RTÉ’s real failing is risk aversion, not risk-taking Hugh Linehan: The still largely untold saga of Toy Show the Musical has the makings of that rarest of RTÉ beasts: an actually funny comedySat Feb 17 2024 - 05:00
RTÉ before the Oireachtas: More insights into bad governance, arrogant culture and inadequate safeguardsToy Show the Musical and executive exit payments among the topics at today's hearing. But where do we go to from here?Wed Feb 14 2024 - 20:00
Jon Stewart is swooping back to The Daily Show to save the US from an orange-skinned huckster. The hubris is dizzyingHugh Linehan: His backers believe the comedian can help turn the tide against a Trump victory in November. The media has changed too much for thatSat Feb 10 2024 - 05:13
Do your Eurovision duty and get behind Bambie Thug. Irish democracy depends on itHugh Linehan: The desperate far right thinks a witchy nonbinary performer might offer them an opportunitySat Feb 03 2024 - 05:00
Smoking hot: The strange story behind the return of cigarettes to the moviesHugh Linehan: Cillian Murphy puffs his way through Oppenheimer, as Bradley Cooper does through Maestro. Blame cigarettes’ classification as ‘adult content’Sat Jan 27 2024 - 05:15
From this day forward, feel free to describe me as an openly heterosexual columnistHugh Linehan: The actor Andrew Scott is right. It’s time to get rid of the expression ‘openly gay’Sat Jan 20 2024 - 05:00
No whooping audience, no stupid competitions: What RTÉ could learn from The Tommy Tiernan ShowHugh Linehan: With the scourging of the broadcaster well under way, one of its recent successes could help it reinvent itselfSat Jan 13 2024 - 05:15
Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right?Hugh Linehan: Their take on Middle-earth mixes arrested adolescent kitsch with an undercurrent of menaceSat Jan 06 2024 - 05:00
History of Ireland in Maps and Dublin: Mapping the City – Chart toppersOur relationship with the science of cartography has changed profoundly, and we use maps more than ever beforeThu Dec 21 2023 - 05:00
Kevin Rafter leaves the Arts Council with a stonking budget. By that crude measure he’s its most successful chairmanHugh Linehan: It took a crisis to create an opportunity. The resulting ‘fiscal gimmickry’ appears to be the Irish way of getting things doneFri Dec 15 2023 - 06:00
Is this the worst of times for critics’ end-of-year lists?Hugh Linehan: The dialogue between commercial success and theories of artistic quality has been broken in the era of data hoggingSat Dec 09 2023 - 05:00
Disney in the doldrums: What’s gone wrong at the Mouse House? Hugh Linehan: Once upon a time the company seem set for world domination, now it is struggling. The victim of a series of unconnected events? Or the author of its own misfortunes?Sat Dec 02 2023 - 05:00
RTÉ’s rescue plan is all very well in practice, but does it work in theory?Ireland’s national broadcaster needs to define its purpose clearly and ruthlessly. It’s not clear this week’s proposals do thatSun Nov 19 2023 - 05:00
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but doesn’t – especially on an Aer Lingus planeHugh Linehan: ‘Trapped in a confined space with loud music played at you is what they do to terrorists,’ one commenter said about last weekend’s impromptu sessionFri Nov 10 2023 - 05:20
To err is human. Or it used to be, before we outsourced the job to techThe Dublin Marathon medal howlers raise the question of what is going on in a culture supposedly more educated than ever beforeSat Nov 04 2023 - 05:20
Rory Stewart: ‘I fought an existential fight against Boris Johnson, who is a terrible human being’The former Tory MP on the Brexit vote, serving as minister under David Cameron and Theresa May, and running against Johnson for the party leadershipSat Oct 28 2023 - 06:00
Patrick Kielty’s Late Late Show: The host is excellent. Everything else... not so muchHugh Linehan: Does RTÉ have the resources, the technical firepower or, most of all, the guests to make the new format work?Fri Oct 27 2023 - 12:00
Dethroning of a crypto king: ‘Sam Bankman-Fried’s brain couldn’t function doing one thing. It had become addicted to distraction’Author Michael Lewis has written a revealing and sometimes very funny book about the young former billionaire facing a huge US federal fraud trialSun Oct 22 2023 - 06:00
Smithfield the second-coolest place on the planet? It’s not even the second-coolest place in Dublin 7Time Out has form on this, having previously named Phibsborough as the 27th coolest place. So what’s it playing at?Thu Oct 19 2023 - 10:15
It’s not me, Twitter, it’s you: Why I’m saying goodbye to X Hugh Linehan: Elon Musk’s horrible social-media platform is no longer fit for purposeSat Oct 14 2023 - 05:20
U2 and the Las Vegas Sphere: You can admire the band without loving the spectacleHugh Linehan: Without their Achtung Baby pivot, U2 might now be doing shows in mid-sized arenas alongside Billy Idol or Simple MindsSat Oct 07 2023 - 05:20
Aertel brought Day-Glo immediacy into a drab, analogue worldEnd of an era as RTÉ announces shutdown of its teletext service first launched in 1987Tue Oct 03 2023 - 16:44
Laurence Fox’s misogynistic rant on Dan Wootton’s GB News show comes straight from the Murdoch playbookHugh Linehan: The channel suspended both hosts after Fox’s remarks about Ava Evans. But it owes its existence to such Fox News-style attacksFri Sept 29 2023 - 13:14
How did the anti-IRA Zombie by The Cranberries become an Irish rugby anthem?How did Rugby World Cup fans end up embracing a song about the futility of atavistic nationalist violence?Sat Sept 23 2023 - 07:00
