An ancient Irish town battles decline: ‘It used to be the centre of things. Those days are gone’Downpatrick is the reputed burial place of three Irish saintsSat Jul 26 2025 - 06:00
How Substack is upending media: ‘It is seriously challenging the old-guard’Big-name writers Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Paul Krugman and Tina Brown have flocked to the platformSat Jul 26 2025 - 06:00
A Cork woman in the circus: ‘In transition year, I wrote to a circus dance company asking if I could do an internship’Gracie Marshall quit school to train to be a performer. Now Sabotage, in which she stars, is on its way to Galway International Arts Festival Sun Jun 29 2025 - 05:12
Was it just me who found the slogans on two men’s T-shirts so inappropriate? I am fairly confident if I had asked them why, they would have said it was a jokeMon Jun 16 2025 - 06:00
A day in the Bere Island school where teachers commute by ferry and classes take place on the beachChildren at Bere Island's two-room school go nature-spotting on the beach and mixed-age groups play in the yard at breakSat Jun 14 2025 - 06:00
Eileen Walsh: Women actors ‘are like avocados. You’re nearly ready, nearly ready - then you’re ripe, then you’ve gone off’The Cork actor, who has returned to live in Ireland after 30 years, on ageing, working with Cillian Murphy, and her upcoming role in a 24-hour play with 100 unknown menSat Jun 07 2025 - 06:00
What high-end tourists get up to in Ireland: ‘You always have to make things happen. We do a lot of helicopters’From Taylor Swift to millionaire CEOs, luxury travel agency founder Siobhan Byrne caters to the desires of the rich and famous who want bespoke Irish holidaysSun Apr 27 2025 - 05:00
Missing Kerry farmer Michael Gaine: ‘Mystery’ is the word that repeats like a mantraIn Kenmare people are ‘talking about nothing else’ since the 56-year-old’s unexplained disappearance last monthSat Apr 26 2025 - 06:00
The New Yorker at 100: this eclectic magazine is a lucky bag of intellectNew Yorker comes with its fabulous cargo of reportage, fiction, memoir, graphic art, poetry and some eclectic pieces that defy categorisationSun Apr 20 2025 - 06:00
Sally Rooney: ‘I enjoy writing about men ... the dangerous charisma of the oppressor class’Fans are drawn like moths to the author’s flame during her two appearances Cúirt festivalFri Apr 11 2025 - 06:00
‘The Constitution will soon put women back in their place. Everything is fizzling away’: Sarah Jane Scaife on Youth’s the Season–?Mary Manning wrote her first play in 1931, when she was 26. It’s astonishing how modern it can feel, says the director of the Abbey’s new productionTue Apr 08 2025 - 05:17
‘We cook the bear in a kind of stew,’ said the waiter in Estonia’s capital of Tallinn. ‘It’s very good’A trip to Tallinn offers insights into a surprising dish, historic KGB surveillance and current anger at Vladimir PutinMon Apr 07 2025 - 05:00
The White Lotus season three: where are we now, and what are the predictions for who ends up dead? Television: Third season of Mike White’s hotel resort-themed black comedy is coming to a close, so where are we now, and what are the predictions for who ends up dead?Tue Apr 01 2025 - 08:18
How are Irish family-run hotels faring? ‘You might have five stars but it will be soulless if there is no connection with the staff’Amid concerns about lower bookings and higher costs, we spoke to hoteliers in long-established family businessesSat Mar 08 2025 - 06:00
The welcome I received from Jennifer Johnston is something I will never forgetRosita Boland recalls the late writer’s generosity with her time and her hospitality decades agoTue Mar 04 2025 - 05:00
Kidnapped by the IRA: ‘My abductors say they will not give the government the satisfaction of getting me back alive’Dutch businessman Tiede Herrema was kidnapped by the IRA 50 years ago and his archive donated to University of Limerick in 2005Sat Feb 15 2025 - 06:00
‘Everything was fields when we moved here’: Adamstown, a 20-year-old Dublin townThe planned town has a diverse population of more than 10,000, but desperately needs more facilitiesSun Feb 09 2025 - 05:45
