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Sun, May 26, 2019
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Samuel Beckett said he would rather liver in a France at war than and Ireland at peace. Photograph: Getty Images Samuel Beckett: European Irishman?
  • Books
  • Declan Kiberd
  • May 25, 2019, 06:00

Europe’s multiplicity of languages and cultures, its lack of a singular mind, appealed to the writer

Joe O’Connor: ‘The music of a novel is as important as the plot’ Joe O’Connor: ‘The music of a novel is as important as the plot’
  • Books
  • Martin Doyle
  • May 25, 2019, 06:05

Author’s new novel Shadowplay is a complicated love affair featuring Dracula creator Bram Stoker, the first Irish writer he fell for

Sally Phillips: ‘I’m frankly jealous of the Irish stand-up comedians’ Sally Phillips: ‘I’m frankly jealous of the Irish stand-up comedians’
  • Stage
  • Shilpa Ganatra
  • May 25, 2019, 05:00

Pioneer of female-fronted comedy talks sexism, ageism and her upcoming visit to Kilkenny

Paul Muldoon: On My Culture Radar Paul Muldoon: On My Culture Radar
  • Culture
  • Shilpa Ganatra
  • May 25, 2019, 05:00

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet on his love of Derry Girls, Glen Hansard’s new album and Etto

Paul Brady and Theo Katzman make an unexpected gigging duo Paul Brady and Theo Katzman make an unexpected gigging duo
  • Stage
  • Tony Clayton-Lea
  • May 25, 2019, 05:00

Irish songwriter and LA producers team up for a series of Souls in Sync tour dates

Famished: A historical, musical and poetic account of the Irish Famine Famished: A historical, musical and poetic account of the Irish Famine
  • Music
  • Cormac Larkin
  • May 25, 2019, 05:00

Cherry Smyth, Ed Bennett and Lauren Kinsella come together for enlightening show

Fleabag’s hot priest: Andrew Scott on sex, Catholicism and LGBT actors Fleabag’s hot priest: Andrew Scott on sex, Catholicism and LGBT actors
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Kathryn Shattuck
  • May 24, 2019, 11:33

The Irish actor has made audiences here swoon. Now he’s doing the same in the US

Six of the best films to see in cinemas this weekend Six of the best films to see in cinemas this weekend
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • May 24, 2019, 12:18

New this weekend: Teen drama-comedy Booksmart, and Elton John biopic Rocketman

‘After sex on the damp sheets, we passed out’: Lowlights from Moby’s memoir ‘After sex on the damp sheets, we passed out’: Lowlights from Moby’s memoir
  • Music
  • Elle Hunt
  • May 24, 2019, 09:19

Natalie Portman has disputed the musician’s account of their ‘relationship’. But fear not: his new book has plenty more steamy stories

Cannes 2019: Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend is how old? Cannes 2019: Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend is how old?
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • May 24, 2019, 13:30

Cannes diary: Plus men in heels; Mickey and the Bear; The Traitor; and Mektoub, My Love – Intermezzo

Latest Film

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho poses with his Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA Cannes 2019: Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Parasite’ takes Palme d’Or
Quentin Tarantino and Brandy Cannes 2019: Who will win the Palme d’Or?
‘My generation didn’t fight world wars, but, when barely old enough to cycle a bike, we endured the uncanny horror of the dubbed sub-Wagnerian TV series The Singing Ringing Tree.’ Photograph: Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Getty The under-sevens need toughening up when it comes to scary trailers
  • Cannes 2019: Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend is how old?
  • Six of the best films to see in cinemas this weekend

Film Reviews

Too Late to Die Young

 
Beanie Feldstein as Molly and Kaitlyn Dever as Amy in Booksmart. Photograph: Francois Duhamel/Annapurna Pictures Booksmart

 
Mélanie Thierry as Marguerite in Memoir of War Memoir of War

 
Secret Life of Pets 2: zany and colourful The Secret Life of Pets

 

TV & Radio

The late HPV vaccination campaigner Laura Brennan profiled in This Is Me, on the RTÉ Player from Friday TV guide: 19 of the best shows to watch this week

The legacy of Laura Brennan, Bloom and Springwatch calling, recalling the Garth Brooks concert fiasco, and Peter Crouch previews the weekend's epic football clashes

When Star Trek predicted a united Ireland in 2024 0:49 When Star Trek predicted a united Ireland in 2024
‘Every single one of us can be profiled based on what they’re reading, watching, listening to.’ Photograph: Thomas Winz via Getty Has your phone secretly recorded your conversations? Mine has
  • Marian Finucane sounds as though an unruly guest has gatecrashed her brunch party
  • Fleabag’s hot priest: Andrew Scott on sex, Catholicism and LGBT actors

