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Can we fix it?: Bob the Builder, an unlikely holder of a Christmas no 1. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images When Westlife battled Bob the Builder: The Christmas No 1 wars
  • Music
  • Dave Simpson
  • December 17, 2018, 12:53

From Slade v Wizzard to Bob the Builder v Westlife, winners and losers recall the struggles

Ireland’s Fittest Family: A mind-numbing series draws to a close Ireland’s Fittest Family: A mind-numbing series draws to a close
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • December 17, 2018, 10:00

TV review: Watching four people shove a log up a ramp is even less exciting than it sounds

European Film Awards: The gloriously eccentric Euro-Oscars European Film Awards: The gloriously eccentric Euro-Oscars
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 17, 2018, 12:16

The big winner, Cold War, will barely scrape an Academy Award nomination

Yael Stone alleges Geoffrey Rush acted inappropriately towards her Yael Stone alleges Geoffrey Rush acted inappropriately towards her
  • Film
  • Michael McGowan
  • December 17, 2018, 10:37

Orange is the New Black star Stone alleges string of incidents which Rush denies

Anna Burns: The Booker winner on why she is unable to write Anna Burns: The Booker winner on why she is unable to write
  • Books
  • Paul McVeigh
  • December 15, 2018, 06:10

She went from poverty to bestseller status with 'Milkman'. Now, chronic pain prevents her from writing

Kanye got weird and Taylor Swift became the Robin Hood of pop – the internet in 2018 Kanye got weird and Taylor Swift became the Robin Hood of pop – the internet in 2018
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Seamas O'Reilly
  • December 17, 2018, 04:00

Nicki Minaj outrage, Nicolas Cage ubiquity and Taylor Swift smarts defined the year online

Fontaines DC: ‘There’s a renewed sense of pride in being Irish’ Fontaines DC: ‘There’s a renewed sense of pride in being Irish’
  • Music
  • Una Mullally
  • December 15, 2018, 05:00

These five best friends make something familiar sound new and exhilarating

So long, Optimus Prime: Transformers spin-off wins over the planet So long, Optimus Prime: Transformers spin-off wins over the planet
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • December 15, 2018, 05:00

Travis Knight’s Bumblebee – with a female lead – has confounded franchise expectations with glowing reviews

Art in focus: Olwen Fouéré, Kilkenny (2016) by Mick O’Dea Art in focus: Olwen Fouéré, Kilkenny (2016) by Mick O’Dea
  • Visual Art
  • Aidan Dunne
  • December 15, 2018, 05:00

O’Dea’s portrait of Fouéré is fast, sketchy and spontaneous, a record of the moment

Patrick Freyne: Home alone? Here’s a few scary movies for Christmas Patrick Freyne: Home alone? Here’s a few scary movies for Christmas
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • December 15, 2018, 05:00

These festive classics seem innocent, but they hide a darker, more disturbing message

Latest Film

Director Armando Iannucci poses with the Best European Comedy award for ‘The Death of Stalin’. Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty Images European Film Awards: The gloriously eccentric Euro-Oscars
Geoffrey Rush Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images Yael Stone alleges Geoffrey Rush acted inappropriately towards her
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski and his team members pose with all their awards for their film ‘Cold War’ during the 2018 European Film Awards ceremony in Seville. Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty Images ‘Cold War’ the big winner at European Film Awards
  • So long, Optimus Prime: Transformers spin-off wins over the planet
  • Sondra Locke: toxic relationship with Clint Eastwood defined talented actor

Film Reviews

Keepers of the Flame

 
Dead Souls emerges as part of a larger, urgent national project to chronicle the re-education camps before the survivors are gone. Dead Souls

 
Uma Thurman and Matt Dillon: an attack on misogyny or a celebration of it? With Von Trier, you never get a chance to find out The House that Jack Built

 
You will rub your eyes often Aquaman

 