‘It’s definitely more special to get a letter than an email’: Rise in price of stamp gets mixed receptionUniversal stamp of approval proves elusive for An Post when customers cast cold eye on increase Wed Feb 05 2025 - 18:08
‘You are only the sixth person to see this since the Vikings’: Behind the scenes at the National Museum of Ireland From Early-Bronze Age pottery to a red Honda 50, the museum’s venues tell the story of Ireland one object at a timeSat Jan 25 2025 - 05:20
Inside Dublin’s United Arts Club: ‘I probably walked by this building hundreds of times without knowing what it was’The United Arts Club, on Fitzwilliam Street Upper, has been supporting its members for more than a century. After some quiet years, it’s growing againSun Jan 19 2025 - 05:15
I loved Alice Munro but recent revelations have tainted her legacy foreverEverything written about Alice Munroe after revelations about her daughter’s sexual abuse will record the Nobel Prize-winning author’s failure as a parent and human beingSun Jan 05 2025 - 06:00
I wrote a letter to Madame Pelicot as one woman to another in solidarity and supportI wrote in admiration and acknowledgement of her bravery, and in sympathy and empathy for what she had endured for yearsThu Dec 19 2024 - 12:00
‘It was a surprise’: Late Late Toy Show star Abiha prepares to see Mariah Carey in Las VegasClonsilla girl had no idea she would be invited to US before she closed show with All I Want for Christmas is YouWed Dec 11 2024 - 16:09
Fake flowers make me sad and mad: Plastic, plastic everywhere and I can’t stand itWhy do shop and restaurant owners seem to think adding to the world’s collection of plastic tat improves the ambience?Sun Dec 01 2024 - 06:00
‘There could be two cars, but the fridge is empty’: Hidden poverty in middle-class IrelandA day spent in the Vincent de Paul southeast region office reveals the large number of requests from vulnerable seeking help with everything from food and utility bills to rent arrears and broken toiletsSat Nov 30 2024 - 06:00
Food historian Regina Sexton: As an island of farmers, we have moved far away from food productionCork-based food historian on the exploitation of young people’s good intentions, her home city’s food links to slavery and the importance of oatsSat Nov 23 2024 - 06:00
‘I stopped hitchhiking not long after Jo Jo Dullard vanished’ How many other women in Ireland at that time surrendered another element of their independence by stopping hitchhiking, due to an underlying sense of fear?Sat Nov 16 2024 - 06:00
‘I thought Belfast looked very like rougher areas in the south of LA’: How international tourists see Ireland The wind whips at the pages of our senior features writer’s notebook as she travels around Ireland with visitors from China, Taiwan, Tasmania, LA, Michigan and CanadaSat Aug 17 2024 - 06:00
‘It’s strange that there are no wash cloths in the bathrooms’: On the road with first-time visitors to IrelandRosita Boland travels with a group of enthusiastic first-time visitors to IrelandSat Aug 10 2024 - 06:00
Inside Grenane House, one of the oldest lived-in houses in Ireland: ‘It has never been bought or sold’Grenane House in Co Tipperary, which has been in the same family’s hands for its 300-year history, opens to the public at certain times of the yearSun Jul 28 2024 - 05:00
‘Talbot Street is known as Tablet Street now’: Will a €2m makeover be enough to turn things around?Street in Dublin’s north inner city has been declining for several years. One local worker describes it as a ‘hellhole’ while another says ‘there is often chaos’Sun Jun 16 2024 - 06:00
Donkey stunts, new public toilets and a crystal elephant: Remembering Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ballyporeen 40 years on‘There was a woman in charge of the Secret Service, and that was a big surprise to members of the local council here: they had never had a female boss'Sun Jun 02 2024 - 06:00
Ireland through the eyes of foreign travel writers: ‘English speaking, but not Britain. No hustle. Safe’We join a group of international travel journalists and find the Ireland they are shown is a John Hinde postcard come aliveSat May 11 2024 - 06:00
