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Kathy SheridanThe Irish Times |
In fairness to James Browne, Fianna Fáil’s Minister of State at the Department of Justice, he did not say that his boss, Helen McEntee, had been...
The legitimate agitation about the direction of young men and boys found its apotheosis in the hours after Donald Trump’s re-election. In a segment...
This column is being written early on Tuesday, hours before the US polls open, but I am “nauseously optimistic” about Kamala Harris, as Democrat...
It’s just a few weeks since a young professional at a noisy party tried to explain why a huge swathe of Americans will vote for Donald Trump. Had I...
Vox pops rarely produce anything useful, which is hardly surprising. They mainly entail a young reporter dashing around a street or two not far from...
Celebrity candidates are back in the news, raising the old question of what precisely constitutes such a creature. Handy shorthand for anyone who’s...
There is always an echo. Twenty-two years ago on a comically relaxed election canvass in a north Kildare housing estate, a laughing young mother came...
Very soon – probably around November 15th – hordes of stir-crazy politicians will be barrelling out of Leinster House like store cattle liberated...
The term sanewashing has entered the terminology of the US presidential race, and not before time. A portmanteau of “sane” and “whitewashing”,...
It’s poignant to watch middle-aged Oasis fans railing about greedy ticket pricing when raging Swifties turned a Ticketmaster website debacle a...
Among the many tragedies of Gaza is how it has consumed the bandwidth of activists and protesters in the West. In many ways they’ve done their job,...
A reliable way of staying relevant is to rail at something or someone a lot of other people admire. A jibe at Simon Harris’s phenomenal energy or...
The most boring interviews in recent times have involved tennis legend and renowned gentleman Roger Federer. He talks about the primacy of shot...
If the politics of public face-masking was fraught in pandemic times, watch what happens next. Back then the “freedom” boys swaggered through...
Back in 2012 an Irish friend volunteering at the London Olympics rang after witnessing the opening ceremony rehearsal. Watch it, he said, there’s...
Saturday’s shooting was not “un-American”. Gun violence and mass killing followed by thoughts and prayers and Republican resistance to gun...
President Joe Biden’s brain has been dissected and found wanting. Million-dollar fundraisers are trying to talk big Democrat donors off the ledge....
Some will recognise the feeling. That visceral punch when a member of the organisation becomes a public scandal and suddenly the whole body is under...
The Westminster elections are only a week away and the Tory party is battling the odds with all the grace of Wile E Coyote running off a cliff,...
Nina Carberry pulled off one of the great vanishing acts of the European Parliament campaign though voters who missed her on her super-stealth canvass...
Grappling with the ridiculous 27-candidate, 73cm-long Midlands-North-West ballot paper, this voter decided on some instant gratification. A firm 27...
Relish the scenes from the Taoiseach’s visit to Mayo. Watch a woman leap into his body space and wield a phone camera inches from his face. See him...
What far right? You can’t mean in Ireland? You mean the people who’ve been asking for a bit of common sense on immigration? Some who reach beyond...
Even his sourest critics would have found little to quibble about in the thrust of the Taoiseach Simon Harris’s speech at the National Famine...
The decoding of the referendum results got a fresh rush of energy with the publication of the Electoral Commission’s exit survey. If you believed...
In case you imagined that we have only a handful of political parties, well, the news is we have 29. Yep, 29. All legally registered with the...
When a Vietnamese property tycoon was sentenced to death last week for one of the biggest corruption cases in history, Paddy Cosgrave – currently...
The growing demand for a proper right-wing party or “return to traditional values”, like whiplash, is hard to pin down. “Enough is enough”...
It’s Easter, a time when our thoughts inevitably turn to Connolly and Pearse and the current state of the kip they died for. They would be amazed...
There was no mystery in the Opposition’s barking response to Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation last week. He had opened up an appalling vista where...
This is your regular reminder that functioning human brains are capable of accommodating several ideas at the same time. Yes, the referendums were...
There are always those who preach about “freedom”, but only their own. This week three years ago, at the height of Covid, some of them paraded...
Nothing better illustrates the futility of chasing policy by Twitter/Telegram than the Irish Times/Ipsos B&A Snapshot polls. Check out the moving bar...
Maria Walsh was responding to a journalist’s question when she took a swipe at Fianna Fáil’s three confirmed European candidates as “male, pale...
Way back in 2016 TV network chiefs knew the destruction they were wreaking with their 24/7 razzle-dazzle Trump coverage. “It may not be good for...
Michelle O’Neill’s walk into history via Stormont’s imposing staircase presented an image of ownership and intent, expressed outwardly with a...
Coming up to eight years since the Brexit referendum, four to the day since Brexit proper was celebrated with Big Ben bongs and a countdown clock...
Big questions are being asked about democracy. Around two billion people – about half the world’s adult population – will have a chance to vote...
Chances of an 82-year-old Joe Biden making it through a second term? They veer from commentator Niall O’Dowd’s super-optimistic assessment in a...
“It’s the man in your bed, not the man under your bed you should be worried about,” the former State pathologist Marie Cassidy said when asked...
You will find no new year resolutions here. Make plans and God laughs. But 2024 will be an election year in many places including Ireland so, in some...
Two years on, we still do not know why Jozef Puska opted to turn the advantages he had been given in life to the destruction of a beautiful, joyful...
“The inn is full,” said Cllr Noel Thomas, after the arsonists’ handiwork on a refugee shelter in Rosscahill while carefully not defending it....
A young woman who cycles to work in Dublin describes the daily challenge when the cycleway turns left at a bridge but she has to keep straight ahead...
It is impossible to sit in company without the suffering, defenceless children of Gaza fading in and out of the conversation. A relentless news cycle...