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The Irish Times
Thu, Jan 27, 2022
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Twelve participants of the award-winning Female Conductor Programme for 2019/2020. Photograph: Mark Stedman Why are there still so few female conductors?
  • Music
  • Sylvia Thompson
  • January 27, 2022, 05:00

Since Marin Alsop retired, the top 25 orchestras in US are led by male conductors

Virtual reality promises a guilt-free life: All the more reason to be wary of it Virtual reality promises a guilt-free life: All the more reason to be wary of it
  • Culture
  • Joe Humphreys
  • January 27, 2022, 05:00

Unthinkable: Philosopher David Chalmers believes ‘nonvirtual life’ has met its match but does his argument stack up?

Ellen Keane: ‘When grown men give me a disgusted stare, I think you should know better’ Ellen Keane: ‘When grown men give me a disgusted stare, I think you should know better’
  • Culture
  • Sylvia Thompson
  • January 26, 2022, 21:05

The Paralympic champion swimmer spoke at the Irish Times Winter Nights Festival

The Gilded Age – with its kind rich people and racist Irish maid – has nothing to say The Gilded Age – with its kind rich people and racist Irish maid – has nothing to say
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Ed Power
  • January 26, 2022, 19:00

TV review: Julian Fellowes gives Americans a romanticised take on their own history

Disney’s Snow White remake is ‘backwards’, says Peter Dinklage Disney’s Snow White remake is ‘backwards’, says Peter Dinklage
  • Film
  • Catherine Shoard
  • January 26, 2022, 08:52

Actor who has a form of dwarfism criticised stereotypes retained in the story

David McWilliams: Sinn Féin ‘will change the housing market’ David McWilliams: Sinn Féin ‘will change the housing market’
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • January 25, 2022, 09:12

The economist spoke to Cliff Taylor at the Irish Times Winter Nights Festival

M&Ms have had an ‘inclusivity’ makeover. Excuse me while I overreact M&Ms have had an ‘inclusivity’ makeover. Excuse me while I overreact
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Donald Clarke
  • January 26, 2022, 08:13

Fox News host Tucker Carlson led the way in sneering at Green’s new androgynous look

David Baddiel: I ‘probably don’t agree completely’ with Sally Rooney on Israel David Baddiel: I ‘probably don’t agree completely’ with Sally Rooney on Israel
  • Culture
  • Deirdre Falvey
  • January 25, 2022, 23:50

The writer talked Joyce, Jewishness and boycotts at the Irish Times Winter Nights festival

Seeing Ireland: Staging a cultural coup in Paris 100 years ago Seeing Ireland: Staging a cultural coup in Paris 100 years ago
  • Culture
  • January 26, 2022, 05:00

A showcase of Irish art and design brought a fleeting moment of unity before the Civil War

Bonnie Greer: ‘Ireland needs to understand the world is changing’ Bonnie Greer: ‘Ireland needs to understand the world is changing’
  • Culture
  • Sylvia Thompson
  • January 25, 2022, 21:15

The broadcaster and writer spoke to Sorcha Pollak at the Irish Times Winter Nights festival

Latest Film

‘I was a little taken aback by [the fact] they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ Peter Dinklage said. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO Disney’s Snow White remake is ‘backwards’, says Peter Dinklage
Romola Garai. Photograph: Elisabetta Villa/Getty Romola Garai: ‘Horror films are often incredibly moving’
Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Ciarán Hinds in Belfast Four new films to see in cinemas this week
  • The 50 best films on Netflix right now: From classics to new Oscar contenders
  • Pedro Almodóvar: ‘I always come back to the characters of mothers’

TV & Radio

Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski in The Gilded Age. Photograph: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO The Gilded Age – with its kind rich people and racist Irish maid – has nothing to say

TV review: Julian Fellowes gives Americans a romanticised take on their own history

Mars has given a marketing makeover to its six M&Ms characters. Photograph: AP/David Zalubowski M&Ms have had an ‘inclusivity’ makeover. Excuse me while I overreact
Jason Bateman. Photograph: Mike Windle/Getty Images Jason Bateman on his ‘wilderness years’, sobriety, success and Ozark
  • TV guide: 21 of the best shows to watch this week, beginning tonight
  • Ozark returns this week for its final season. Here’s why it’s a must-see

Latest Books

Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. Photograph: Patrick Ford/Redferns Simple Minds and U2: How New Gold Dream lit an unforgettable fire

Dismissed as ‘U3’, the Scottish band exerted an equally huge influence on Bono & co

Vona Groarke: Link: Poet and World is experimental and witty, full of Groarke’s signature intelligent exactitude. Photograph: Cyril Byrne A poet for the world: Vona Groarke delivers a terrific, spare collection
Emma Donoghue in Dublin in February 2014. Photograph: Eric Luke The Books Quiz: What is the island setting of Emma Donoghue’s new novel?
  • Burnout nation: how has breaking point become normal?
  • Documenting Bloody Sunday: ‘I saw people alive, no gun, and then dead’

Film Reviews

The film locks in the viewer with these angry, bereaved people and their increasingly difficult confrontation  Mass

 
Sheldon D Brown and Matthew Fifer in Cicada Cicada

 
Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Jude Hill and Judi Dench in Belfast. Photograph: Rob Youngson/Focus Features Belfast

 
Bradley Cooper’s performance papers over some of the film’s narrative cracks Nightmare Abbey

 

Latest Music

Who minted the most in ’21? Was it...Taylor Swift... The Music Quiz: At $590 million, who was the highest earning US musician of 2021?