Latest Music

Musician Moby has apologised to Natalie Portman over claims in his new memoir. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA Wire Moby apologises to Natalie Portman over dating claims

Actor had publicly contradicted musician’s account of their relationship in new memoir

The Spice Girls on stage at Croke Park in Dublin. Photograph: Andrew Timms/PA Wire Spice Girls respond to complaints about sound at Dublin gig
A site to behold: Forbidden Fruit. Photograph: Aidan Crawley Forbidden Fruit: Everything you need to know
  • This week's best rock gigs: From Filthy Friends to Soak
  • Famished: A historical, musical and poetic account of the Irish Famine

Album Reviews

Richard Hawley: Further

 
The Waterboys: Where The Action Is

 
Junior Brother: Pull the Right Rope

 
Morrissey: California Son

 
The Pale: Merciful Hour

 
Flying Lotus: Flamagra

 

Latest Books

Joseph O’Connor: “Bram Stoker is the first Irish author I ever heard of, the first Irish author I loved.” Photograph: Eric Cabanis/AFP/Getty Images Joe O’Connor: ‘The music of a novel is as important as the plot’

Author’s new novel Shadowplay is a complicated love affair featuring Dracula creator Bram Stoker, the first Irish writer he fell for

Author Shane Hegarty. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times Children’s books round-up: Shane Hegarty’s Boot has something for adults too
Jared Diamond’s latest book focuses on how various countries deal with times of crisis. Photograph: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/Getty ‘The end of American democracy will be slowly creeping’
  • Samuel Beckett: European Irishman?
  • Rees-Mogg’s terrible reviews are a cause for celebration

Book Reviews

A Shared Home Place review: A first-hand view of NI history
Bitcoin Billionaires review: an ideological struggle
Faber & Faber: The Untold Story – What do publishers actually do all day?
Trust Exercise review: A bold novel that might leave you feeling cheated

Stage

Sally Phillips: “I don’t notice the sexism now because it was so much worse when we started.” Sally Phillips: ‘I’m frankly jealous of the Irish stand-up comedians’

Pioneer of female-fronted comedy talks sexism, ageism and her upcoming visit to Kilkenny

From June 1st to 5th, Paul Brady (right) will be sharing the stage with Los Angeles musician and songwriter Theo Katzman. Paul Brady and Theo Katzman make an unexpected gigging duo
A scene from ‘Baoite’ Fracking and family feuds: This week’s theatre highlights
  • Citysong: Epic drama that gets deep into the Dublin groove
  • Baoite review: Boring deep into the bedrock of a bitterly divided family

Art & Design

Land Sequence Burren, Anne Madden, 1964. Collective View, Boyle. A collection from two different perspectives

Aidan Dunne: Arts Council and Civic Art Collection join forces for an exhibition in Boyle

The Past is a Foreign Country (2018) by Anita Groener, installed in The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon Art in Focus: The Past is a Foreign Country by Anita Groener (2018)
Detail from Lamont Cranston (2018) by Larry Poons Larry Poons and John Gibbons: An unusual pairing that works
  • Painter James Morton still flying high at 100
  • Art in Focus: Treecurtin by David Crone

Unthinkable

Unlike both utilitarianism and rights-based theories, virtue theory assumes human beings and the planet Earth have intrinsic purpose, from which moral commandments flow. Is virtue ethics making a comeback, 2,400 years after Aristotle?

Unthinkable: We must find ‘middle way’, says Ireland’s new young philosopher of the year

Iris Murdoch: ‘It’s been easy to dismiss Murdoch as a philosopher because she was such a brilliant novelist.’ Photograph: Getty Why the world needs Iris Murdoch’s philosophy of ‘unselfing’
Siri Hustvedt: Philosopher or novelist? Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images Can a novel also be a work of philosophy?
  • Why be good when it seems like nasty guys finish first?
  • Do male and female brains differ? A philosophical response

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

Violet Gibson, daughter of the first Lord Ashbourne, of Co Meath, who wounded Signor Mussolini with a revolver in Rome. An Irishwoman’s attempt to assassinate Mussolini is often overlooked in history

The Times We Lived In: Published Thursday, April 8th, 1926

The ‘back lane of no importance’ in Dublin that excelled in the 1970s
Panti Bliss in Thisispopbaby’s Riot globetrotting cabaret show. Photograph: Ian Douglas Rioting in Dublin theatres is nothing new
  • ‘Anything is better than what’s here’ - traders react to latest plan for Moore Street
  • The stinking mud heaps that plagued Dublin in the 1870s

Tuarascáil

An Coimisinéir Teanga Rónán Ó Domhnaill. Grianghraf: Seán Ó Mainnín Coiste chun tuarascáil an Choimisinéara Teanga a phlé

Tiocfaidh Rónán Ó Domhnaill os comhair Chomhchoiste na Gaeilge, na Gaeltachta agus na nOileán

Is ea, táimid an-tugtha don bhriathar. Agus ní haon díobháil é sin. Grianghraf: iStockphoto/Getty Briathar agus gníomh
‘N’fheadar fútsa, ach is aoibhinn liomsa aimsir toghcháin.’ Griangraf: Eric Luke Na cuaillí feistithe
  • ‘Erasmus na Gaeilge’ fógartha ag Seán Kyne
  • Cad iad na ‘taboos’ seo nach bhfuil daoine ag caint fúthu?