Latest Music

Can we fix it?: Bob the Builder, an unlikely holder of a Christmas no 1. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images When Westlife battled Bob the Builder: The Christmas No 1 wars

From Slade v Wizzard to Bob the Builder v Westlife, winners and losers recall the struggles

Avant-folk group Clang Sayne collaborate with French sculptor Guy Urbin in Sounding Seams, a free afternoon performance at the Irish National Heritage Park in Wexford on Sunday. Forging some fine sounds: this week’s best jazz gigs
Gael gáire: Kneecap New artist of the week: Kneecap – Irish rap with a dash of fun
  • Take me to Hozier: it’s the full Irish for this week’s best rock and pop gigs
  • This Album Changed My Life: Osso String Quartet – Run Rabbit Run (2009)

Album Reviews

Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen on Broadway

 
The Melancholy Thug: A Trip to the Sewers of Paris

 
Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert: Ghost Stories for Christmas

 
Willard Grant Conspiracy: Untethered

 
Kirsty Bertarelli: Sweet Summer Rain

 
Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks

 

Latest Books

Laura Waddell: “I couldn’t be more excited to make a return to team indie publishing working with a publishing house whose ethos I hugely respect and whose exquisite literary list is poised to grow.” Tramp Press appoints Laura Waddell as UK publishing director

Sally Rooney’s Normal People is critics’ choice for book of the year

Mourners in Milltown cemetery, Belfast, during the funeral for three IRA members killed on Gibraltar. Photograph: Bernard Bisson/Sygma via Getty Images Notes in Seamus Heaney archive suggest Gibraltar shootings influenced his work
Paul Maddern and Maria McManus with the Poetry Jukebox Curating an LGBT version of the Poetry Jukebox
  • Power, growth and emotional resilience in Sally Rooney’s Normal People
  • Anna Burns: The Booker winner on why she is unable to write

Book Reviews

The History of Irish Book Publishing: Our book world just got bigger
Alice Leahy's memoir reviewed: a soldier in the service of love
At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong review: A life subtly corrupted
Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang review – Engaging and edifying

TV & Radio

Tight finish in final of 'Ireland's Fittest Family' 0:30 Tight finish in final of 'Ireland's Fittest Family'

The final of "Ireland's Fittest Family" comes down to a tight finish as the Coneys from Tyrone narrowly defeat the McDonalds from Laois. Video: RTÉ

The victorious Coneys, four boys and their mother, who celebrated her 60th birthday on the day of the final Ireland’s Fittest Family: A mind-numbing series draws to a close
Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (2004): The ultimate you-can-stuff-your-stocking Christmas movie, but will it make Mark Kermode's nice list? See Thursday, BBC4, 9pm 20 of the best TV shows to watch this week
  • Kanye got weird and Taylor Swift became the Robin Hood of pop – the internet in 2018
  • Hopscotch and the Christmas Tree: a fun lesson in life for little ones

Stage

Les Misérables: The ensemble cast move like tiny figures in a game played by the Gods Les Misérables review: A refined production of the morality tale

Hugo’s spiritually benevolent message rings loudly in this immersive, cinematic staging

Owen Roe played the role of Frank Hardy in Faith Healer by Brian Friel, at the Gate theatre in 2010 Owen Roe to get special tribute award at Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards
Alan Hughes as Sammy Sausages, Mary Byrne as Fairy Mary and Rob Murphy as Buffy in the Cheerios Panto Snow White and the Adventures of Sammy Sausages & Buffy Snow White panto review: Gleefully naughty, infectious entertainment
  • How to Catch a Star review: Visually stunning with a twinkling score
  • Panto review: Alice: The Musical at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Art & Design

Kilkenny by Olwen Fouéré (2016) by Mick O’Dea Art in focus: Olwen Fouéré, Kilkenny (2016) by Mick O’Dea

O’Dea’s portrait of Fouéré is fast, sketchy and spontaneous, a record of the moment

Windfall by Paul Ringrose A stark climate change warning in a devastated Cork woodland
Art highlights from 2018 include the Roderic O’Conor show at the National Gallery (centre) Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption
  • Strange Bedfellows and stocking fillers: this week’s best visual arts
  • Art in Focus: For GRS by Colin Davidson

Unthinkable

Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?