Plus: Which Van Morrison song is heard over the closing credits of new movie Belfast?

Damon Albarn (right) said that, though Taylor Swift was ‘an excellent songwriter’, she ‘doesn’t write her own songs’. Photographs: Javin Mazur/WireImage; Dave J Hogan/Getty Images Damon Albarn’s criticism of Taylor Swift is ‘hopelessly out of date’
Neil Young: the musician said his decision was motivated by The Joe Rogan Experience, which is Spotify’s most popular podcast. Photograph: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Neil Young demands Spotify remove his music over Joe Rogan vaccine misinformation
  • Hugh Linehan: Bono and I finally have something in common – we both find U2 cringeworthy
  • Black Country, New Road’s tale of triumph unfolds in the shadow of tragedy

Book Reviews

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter
The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers: The black heart of America
What I Wish People Knew About Dementia: An engaging and hopeful read
Eoin Ó Broin: I want to live in Frank McDonald’s Dublin

Stage

Abbey Theatre’s artistic director Caitríona McLaughlin and executive director Mark O’Brien are getting the organisation ready for an extended building, creating a cultural hub in Dublin 1. Photograph: Rich Gilligan Abbey Theatre co-directors: ‘We want our artists to have a hand on the steering wheel’

Caitríona McLaughlin and Mark O’Brien on the way forward for the national theatre

With an implacable smile, Conroy encourages and supports even the most reluctant of audience members to join her on stage Every Brilliant Thing review: A magical, uplifting show
Audiences familiar with Gorman’s work may enjoy hearing him sketch the various stages of his career, but the stakes are too low for the more disinterested viewer Falling Through the Universe review: Two epiphanies conjoined
  • What’s on in Irish theatre in 2022, from Beckett to Binchy to Sondheim
  • Three Short Comedies by Seán O’Casey: Scathing, wildly entertaining commentaries on the new Irish State

Art & Design

The artist Francoise Gilot, former wife of Pablo Picasso, at her home in New York. Photograph: Landon Nordeman/New York Times The 100-year-old ‘it girl’: ‘Picasso took the cigarette and touched it to my right cheek’

Françoise Gilot, painter and girlfriend of Picasso, talks success, style and intimacy

Are we facing into a new era of compact and easier living or is it destined to flounder? Photograph: iStock Can the ‘15-minute city’ concept of urban living become a reality for Irish cities?
A starling murmuration over Lough Ennell, in Co Westmeath. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho 2021 in pictures: Irish Times photographers select their images of the year
  • ‘A secret of a life’: Alen MacWeeney’s evocative photographs of 1960s Dublin
  • A gift of art is the gift that keeps on giving

Unthinkable

Gamers in an online realm can operate under an internal moral code but, should this become our main form of existence, the value to humanity becomes more obscure. Photograph: Getty images Virtual reality promises a guilt-free life: All the more reason to be wary of it

Unthinkable: Philosopher David Chalmers believes ‘nonvirtual life’ has met its match but does his argument stack up?

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer ‘believes pessimism to be true. When he cites the tragic poets, it is because he believes they were right in describing a world of suffering.’ Photograph: Getty images I think ‘hopeful pessimists’ have better lives than optimists – but I’m not positive
Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street campaign. ‘One of the things that makes us human,’ says David Wengrow, ‘is that we can make moral choices between competitive and altruistic kinds of society.’ Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters Humans aren’t naturally egalitarian. We’re better than that
  • How to think better: Join a community philosophy club
  • Values are not ‘just opinions’: How our moral teaching has gone wrong

Heritage

Dorothy Day in 1965. The anarchist writer and activist often reacted negatively when people praised her as saintlike. Photograph: Judd Mehlman/NY Daily News via Getty Images Will the Catholic Church canonise a left-wing activist?

As the church ponders her sainthood, Dorothy Day’s radicalism is ‘reduced’ to sin

People confront British soldiers on William Street in Derry minutes before paratroopers opened fire, killing 14 civilians on what became known as Bloody Sunday. File photograph: Getty Bloody Sunday is still damaging the British Army. And that’s a choice it continues to make
Fr Edward Daly waves a blood-stained handkerchief as men carry the fatally injured Jackie Duddy on Bloody Sunday, January 30th, 1972. Photograph: Stanley Matchett He shouted: ‘Help! This wee boy’s dying.’ The soldiers started clapping
  • Fintan O’Toole: Bloody Sunday, the 10-minute massacre that lasted decades
  • Phil Coulter on Bloody Sunday: ‘You just felt the whole city had been violated’

Michael Viney's Another Life

A surging flood in Dublin’s Liffey meeting a record storm surge in the bay would be one fearful scenario, that might concentrate minds in Ireland. If fear won’t work, how can we encourage climate action?

