Oscar Wilde

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Dorothy L Sayers’s fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey. “Despite being an Oxford-educated gentleman of the early 20th century, he was always goin’ places, seein’ people, and solvin’ murders.”
No G-Men – Frank McNally on the politics of English accents

Fans of the fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey will know that he had a habit of finding himself in the vicinity of suspiciously dead bodies. A less(...)

“Yes, AA Milne, I’m looking at you. For much of my childhood, I wondered at the stupid name you gave that donkey”. Photograph: Getty Images
To ‘er’ is human – Frank McNally on the scourge of rhotic imperialism

My recent comments on rhoticity – the rolling of Rs after vowels, as practised in Ireland and most of the US but not in posher parts of England – brou(...)

US president Joe Biden’s cabinet is more or less evenly divided on gender. One in five of his secretaries are black; one in 10 is of Asian descent; 15 per cent are Latina. Photograph: Al Drago/POOL/EPA
Jennifer O'Connell: Biden’s cabinet looks like America. The Dáil doesn’t look much like Ireland

Five decades after the sexual revolution, who would have predicted that the inauguration of a 78-year-old white man – someone whose chief promise is t(...)

This Christmas, we are all following a star of hope towards some place outside of the world as we have known it in 2020. Photograph: iStock
Fintan O’Toole: Way pandemic has unfolded makes mockery of punishment and reward

There are two Christmas stories. One of them is religious, mythic, cosmological. It is about salvation. The other one is a kind of fantasy of justice.(...)

One school of thought says that throwing a few bob into a collection box is more about salving people’s conscience than it is about meaningful change. Photograph: iStock
Breda O'Brien: Does charity perpetuate unjust systems?

Benefacts, a non-profit organisation founded to bring transparency to Ireland’s non-profit sector, issued a report this week which suggests that we Ir(...)

A series of eries of early unpublished letters from WB Yeats to Ethel Veasey, 1883-85- Sothebys.
Letters from teenage WB Yeats and Tiffany diamonds: what’s coming up in auctions

FORTHCOMING AUCTIONS Please note – as government health restrictions may change – do consult with auction rooms in advance of any in room sales. Most(...)

‘I have never understood people who love someone but do not like them at the same time.’
In a Word . . .

Forgive me, all you philosophers out there, but really . . . what are you for? We are told that studying your varied offerings as to the meaning of li(...)

Scientist Richard Dawkins, photographed in Dublin in 2015. “... the Dawkins episode provides us with an opportunity to consider in general the issue of ‘deplatforming’, to borrow that ugly word from the growing lexicon associated with denying free speech”. File photograph: Alan Betson
Trinity and Richard Dawkins: Better to debate ideas than to ban them

The decision some weeks ago by Trinity College Dublin’s Historical Society (the Hist) to “disinvite” prominent scientist Prof Richard Dawkins from a s(...)

North Great George’s Street. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Co-living development ‘will destroy’ North Great George’s Street

Expanding a proposed co-living scheme in Dublin’s north inner city will “destroy the setting” of historic North Great George’s Street and set a “serio(...)

England’s Zak Crawley celebrates his maiden Test century on the first day of the third Test against Pakistan at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/PA Wire
Zak Crawley’s maiden Test century puts England in early control of third Test

Day 1 of 5: England 332-4 (Z Crawley 171no, J Buttler 87no) v Pakistan Zak Crawley’s maiden Test century came with the minimum of fuss. He had taken (...)

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