Friends, colleagues and family bid farewell to the late, great Larry Masterson‘The expression he used always say to me was, “Unto yourself be true” and it’s always been, and always will be, my mantra’Thu Apr 18 2024 - 15:56
‘He turned out to be a psychopath’: My ex-boyfriend and the women he cheated onAuthor Chimene Suleyman went with her then boyfriend to an abortion clinic. What happened next reveals a manipulative, coercive man who stole, lied and cheated his way around the globeSat Mar 30 2024 - 06:00
The life of an undertaker: ‘I was 20 the first time I drove the hearse ... I can remember my father making boxes for amputated limbs’One of Ireland’s relatively few women undertakers reflects on how Ireland’s culture of death has changed over the decadesSat Mar 02 2024 - 06:00
The extra leap year day is upon us: what will you do with yours?Sadly, this additional 24-hour period has been tagged on to one of the worst months of the year, requiring a leap of faith to fathomThu Feb 29 2024 - 07:17
The day Bord Gáis Lady and I wished we had never picked up the phone to each otherOn the day set aside for a boiler service, I was at home. I received a confirmation notice the day before. By 6pm, nobody showed up. A battle by telephone seemed inevitableWed Feb 28 2024 - 06:00
I’m still searching for the old TV commercial starring my fatherDoes anyone out there have a link to Eircom ad featuring Joe Boland in Connemara?Wed Feb 21 2024 - 06:00
‘The blackboard is like looking at charts in a war room’: Behind the scenes at the Abbey to watch Marina Carr’s new play take shapeTurning a script into a finished show is hugely complex. We spend a day at the National Theatre to see Audrey or Sorrow come togetherSun Feb 18 2024 - 05:30
Karen’s Diner: ‘Sit down and shut up!’ one waiter shouts as I eat my flavourless burgerWaiter addresses me as ‘Nanny’ - whether this is because I remind him of a goat or a grandmother, I don’t knowFri Feb 16 2024 - 14:46
I wondered if the cat I encountered in Florence was trying to emulate Taylor Swift’s felineWalking to the Uffizi, I reflected on my first and only other visit to the city when, in my 20s, I came across an item that remains a mystery to this dayWed Feb 14 2024 - 06:00
TikTok trends forecast 2024: #dessertbowl is the new #girldinner, and get ready for #hopecoreSarah J Maas’s latest book is gaining traction on BookTok while callisthenics seems to be taking over in fitness realmFri Feb 09 2024 - 15:00
Rosita Boland: I slept for 12 hours straight, and dreamt of nuns and donkeysDriving west for a reporting assignment, I realised the annoying little cough I’d left Dublin with was developing into something elseWed Feb 07 2024 - 06:00
Rosita Boland: When my black silk velvet cape met my Trumpian taxi driver My stupidly expensive silk velvet cape twice nearly suffered the same fate as my diamond engagement ring. Next time I wear it out, I won’t be taking it offWed Jan 31 2024 - 06:00
Modern day Brigids tell their story: ‘I knew it was the perfect name for a little girl who was going to have a lot of struggles in her life’Photographer Deirdre Brennan travelled Ireland photographing Brieges, Bríds and Bridgeens, Bridies, Brigids and BrigitSun Jan 28 2024 - 05:00
Hotelier John Brennan is wrong: The St Brigid’s public holiday is not the break ‘no one wanted’I would have thought an additional public holiday in February would have been potential boom to hospitalityWed Jan 24 2024 - 06:00
Ballinrobe protests: How plans to house 50 asylum seekers were changedThe Mayo town celebrates its multicultural population but a plan to house 50 male international protection applicants in a disused hotel mobilised protestsSat Jan 13 2024 - 06:00
Richard Coles: ‘Do you know who Shane MacGowan reminded me of? Maria Callas’ Both ‘lived on capital, not interest’, says the former Communard and recently retired vicar, who is bringing his Borderline National Trinket ‘stand-up memoir’ to IrelandSat Jan 13 2024 - 05:15
Anyone who thinks that TikTok is only for the young is totally wrongA few months ago all the news I was hearing was bad. I escaped into TikTok and I cannot tell you how calming it wasWed Jan 10 2024 - 06:00
