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Thu, Sep 19, 2019
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Members of the French performance company Gratte Ciel in Eyre Square, Galway during their spectacular live performance alongside Galway musician and performer, Anna Mullarkey at the launch of the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture programme. Photograph: Aengus McMahon Galway 2020: After the fighting comes a leap in imagination
  • Culture
  • Deirdre Falvey
  • September 19, 2019, 08:26

The European Capital of Culture creative director avoided confirming how much of €39.7m budget has been raised privately

Moya Brennan: ‘I never claimed to be a traditional singer’ Moya Brennan: ‘I never claimed to be a traditional singer’
  • Music
  • Siobhan Long
  • September 19, 2019, 05:00

Clannad’s singer and harpist has won a Grammy and an Emmy, but being honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards is special

Fly Already: Sharp, action-packed short stories Fly Already: Sharp, action-packed short stories
  • Books
  • Alan Murrin
  • September 19, 2019, 06:00

Book Review: Etgar Keret’s sixth collection uses dialogue to make the everyday strange

Mercury Prize 2019: Can Fontaines DC win in a year of protest music? Mercury Prize 2019: Can Fontaines DC win in a year of protest music?
  • Music
  • September 19, 2019, 11:06

The Dublin band could be first Irish act to win the Mercury

Oscars race: who are the real contenders and who have blown their chances? Oscars race: who are the real contenders and who have blown their chances?
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • September 19, 2019, 11:08

Academy Awards 2020: An educated stab at the 2020 best-film nominees, six months out

How many social media followers do you need? Advice from ‘the father of capitalism’ How many social media followers do you need? Advice from ‘the father of capitalism’
  • Culture
  • Joe Humphreys
  • September 19, 2019, 13:39

Unthinkable: Adam Smith can teach you how to live a better life, says political scientist Ryan Patrick Hanley

Mining the horrors of children at work in the Victorian era Mining the horrors of children at work in the Victorian era
  • Books
  • Liz Hyder
  • September 19, 2019, 05:09

I hope my novel helps readers discover their own inner voices and not be afraid of dialect

Year of culture: Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture line-up revealed Year of culture: Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture line-up revealed
  • Culture
  • Deirdre Falvey
  • September 18, 2019, 18:34

Search for 2,020 people for community cast for Olympics-style opening spectacle

James Gray: 'I went back to the US and got told I was nothing' James Gray: 'I went back to the US and got told I was nothing'
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • September 18, 2019, 06:06

The director’s on working with Brad Pitt on Ad Astra, being ignored in America and making movies in Northern Ireland

Donegal: A place perfectly at ease with strangeness Donegal: A place perfectly at ease with strangeness
  • Books
  • Annemarie Ní Churreáin
  • September 18, 2019, 12:55

A guardian of the Irish language and ritual, it’s often fiercely resistant to social change

Latest Film

Oscars contenders: Hustlers, Joker, Parasite and Marriage Story Oscars race: who are the real contenders and who have blown their chances?
Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the ring. New Zealand has already built a multibillion-dollar movie and tourism industry on the adventures featuring hobbits, wizards and orcs. Photograph: New Line Cinema/Reuters New Lord of the Rings television series to be made in New Zealand
Ad Astra marks director James Gray’s second collaboration with Brad Pitt James Gray: 'I went back to the US and got told I was nothing'
  • Christopher Eccleston reveals battle with anorexia and depression
  • Demi Moore: ‘My life unravelled. I had no career. No relationship’

Film Reviews

Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish star in The Kitchen The Kitchen

 
Brad Pitt plays a cool-headed, emotionally-stunted astronaut Ad Astra

 
Affecting performance: Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin Phoenix

 
Extra Ordinary requires epic suspension of disbelief Extra Ordinary

 

TV & Radio

Crime and Punishment: Aaron, one of two prisoners the cameras follow at the dismal HM Prison Winchester The prisoners whose sentences could last forever

Crime and Punishment looked unflinchingly at prisoners incarcerated with no end date

Violence, more violence . . . Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby. Photograph: Matt Squire/BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions Peaky Blinders: a return to its roaring, raging best
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld in New York City. File photograph: Marc Stamas/Getty Images Seinfeld streaming rights bought by Netflix
  • TV guide: 13 shows to watch this week
  • Miriam O’Callaghan runs close to caricature of herself

Latest Music

Fontaines DC: the Irish band are shortlisted for the Mercury. Photograph: Paulo Nunes dos Santos/New York Times Mercury Prize 2019: Can Fontaines DC win in a year of protest music?

