Catherine Martin has been the most consequential minister for culture since Michael D Higgins
The outgoing Green Party TD delivered on her predecessors’ promises to address Ireland’s woeful shortfall when it comes to supporting cultural activity
Hugh Linehan
Beneath the vote for stability and small-c conservatism, darker currents are stirring
Our system of PR is praised for incentivising consensus and civility. But it can also lead to entropy – a gradual decline into uncertainty and disorder
America’s system of checks and balances will be severely tested by Trump’s presidency
With a supreme court majority sympathetic both to Republican policies and to a more expansive definition of presidential power, the new administration will have nearly all the tools it needs
Cillian Murphy’s Small Things Like These has become a cause celebre of the Make Ireland Great Again brigade
Cillian Murphy probably didn’t expect to be taken literally when he compared Ireland in the 1980s to the dark ages, but that is where we are now
Donald Trump on The Joe Rogan Experience: three hours of meandering, falsehood-filled talk marks a big moment for podcasts
Podcasts used to be a marginal force. Now they’ve taken centre stage. But with their baggy informality and authenticity also comes a lack of rigour
Big tech has been stealthily training its AI models. Creatives are finally waking up to the dangers. Are they too late?
More than 20,000 artists, writers, composers and other cultural creatives are objecting to unlicensed scraping of their work in the AI space race
RTÉ seems content to let Montrose moulder. It should jump at the chance to move back to the GPO
A proposed return by the national broadcaster to its birthplace is apt as it redefines itself, and could benefit a neglected part ot Dublin
When Delia Smith and Hugh Grant team up in protest, it’s worth your attention. So why are they defending a Sunday paper?
Guardian Media Group wants to sell the Observer, now 232 years old, to the news website Tortoise. It has a fight on its hands
The Apprentice controversy: Donald Trump and the ‘toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest’ lawyer in the US
The new Trump origin film is not a flattering portrayal either of the former president or of Roy Cohn, the legal attack dog and Mob fixer who was his mentor
Phil Coulter and John Sheahan vs Lankum and The Mary Wallopers: Sit back and enjoy the music-industry hatred
What a pleasure to observe the flare-up between the composer and last surviving Dubliner and the drone-folk maestros and bouncy balladeers
A massed army of audio bots is coming over the hill. What will it do to us?
You’d be hard pressed to tell latest AI voices from the real thing. It’s bad news for actual human beings who fear being left on scrapheap
The billion-dollar Rings of Power is part of the weird new age of television
Prime Video is investing untold amounts in its Lord of the Rings fantasy. But the fastest-growing new streamer has a very different approach
Which politicians have done most for Irish culture? As the general election approaches, it’s a question worth asking
The main parties’ approaches to Ireland’s cultural life was encapsulated by the opposing outlooks of Charles Haughey and Garret FitzGerald
Government’s refusal to scrap the licence fee shows a depressingly limited understanding of the media landscape
The debate needs to move on from the best way to fund a public-service broadcaster to the best way to fund public-service content
Betty the chimp: Was Dublin Zoo’s tea party favourite really a terrifying matriarch and bully?
Death of oldest living chimpanzee in human care raises issue of recurring human impulse to anthropomorphise other species
Show me ‘citizen journalism’ and I’ll show you a rat’s nest of some of the most noxious people around
What began as the high idealism of Arab Spring-style community reporting has soured into the preserve of right-wing provocateurs
The culture wars are over, apparently. Just don’t bet on peace anytime soon
Lisa Nandy, the UK’s new culture secretary, announced this week the ‘end of the era of culture wars’, but an armistice is not actually within her remit
The Abbey Theatre is vacating the stage during peak season for reasons unknown. What is going on?
The events that have unfolded over the past five years at the national theatre raise obvious parallels with the RTÉ debacle
The biggest problem with RTÉ’s new five-year plan is what it doesn’t address
We waited an age for A New Direction’s ‘third age’, and it already feels rather out of date
Even with Spielberg-style cuddliness, there’s a cold, dark void at the heart of artificial intelligence
Hugh Linehan: With his Kubrick-derived film AI Artificial Intelligence, the director created a surprisingly convincing version of where technology is leading us
Climate activists turn the screw on literary festivals
The investment firm has met the ire of literary activists amid accusations of greenwashing
Things can only get better? Rishi Sunak’s election chant reckoning was perfection
Countless politicians have tried to co-opt pop hits as campaign anthems
‘You mean to say we spent £80 and we don’t even get to see her tits?’: Roger Corman’s Irish studio was from another age
Hugh Linehan: Director set up in Galway in the mid-1990s, when he was in his 70s, and churned out his trademark low-budget exploitation movies there
There’s nothing very dramatic about That They May Face the Rising Sun. Which is why it’s such a good film
Hugh Linehan: Stanley Kubrick said a film should be more like music than like fiction. The Irish director Pat Collins knows why that matters
Who watches the watchers when it comes to disinformation?
Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit organisation, set out to counter misleading online content. Instead it seems to be stifling legitimate debate
A scoopless Scoop: What Netflix gets wrong about the news business in its re-creation of Newsnight’s Prince Andrew coup
Hugh Linehan: The streamer’s new drama is just another lethargic entry into the often unlovely genre of hero-journalist movies
Colour-blind casting is the new normal. But we should still be alert to less palatable realities
Hugh Linehan: There are sound practical and ethical reasons for colourblind and colour-conscious casting. Other attempts to rewrite the past are absurd
The Great Gathering: New food and current affairs festival arrives this summer
Boutique festival will feature Rachel Allen, Fintan O’Toole, Blindboy Boatclub and more
Thousands of students have experienced sexual violence or harassment - study
Welcome to the Student Hub weekly digest - a selection of stories, reviews and podcasts
Dublin Theatre Festival launches with ambitious programme of in-person events
Numbers in venues restricted to 50 pending Government decisions on Covid-19 measures
Covid vaccine pass should be made ready for the arts as well as for pubs and restaurants
Hugh Linehan: Our conservative approach to pandemic challenges may increasingly cause issues
‘If I was minister for housing’ ... David McWilliams’s plan for €220k homes
A site-value tax and co-operative building are among the economist’s housing crisis solutions
The Irish Times Summer Nights festival: Everything you need to know
Chris O’Dowd, Maureen Dowd and Mary Lou McDonald among guests for online series
Maureen Dowd, a Pulitzer-winning Beltway socialite with a caustic eye
Grande Dame of DC Dowd to give insight to Biden’s America and the politics-obsessed town
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