Duffy: Wet behind the ears or dunked in amniotic fluid?

Radio: Playing the naif is tricky when the topic is the glorification of criminality at a funeral

Fox News was accused of hypocrisy after a memo revealed that its own employees would be allowed to go maskless in the office if vaccinated. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty ‘Get the shot’: Fox News anchors turn heads with vaccination pleas
Sexy Beasts: Emma, a model, wears a devil disguise and stars in episode one of the dating series. Photograph: Netflix Sexy Beasts, Netflix’s animal-mask dating show, is irredeemably terrible
  • The Dark Side of Horse Racing: Chilling footage from inside the slaughterhouse
  • Instagram ‘pushes weight-loss messages to teenagers’

Latest Books

Noted writer and cartoonist James Thurber sits in a chair lighting a cigarette in New York, New York, 1954. Photograph: Fred Palumbo/Underwood Archives/Getty Images My World – and Welcome to It (1942) by James Thurber: A perceptive comic showcase

This collection by the New Yorker writer includes a standout turn by Walter Mitty

Olivia Kiernan: I began to think about bringing such a game into a crime novel. After all, murder mystery games are born out of mystery fiction. I turned the traditional murder mystery game into a crime novel
The Irish Times’s annual summer fiction series kicks off in print and online next Thursday, July 29th, with Nostalgie by Wendy Erskine Irish Times summer fiction; Irish authors on comedy prize longlist; John Hewitt festival
  • The Hill of Himself, a new short story by Aidan O’Donoghue
  • ‘Stop the steal’, Giuliani’s flatulence, a Reichstag moment: Trump’s apocalyptic final year

Film Reviews

A scene from I Never Cry. I Never Cry

 
Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby in The World to Come. The World to Come

 
A scene from Air Conditioner. Air Conditioner

 
Vicky Krieps as Prisca and Thomasin McKenzie as Maddox in M Night Shyamalan’s Old Old

 

Latest Music

'He was a machine for coming up with melodies and lyrics': Singer-songwriter Jackie Leven, 1981. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns Ian Rankin on a Celtic cult legend: ‘Why isn’t he better known? He should be revered’

The novelist recalls his relationship with the singer Jackie Leven, chronicler of alienation

#FreeBritney: Britney Spears supporters outside a court hearing in Los Angeles this month. Photograph: Emma McIntyre/Getty Britney Spears: US House of Representatives introduces Bill to end conservatorship abuse
Amy Winehouse and Dionne Bromfield: “Even someone saying Amy’s name to me, I would just shut down.” Photograph: MTV/Cressida Jade Amy Winehouse, my godmother: I couldn’t talk about her for years
  • ‘This Girls Aloud song was the soundtrack to me coming out’
  • The Music Quiz: Which album did Harry Styles call ‘completely perfect’?

Book Reviews

How Beautiful We Were: African trauma and corporate greed
The science of sweat: What happens when you’re feeling hot
The Mother of Invention review: How gender expectation curbs innovation
A Passage North: A slow-paced, thoughtful novel about the legacy of war

Stage

Comedian Tom O’Connor made an impact with British TV shows including Name That Tune and Opportunity Knocks. File photograph: Getty Liverpool comedian and TV presenter Tom O’Connor dies at 81

Comedy career started out in working men’s clubs but he later broke into television

From left to right: Selina Xu, Emily Murray Nelson, Joe Reidy, Louí Montague, Michael Lavery, Aisling Murphy, Éadaoin O’Neill and Ray McHallem outside the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Photograph: Damien Eagers Young playwrights separated by lockdown come together for Abbey debut
Kathy Rose O’Brien stars as Vera in In the Middle of the Fields In the Middle of the Fields review: A timeless tale with a #MeToo edge
  • Review: The Secrets of Primrose Square
  • Cillian Murphy confesses all in pounding sound and blinding light

Art & Design

Westport, courtesy National Library of Ireland, Lawrence Collection. ‘We don’t realise what we have.’ In praise of the ‘majestic’ rural Irish town