The Dublin band could be first Irish act to win the Mercury

Moya Brennan: ‘I can’t express how much happiness music has brought into my life, and still does’ Moya Brennan: ‘I never claimed to be a traditional singer’
“I was just tired of singing and making everybody happy,” she says. Photograph: Charlie Gates/The New York Times Tina Turner: ‘I had a terrible life. I just kept going. You just keep going’
  • Westlife bringing reunion tour back to Ireland in 2020
  • Ric Ocasek, lead singer of The Cars, dies aged 75

Album Reviews

Little Hours: Now the Lights Have Changed

 
Liam Gallagher: Why Me Why Not

 
Girl Band: The Talkies

 
Pixies: Beneath the Eyrie

 
Gruff Rhys: Pang!

 
Jenny Hval: The Practice of Love

 

Latest Books

The Wall by John Lanchester is this week’s Irish Times Eason offer

A sneak preview of Saturday’s books pages

Dublin Book Festival. Photograph: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland Dublin Book Festival: a place to discover the story behind the stories
Liz Hyder: The report presented to parliament contains numerous first-hand accounts from these children speaking directly to us from the dark and it will break your heart – it certainly broke mine Mining the horrors of children at work in the Victorian era
  • A literary guide to Culture Night
  • Bird, bint, biddy, filly: Oxford dictionaries urged to ‘eliminate sexist definitions’

Book Reviews

Fly Already: Sharp, action-packed short stories
The Anarchy: Appalling and enriching – but not in equal measure
Two Souls: Paramilitary and punk the divergent paths of Troubles youth
The Contested Identities of Ulster Catholics: trying to capture a community on the move

Stage

Afloat: the play forces the audience to confront their own role in climate change. Photograph: Manny Singh Afloat review: Bickering and biscuits as Dublin drowns

Dublin Fringe Festival: The capital is underwater in this enlightening and confronting look at climate change

Starlet: tightly directed and well written. Photograph: Padraig Conaty Starlet review: Painfully accurate look at the Irish mating ritual
Vespertilio: an endangered bat is at the centre of this engaging two-hander. Photograph: Liz Isles Vespertilio review: Finding love in the batcave
  • Nate review: An achingly funny gender-parody
  • Minefield review: Dark media satire for the Instagram age

Art & Design

Niamh O’Malley, Untitled (barrier), detail. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh. Image courtesy of the artist. An absorption with substance and finish, as antidote to a fast-paced world

Aidan Dunne: Finding a handle on Niamh O’Malley’s new sculptures at the RHA

Damnatio Memoriae, Conor O'Grady This week’s best art exhibitions
Winter Cherry Tree, Makiko Nakamura, 2019, oil and metal leaf on linen, 41X41cms Art in Focus: Makiko Nakamura – Winter Cherry Tree
  • Dorothy Cross teams up with Lisa Hannigan for new Heartship art project
  • Insider art: finding release through creativity in Irish prisons

Unthinkable

In seeking esteem, do we pretend we’re something we’re not in order to get other people to admire us? How many social media followers do you need? Advice from ‘the father of capitalism’

Unthinkable: Adam Smith can teach you how to live a better life, says political scientist Ryan Patrick Hanley

‘Judging that a certain course of action is irrational is always relative to a host of other contextual considerations’ Photograph: iStock Why there will never be a cure for irrationality
Pointing the finger: Shame is necessary, because it enforces essential social morals. But endless shame is emotional cruelty. Photograph: Getty Images When is it okay to shame another person?
  • Why does time fly? Maybe you’re not paying enough attention
  • Has mindfulness become just another wing of capitalism?

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

‘For a smart, charming young woman like Maeve Brennan, able to waltz her way into the pages of Harper’s Bazaar and the New Yorker, the choice between Ireland and exile cannot have required much agonising.’ Maeve Brennan, a writer who was at home in neither Ireland nor America

From the archive: ‘Irish literature’s best-kept secret ... everyone should be reading her’

The 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon was marked this year Why are we so obsessed with anniversaries?
The contents of an American food parcel in December 1946. Photograph: Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images. Rationing in 1940s Ireland: Drapers protest over clothes restrictions
  • Hotelier plans new Iveagh Markets Quarter in Dublin’s Liberties
  • Iveagh Markets ‘unsafe’ and in ‘advanced state of dereliction’

Tuarascáil

Aisteoir de chuid Phléaráca Chonamara i nDún Eochla, Inis Mór, i 1997. Grianghraph: Joe O’Shaughnessy Oidhreacht an Phléaráca

Cothrom an ama seo i 1991 a reáchtáladh an Pléaráca den chéad uair

Robert Mugabe i Harare na Siombáibe an tseachtain seo caite. Grianghraf: EPA/STR Cogadh na Talún
Déardaoin seo caite, ghlac mic léinn Choláiste Lú i nDún Dealgan páirt in agóid faoin laghdú agus an imeallú a dúradar atá tar éis teacht ar líon na n-ábhar atá á múineadh trí Ghaeilge sa scoil. Grianghraph: Alan Betson In am dul i ngleic leis an ‘lúb ar lár’
  • An scrios mór
  • An Ghaeilge ar bhord na hidirbheartaíochta?