Sponsored

Digitalisation: making it a real force in Ireland Digitalisation: making it a real force in Ireland

Industry experts met in Dublin in April to discuss the power of digitalisation to transform society and provide opportunities for Ireland

Chernobyl: more than a historical drama, it's a cautionary tale for our times Chernobyl: more than a historical drama, it's a cautionary tale for our times

On the 30th anniversary of the tragedy Sky Atlantic presents a five-part miniseries that unlocks the story behind the worst nuclear disaster in hist

Game of Thrones: The epic fantasy’s final season News, reviews, recaps and interviews as the series comes to an end
 
Cannes film festival Donald Clarke brings you the best from Promenade de la Croisette
 

Most Read in Culture

1 Marian Finucane: ‘But you’re not denying, are you, the consequences of global warming?’ Marian Finucane sounds as though an unruly guest has gatecrashed her brunch party
2 ‘Every single one of us can be profiled based on what they’re reading, watching, listening to.’ Photograph: Thomas Winz via Getty Has your phone secretly recorded your conversations? Mine has
3 The Spice Girls on stage at Croke Park in Dublin. Photograph: Andrew Timms/PA Wire Spice Girls respond to complaints about sound at Dublin gig
4 Samuel Beckett said he would rather liver in a France at war than and Ireland at peace. Photograph: Getty Images Samuel Beckett: European Irishman?
5 I gave her my Berry the bear to make her feel better My Mammy lives in a box: A story by Amy Cahill
6 Moby: older and wiser? Photograph: Michael Bezjian/Getty ‘After sex on the damp sheets, we passed out’: Lowlights from Moby’s memoir
7 Jacob Rees-Mogg: his book on 12 Victorians is described as “a dozen clumsily written pompous schoolboy compositions”. Photograph: Bloomberg Rees-Mogg’s terrible reviews are a cause for celebration
8 Sally Phillips: “I don’t notice the sexism now because it was so much worse when we started.” Sally Phillips: ‘I’m frankly jealous of the Irish stand-up comedians’
9 Neil Hannon: ‘It’s like whistling a happy tune as the ship goes down’
10 Musician Moby has apologised to Natalie Portman over claims in his new memoir. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA Wire Moby apologises to Natalie Portman over dating claims
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Vote 100 Celebrating a century since Irish women won the right to vote
 

Subscriber Only

Seamus Mallon in 1998, when he was deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien Seamus Mallon: Tony Blair said to me, ‘The trouble with you fellows is you have no guns’
Nothing to sing about?: 10-year-old Mona Abdulmagid (foreground of montage) takes part in the the Ireland Palestine Alliance’s boycott-Eurovision campaign. Last year’s winner was the Israeli singer Netta Barzilai (background) Fintan O’Toole: Everything about Israel is political, even Eurovision
David Puttnam at home in Skibereen, Co Cork. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision David Puttnam: ‘I feel no sense of identity for the country I grew up in’

On My Culture Radar

Paul Muldoon: On My Culture Radar Paul Muldoon: On My Culture Radar

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet on his love of Derry Girls, Glen Hansard’s new album and Etto

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

Parasite - official trailer1:29 Parasite - official trailer
When Star Trek predicted a united Ireland in 20240:49 When Star Trek predicted a united Ireland in 2024
Girl power: Spice Girls bring the party to Dublin1:49 Girl power: Spice Girls bring the party to Dublin
Donegal theatre company light up the streets of Galway0:43 Donegal theatre company light up the streets of Galway

Galleries

Doris Day in costume on the set of Calamity Jane. Photograph: Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Doris Day: A life in pictures
Red electrical tape marks out our playing space on the timber floor. One side of this line denotes the stage; outside of this line is known as the wings. Here, bits of costume and props line up, ready to be brought on stage. Among these props – suitcases, wine bottles, letters – lies a digital camera, very much out of place in this world of 1940s Galway. We’re in the Lab on Foley Street in Dublin. It’s week three of rehearsals for Light a Penny Candle. Maeve Binchy’s heartfelt story, adapted wisely for stage by Shay Linehan, is taking shape. I’ve brought my camera with me this week; I leave it off to the side as we work through the text. Light a Penny Candle: The rehearsal room laid bare
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