A new book looks at the wealth we have in our Irish country towns

Sean Scully: “I’m playing around with the idea, the mutation and repetition, and of course I’m making references to 19th-century painting.” Sean Scully: 'I am an Irishman and I love a good fight'
A museum guest photographs Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Photograph: TJ Kirkpatrick/The New York Times How galleries investigate paintings to reveal secrets and uncover fakes
  • Venice Architecture Biennale’s Irish Pavilion explores our role in the data revolution
  • Diana as the Virgin Mary? The statue William and Harry have unveiled is just awful

Unthinkable

John Moriarty’s stomping ground: Gleann na gCappel, the Horses’ Glen, in the Mangerton massif, Co Kerry. Short of staycation ideas? Try a pilgrimage to Irish philosophy sites

Unthinkable: Ireland has a rich philosophical heritage – some more plaques would be nice

Irish philosopher George Berkeley believed ‘participation in social order was really central to being human’. Image: Hulton Archive Was Ireland’s greatest philosopher a hero, villain or ‘man of his time’?
Ray Griffin (left) and Tom Boland (right), authors of The Reformation of Welfare: The New Faith of the Labour Market. Work is Ireland’s new religion, unemployment its new sin
  • Searching for the ultimate meaning of life? Join the club
  • Before toppling any statues, ask yourself: Am I on the right side of history?

Heritage

Frederick Douglass: escaped slavery and became a prominent abolitionist, orator and writer. Photograph: MPI/Getty Images Frederick Douglass walking trail unveiled in Cork to highlight links to anti-slavery activist

Orator visited Ireland in 1845 to build support for the abolitionist cause in America

The main entrance at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Photograph: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber When is the history of the Holocaust relevant today?
Irish emigrants embarking for America at Waterloo Docks, Liverpool, 1850. From The Illustrated London News, July 1850. Photograph: Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images. The doctor who saved thousands of Irish lives but lost his own
  • When Lloyd George met de Valera: ‘Why do you insist upon Republic? Saorstat is good enough'
  • How many teenagers can a Bean an Tí fit in her house? One more

Michael Viney's Another Life

Gannet with fish: Anyone who has watched the birds plunging vertically from the sky to seize mackerel deep beneath the surface must marvel at their anatomy. Illustration: Michael Viney Gannet population continues to thrive despite human threat to its numbers

Michael Viney: Irish numbers have more than doubled since the counts of Operation Seafarer in 1970

Fox with prey: The urban adult is “thin and exhausted” from finding and ferrying food to its cubs. Illustration: Michael Viney Another Life: The fox as he dwells among us
Choughs. Illustration: Michael Viney The declining choughs of Dursey island need decision makers’ help
  • Super grass: the arching, architectural forms of wild meadows
  • Between cliff and sea: The curious trail of a puffin

Tuarascáil

Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhríde i bpairt Phadaí Mhicheáil Airt i radharc ón fhadchlár faisnéise The Queen v Patrick O’Donnell de chuid ROSG do TG4. I ngreim i seoda na staire sa chartlann

Rith sé liom nach fótachóipeanna saorga a bhí i mo lámha agam ach na buncháipéisí stairiúla a bhí in úsáid ag na pearsana a bhí luaite iontu

‘Ach b’í an chúis ba mhó, thar amhras anonn, ná go ndúirt MMáirtín ar thairseach na vótála go raibh sé ar son foireann Shasana i gcluiche ceannais sacar na hEorpa.’ Grianghraf: Catherine Ivill /Getty An mhaidin dar gcionn
Ón 1,600 duine a d’fhreagair suirbhé, d’aontaigh beagnach 80 faoin gcéad gur mhaith leo níos mó Gaeilge a úsáid gach lá agus bhí Gaeilge in úsáid i gcónaí nó go minic sa bhaile ag 28.7 faoin gcéad. Grianghraf: Getty Plean Teanga Chathair na Gaillimhe
  • Sos Cogaidh
  • Leasuithe ceadaithe chun Bille na dTeangacha Oifigiúla a neartú