Sponsored

Did you think festival season was over? It’s only just beginning Did you think festival season was over? It’s only just beginning

Summer may be coming to an end, but festival season continues right through the autumn season in Ireland. Book a short break at one of the many fantastic Irish festivals on offer this autumn

South Africa: wildlife, wine country and out-of-this-world adventure awaits South Africa: wildlife, wine country and out-of-this-world adventure awaits

From wine tasting to shark diving, we meet the Rainbow Nation’s local experts and discover a dream bucket list of experiences

Subscriber Only

Etgar Keret uses speech to carry us along, recognising it as a kind of duet, a call and response. Photograph: Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images Fly Already: Sharp, action-packed short stories
The East India Company funded local wars, rewarded winners, punished disloyalty, left historic cities devastated and thousands dead. The Anarchy: Appalling and enriching – but not in equal measure
Henry McDonald’s language succeeds in capturing the aggressive angularity of punk, its blunt refusal. File photograph: Virginia Turbett/Redferns Two Souls: Paramilitary and punk the divergent paths of Troubles youth
Atlantic Podcast A three-part series exploring the mystery of Peter Bergmann - the man who came to Sligo to disappear
 
Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 Reviews, news and interviews from the capital city's biggest and most diverse festival
 

Most Read in Culture

1 Cellist Peadar O' Loinsigh and ballerina Niamh O' Flannagain at the launch of Culture Night 2019. Photograph: Tom Honan/ The Irish Times Culture Night: Your guide to the best events in Dublin and around Ireland
2 Richard Dawkins: ‘I think the exceptionalism of humanity needs examining.’ Photograph: Don Arnold/Getty Richard Dawkins: ‘Brexit is now a religion. They don’t mind if they destroy the country’
3 In seeking esteem, do we pretend we’re something we’re not in order to get other people to admire us? How many social media followers do you need? Advice from ‘the father of capitalism’
4 Moya Brennan: ‘I can’t express how much happiness music has brought into my life, and still does’ Moya Brennan: ‘I never claimed to be a traditional singer’
5 A Donegal landscape near Burtonport Donegal: A place perfectly at ease with strangeness
6 “I was just tired of singing and making everybody happy,” she says. Photograph: Charlie Gates/The New York Times Tina Turner: ‘I had a terrible life. I just kept going. You just keep going’
7 Oscars contenders: Hustlers, Joker, Parasite and Marriage Story Oscars race: who are the real contenders and who have blown their chances?
8 Members of the French performance company Gratte Ciel in Eyre Square, Galway during their spectacular live performance alongside Galway musician and performer, Anna Mullarkey at the launch of the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture programme. Photograph: Aengus McMahon Galway 2020: After the fighting comes a leap in imagination
9 Fontaines DC: the Irish band are shortlisted for the Mercury. Photograph: Paulo Nunes dos Santos/New York Times Mercury Prize 2019: Can Fontaines DC win in a year of protest music?
10 Brad Pitt plays a cool-headed, emotionally-stunted astronaut Ad Astra: Brad Pitt has never been better than this
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On My Culture Radar

John Spillane: On My Culture Radar John Spillane: On My Culture Radar

The singer-songwriter on Mick Flannery’s musical, Damien Dempsey’s collaboration with Katie Tempest, classic film Il Postino and Cillian Murphy’s piercing eyes

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
 

Culture Videos

Ad Astra - official trailer2:26 Ad Astra - official trailer
Here's a sneak peek inside Ireland's newest museum, MOLI4:26 Here's a sneak peek inside Ireland's newest museum, MOLI
Extra Ordinary - official trailer1:48 Extra Ordinary - official trailer
Hustlers - official trailer2:05 Hustlers - official trailer
Food & Drink Club
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Game of Thrones: The epic fantasy’s final season News, reviews, recaps and interviews about television’s biggest series
 
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

Fans in the crowd for Kodaline on the main stage at Electric Picnic on Sunday night. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times Electric Picnic 2019 in pictures: three days of music, mayhem and magic
Hozier performs on the main stage at Electric Picnic on Friday. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times Electric Picnic 2019: Day one in pictures
Vote 100 Celebrating a century since Irish women won the right to vote
 
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