Notwithstanding the fact that Mayo hasn’t won a Connacht senior hurling title since 1909, Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s colourful phrase, that ‘senior hurling has gone global’, is an apt one in the post-Brexit/Trump world. (For an imprecise translation, perplexed non-Irish readers might substitute the word ‘hardball’.) This, of course, carries with it the implication that Ireland … Read more
Netflix, directed by Rickie Smyth By Lar Joye The siege of Jadotville tells the story of what happened to 155 soldiers from the Irish Army’s A company of the 35th Battalion who found themselves in the unenviable position of being in a remote mining town far from reinforcements and surrounded by a population who did … Read more
RTÉ1, 28 September, 5 and 12 October 2016 By John Gibney John Connors: The Travellers begins with the eponymous presenter recounting a range of pejorative terms that might be used against Travellers before pointing out that all of them have equally been used in the past against the Irish as a whole. It is an … Read more
National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square W, Dublin 2 www.nationalgallery.ie Brendan Rooney, Creating History: stories of Ireland in art (Irish Academic Press, €22.50 hb, ISBN 9781911024286) By Tony Canavan As part of the 1916 centenary commemorations, the National Gallery of Ireland has put together 50 paintings exploring Irish history from the arrival of St Patrick … Read more
AFTER THE FORMATION LAST YEAR OF A GOVERNMENT INCORPORATING INDEPENDENT MINISTERS AND RELIANT ON INDEPENDENT TDS TO AN UNPRECEDENTED EXTENT, IT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO LOOK BACK ON A CELEBRATED INDEPENDENT COUNCILLOR AND TD WHO DECIDED THE FATE OF A GOVERNMENT By Patrick Maume Seán D. Dublin Bay Loftus will be remembered, especially by … Read more