Unthinkable: A new book on dossing and daydreaming seeks to challenge our traditional work ethic

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?
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?
  • Is economics corrupting our idea of human worth?
  • Is it time to cut back on criticism?

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

Stalag XXA: Cpl Tom McGrath, who escaped from the German prisoner-of-war camp in 1942. Photograph courtesy family collection Honoured at last: Irishman who escaped a German POW camp

Tom McGrath’s son will receive medals his father won after escaping from Stalag XXA

The flooded banks of the River Suir in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, in February 1990. Photograph: Peter Thursfield The Times We Lived In: Water, water everywhere
Countess Markievicz: From privilege to revolution – A comic by Dearbhla Kelly
  • From New Zealand to Saudi Arabia: When women won the vote worldwide
  • Home or away? Tell us how you are spending Christmas this year

Treibh

Cuimhne na gcat. grianghraf: nick bradshaw/the irish times Cearta na nAinmhithe

An bhfuil an t-am ann deireadh a chur le meafair a bhaineann le hainmhithe?

Crann na Nollag. grianghraf: getty images/istock Cuimhní na Nollag san ardchathair
Súil siar ar stair na hÉireann ar TG4
  • Na críocha déanacha
  • An crann a thit ina chodladh

Sponsored

The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts

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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

Vote 100 Celebrating a century since Irish women won the right to vote
 

Most Read in Culture

1 Maeve Sweeney ‘My wife has a quirky cancer, she is informed. There’s nothing the specialist can do’
2 Stalag XXA: Cpl Tom McGrath, who escaped from the German prisoner-of-war camp in 1942. Photograph courtesy family collection Honoured at last: Irishman who escaped a German POW camp
3 The victorious Coneys, four boys and their mother, who celebrated her 60th birthday on the day of the final Ireland’s Fittest Family: A mind-numbing series draws to a close
4 Kanye West and Donald Trump in the White House Kanye got weird and Taylor Swift became the Robin Hood of pop – the internet in 2018
5 The Book Centre, Waterford. Photograph: Jennifer O'Connell 35 of the best independent bookshops in Ireland
6 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
7 Can we fix it?: Bob the Builder, an unlikely holder of a Christmas no 1. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images When Westlife battled Bob the Builder: The Christmas No 1 wars
8 Michelle and Barack Obama dance upon his inauguration as US president on January 20th, 2009 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. File photograph: Justin Lane/EPA Michelle Obama: ‘It hurt me sometimes to think that Barack was not content with our life’
9 Paris Hilton and Josh Ostrovsky (The Fat Jewish) The American Meme: 15 minutes of thoroughly degraded fame
10 Bob Dyland and Neil Young to play Ireland concert in July 2019 Bob Dylan and Neil Young announce major concert in Ireland
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Anna Burns, author of 'Milkman'. Photograph: Eleni Stefanou Anna Burns: The Booker winner on why she is unable to write
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

On My Culture Radar

Katherine Lynch: On My Culture Radar Katherine Lynch: On My Culture Radar

Actor on Sebastian Barry’s ‘Days Without End’ and singing in jazz clubs in Nice

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

Tight finish in final of 'Ireland's Fittest Family' 0:30 Tight finish in final of 'Ireland's Fittest Family'
Vote 100: Do women have equality today? Kids don't think so2:55 Vote 100: Do women have equality today? Kids don't think so
Fifty Shades Darker official trailer2:25 Fifty Shades Darker official trailer
The official trailer for Fifty Shades Freed2:19 The official trailer for Fifty Shades Freed

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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