Has the BBC secretly cancelled Róisín Murphy for her views on puberty blockers?Hugh Linehan: The Irish singer said she was sorry her comments had 'been directly hurtful to many of you' but did not withdraw themSat Sept 23 2023 - 06:30
Is the age of distraction killing indie cinema, or is that just old person talk?Hugh Linehan: Richard Linklater thinks filmmaking and fiction are losing their central place in the culture. He has a pointSun Sept 17 2023 - 05:15
RTÉ at Oireachtas committee: Less high drama, more a grim crisis. Expect ratings to slumpRatings will inevitably drop as high drama of the earlier hearings gives way to the grim crisis around the broadcaster's funding difficultiesWed Sept 13 2023 - 20:31
If Netflix and Disney+ have ditched your favourite shows, here’s what’s going onHugh Linehan: The era of peak TV is over – so the Hollywood strikes may be a blessing for studios that were making too many programmesSat Aug 26 2023 - 06:00
Shut up and play the hits: The dangers of rock stars getting politicalHugh Linehan: The Killers, The 1975 and Placebo have been getting into trouble with audiences around the world this summerSat Aug 19 2023 - 05:00
Did Kevin Bakhurst make the right call in showing Ryan Tubridy the door? Hugh Linehan: The decision sends a clear, tough message to public, staff and politiciansFri Aug 18 2023 - 13:44
What will Ryan Tubridy’s exit mean for his fellow RTÉ presenters?A significant drop in earnings is on the cards under a new regime that holds all the cardsThu Aug 17 2023 - 20:53
Does Ryan Tubridy have a future at RTÉ? Kevin Bakhurst seems to think soGrant Thornton report shifts blame further towards RTÉ’s shortcomings but new director general will hold all the cards in future contract negotiationsWed Aug 16 2023 - 16:29
Jim Crow nostalgia and a QAnon-adjacent film are among the big US entertainments of the summerThe success of Jason Aldean’s song Try That in a Small Town and the Jim Caviezel-starring film Sound of Freedom raise disturbing questionsSat Aug 12 2023 - 06:00
State and local government have failed to deliver urban spaces that feel functional or comfortableHugh Linehan: In Dublin rough, transitional parts of town get rough, unsympathetic treatment from the authoritiesSat Aug 05 2023 - 05:00
Memo to Elon Musk: Be like the bluebirdHugh Linehan: It takes preternatural chutzpah to replace the traditional symbol of hope and happiness with a letter of the alphabet associated with nihilism, crypto-fascism and pornSat Jul 29 2023 - 05:00
Sinéad O’Connor: A take-no-prisoners defiance in the face of traumaThe acclaimed Dublin singer, who shot to global fame with her 1990 hit song Nothing Compares 2 U, has died at the age of 56Wed Jul 26 2023 - 21:39
Talent is now a dirty word at RTÉ, even though the broadcaster badly needs more of itIt’s plain wrong to suggest the country is full of people who could easily take on the job of presenting for a modest feeSat Jul 22 2023 - 05:00
Ryan Tubridy is the inoffensive figurehead RTÉ wantedThe broadcaster’s conservatism, reliant on a few big names for decades, will have to change nowWed Jul 12 2023 - 19:40
Kevin Bakhurst’s arrival gives RTÉ a much-needed leaderPublic service experience of new director general fuels his first moves but real meat needs to be put on bones of plansMon Jul 10 2023 - 18:20
Would Oscar Wilde have survived in the #MeToo era?Hugh Linehan: Wilde and Roman Polanski both took advantage of positions of power and privilege to sexually exploit young peopleSat Jun 24 2023 - 08:00
RTÉ's shocking breach of trust over Tubridy’s unusual pay deal weakens broadcaster’s financial pleasRevelation that broadcaster consistently under-reported earnings received by presenter is deeply damaging – for both partiesThu Jun 22 2023 - 19:00
Berlusconi’s political stand-up comedy routine was hugely influential but the joke isn’t funny any moreHugh Linehan: The potent blend of machismo, shamelessness and corruption set the mould for Trump and JohnsonSat Jun 17 2023 - 05:45
Ian Paisley jr and the mock-cock-rock of Kiss: Strange things happen behind the privet hedges of North AntrimHugh Linehan: Gene Simmons and Nick Cave represent two very different strands of musical conservatismSat Jun 10 2023 - 05:00
Public Morality and the Culture Wars; Left is Not Woke: Reviewing contemporary political thought Both books provide robust interrogations of compelling ideas shaping societies for good or illMon Jun 05 2023 - 04:47
That AI-generated Magdalene selfie: a lot of fuss about very littleHugh Linehan: Why did a banal picture in a Dublin exhibition elicit such a furious response?Sun Jun 04 2023 - 09:32
Andy Warhol gets another 15 minutes of fame – a reminder we all still live in his worldHugh Linehan: A judgment by the US supreme court may have all sorts of legal implications for copyright in the futureSun May 28 2023 - 06:25
‘A lot of history is a very, very dark comedy in which people behave quite badly’The cult podcasters behind The Rest is History visited Dublin recently to record episodes about Ireland’s past with their trademark self-deprecating humour and lightly worn eruditionSat May 27 2023 - 05:00
We were promised jetpacks. Instead we got Outlook calendars and two-factor authenticationHugh Linehan: The metaverse is not the exciting and dangerous world science fiction once teased us withSun May 21 2023 - 05:00
There’s only one great British institution that’s really worth rooting forHugh Linehan: The contrast between events in Westminster Abbey and on Merseyside is starkSun May 14 2023 - 05:00
Viral death: how new media failed to live up to its promiseHugh Linehan: Over-reliance on social media and clicks undermined the promise of Buzzfeed, Vice and othersSun May 07 2023 - 05:00