Michael Viney: Studies suggest positive messages about post-carbon society more effective

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
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
  • The declining choughs of Dursey island need decision makers’ help
  • Super grass: the arching, architectural forms of wild meadows

Tuarascáil

Iarracht ar phobal Gaeilge Bhaile Átha Cliath a nascadh le chéile

Líonraí nua Gaeilge imeasc lucht gnó beartaithe le ‘BÁC le Gaeilge’

Bunaíodh Nato sa chéad áit d’fhonn buataisí na Sóivéadach a chosc dul ag stampáil leo trasna na hEorpa chomh fada leis an Atlantach. Grianghraf: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Gob na gé
Liam Ó Maonlaí, Rónán Ó Snodaigh agus Myles O’Reilly. Cuan an Cheoil: Sraith nua raidió a thapóidh teacht an Earraigh
  • Réabhlóid agus raiméis
  • An Cósta Thiar: ‘Route 66 agus Camino na hÉireann’

Sponsored

Green Awards announce headline sponsorship for 2022 Green Awards announce headline sponsorship for 2022

Joining the Green Awards this year as a key supporter and title sponsor is Bord na Móna

‘Sustainability is absolutely a competitive differentiator’ ‘Sustainability is absolutely a competitive differentiator’

Staff, cost savings and access to capital cited as drivers behind shift towards sustainability

Bloody Sunday - 50 Years On Remembering the events of January 30th, 1972, when 14 people lost their lives
 

Subscriber Only

French writer and linguist Hervé Le Tellier describes his 2020 Prix Goncourt-winning novel as a ‘thought experiment’. Photograph: Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter
Gamers in an online realm can operate under an internal moral code but, should this become our main form of existence, the value to humanity becomes more obscure. Photograph: Getty images Virtual reality promises a guilt-free life: All the more reason to be wary of it
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers engages with important ideas, theories and literature The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers: The black heart of America

Most Read in Culture

1 Brian O’Driscoll recalled throwing up on the Champs-Élysées after too many kebabs and cheap wine following a win against France in 2000. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Brian O’Driscoll: I was never entirely sure if Joe Schmidt ‘rated’ me

2 David McWilliams on a Sinn Féin-led government: ‘I think they will try to make good on their promise on housing.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw David McWilliams: Sinn Féin ‘will change the housing market’

3 Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski in The Gilded Age. Photograph: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO The Gilded Age – with its kind rich people and racist Irish maid – has nothing to say

4 Bonnie Greer: ‘We are at a very dangerous point.’ Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Bonnie Greer: ‘Ireland needs to understand the world is changing’

5 Ellen Keane on winning Paralympic gold: ‘I was at peace and I had a quiet contentment inside me.’ Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Ellen Keane: ‘When grown men give me a disgusted stare, I think you should know better’

6 Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. Photograph: Patrick Ford/Redferns Simple Minds and U2: How New Gold Dream lit an unforgettable fire

7 Damon Albarn (right) said that, though Taylor Swift was ‘an excellent songwriter’, she ‘doesn’t write her own songs’. Photographs: Javin Mazur/WireImage; Dave J Hogan/Getty Images Damon Albarn’s criticism of Taylor Swift is ‘hopelessly out of date’

8 Gamers in an online realm can operate under an internal moral code but, should this become our main form of existence, the value to humanity becomes more obscure. Photograph: Getty images Virtual reality promises a guilt-free life: All the more reason to be wary of it

9 Honorée Fanonne Jeffers engages with important ideas, theories and literature The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers: The black heart of America

10 Comedian and writer David Baddiel: ‘James Joyce realised the Jew is the world’s Everyman.’ Photograph: Jerritt Clark/WireImage David Baddiel: I ‘probably don’t agree completely’ with Sally Rooney on Israel

Real news has value SUBSCRIBE

Music Quiz

The Music Quiz: At $590 million, who was the highest earning US musician of 2021? The Music Quiz: At $590 million, who was the highest earning US musician of 2021?

Plus: Which Van Morrison song is heard over the closing credits of new movie Belfast?

Dublin Theatre Festival 2021 Reviews, news and interviews from Ireland’s premier theatre festival
 

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

Tradfest kicks off with Rocky Road To Dublin performance 1:20 Tradfest kicks off with Rocky Road To Dublin performance
A selection of Meat Loaf's greatest hits 1:44 A selection of Meat Loaf's greatest hits
A love letter, a postcard and more - NLI honours 'Revolutionary Period' 4:14 A love letter, a postcard and more - NLI honours 'Revolutionary Period'
Artist inspired by night-time walks through a dark and quiet Dublin 2:52 Artist inspired by night-time walks through a dark and quiet Dublin

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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