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Subscriber Only

Imbolo Mbue renders in poignant detail how trauma manifests differently for each individual in the fictional village of Kosawa. How Beautiful We Were: African trauma and corporate greed
Wheelie suitcases did not take off until the 1970s because of macho assumptions women were not meant to travel alone and men should be strong enough to carry luggage. The Mother of Invention review: How gender expectation curbs innovation
Trauma and loss surface in various ways in Anuk Arudpragasam’s new novel, A Passage North, set during the Sri Lankan civil war A Passage North: A slow-paced, thoughtful novel about the legacy of war

Most Read in Culture

1 The funeral of Dean Maguire, who died along with two other men when the car they were travelling in hit a lorry while they were driving the wrong direction up the N7 near Baldonnel. Photograph: Collins Wide-eyed Joe Duffy: Wet behind the ears or dunked in amniotic fluid?

2 'He was a machine for coming up with melodies and lyrics': Singer-songwriter Jackie Leven, 1981. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns Ian Rankin on a Celtic cult legend: ‘Why isn’t he better known? He should be revered’

3 Vicky Krieps as Prisca and Thomasin McKenzie as Maddox in M Night Shyamalan’s Old Old: M Night Shyamalan’s time-compressing mystery overstays its welcome

4 Harry Styles The Music Quiz: Which album did Harry Styles call ‘completely perfect’?

5 “I’m just delighted I survived. I still can’t believe it. I keep reminding myself I’m only a whippersnapper. If I glimpse myself in a mirror, it’s like, who’s that?” Paula Meehan, at her home in Dublin. Photograph: Dave Meehan Paula Meehan: the poet at 60

6 John Cena and James Gunn: Peacemaker is an upcoming superhero TV show James Gunn: ‘If superhero movies don’t change, it’s gonna get really boring’

7 Veteran war correspondent John Simpson: Fiction is a very convenient way of just being able to lift off the carapace of straightforward, decent reporting and express what you are thinking. John Simpson: My torture was ‘deeply humiliating, wounding to the spirit’

8 Barry Gibb: ‘I care that the music lives, and I do everything in my power to enhance that.’ Photograph: Rose Marie Cromwell/New York Times Barry Gibb: ‘My brothers had to deal with their demons, but my wife wasn’t going to have it’

9 The book is hugely impressive in following the often complex threads of various racist attitudes and sources from pamphlets, pulpits and political discourse to the arts. Impressive and challenging look at the history of racist ideas in US

10 Neil Young and Crazy Horse pictured performing in The RDS, Dublin on Saturday night. Photograph: Aidan Crawley Promoter defends Neil Young concert

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Music Quiz

The Music Quiz: Which album did Harry Styles call ‘completely perfect’? The Music Quiz: Which album did Harry Styles call ‘completely perfect’?

Plus: Who is the pop star with the sometimes songwriting alias ‘Nils Sjoberg’?

Macnas, whose parades are a core part of their work, receive this year’s special tribute award. Photograph: Brian Arthur
Irish Theatre Awards Find out who won this year, plus all our other coverage
 

The Books Podcast

The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory 33:48
The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 40:49
The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy 35:01
The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin 33:47

Culture Videos

Confusion at Cannes as Spike Lee reveals Palme d’Or winner too soon 0:38 Confusion at Cannes as Spike Lee reveals Palme d’Or winner too soon
Spike Lee leads female majority Cannes Film Festival jury 2:10 Spike Lee leads female majority Cannes Film Festival jury
Battle of the Somme: 'a shared history and a shared heritage' 2:52 Battle of the Somme: 'a shared history and a shared heritage'
'I just run with the mistakes': Artist 'Salvatore of Lucan' on working during lockdown 2:03 'I just run with the mistakes': Artist 'Salvatore of Lucan' on working during lockdown

Food & Drink Club

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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
 

Galleries

Errigal Nightscape, by Patryk Sadowski: the night sky at Loch an Ghainimh, or Lough Agannive, in Co Donegal, with Mount Errigal in the background Reach for the Stars: The best of Irish astrophotography
Perfect shot: the murmuration of starlings that James Crombie photographed over Lough Ennell, in Co Westmeath, on Tuesday evening. It became the front-page photograph of The Irish Times of March 4th, 2021. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Murmurations over Lough Ennell
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