Ciaran Carson: The Dichotomy of Being
Belfast writer, and poet, Ciaran Carson carried a black flute with silver keys on its…
Browsing: the
The Death of Blake
The bed had been positioned deliberately near the window so the artist had a view…
Musician of the Month: Myriam Kammerlander
When I was five, I made myself a paper flute. I played it sitting on…
Facilitating the Dirty Business of the State
Both as a lawyer and Supreme Court judge, Louis Brandeis was an inveterate opponent of…
Hitching the Plough to the Stars
Paul O’Brien’s biography, Sean O’Casey, Political Activist and Writer (Cork University Press) is a timely…
The Secret Garden
The leaves of Greenwich Park were the soul of Autumn as I walked slowly up…
The End of RTÉ’s “Drive Time” Omertá
And so, the omertà as to the RTÉ personnel getting ‘freebie’ cars has finally broken.…
Unmasking the Tawdry Yarns
In the essential Boomer text, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance one of the…
Musician of the Month: Garrett Sholdice
Earlier this month I released The Blue Light, a selection of solo piano and chamber…
The Dying Nerve of the Liberal Class
Outrage is the currency of the times. Nearly everyone in New York City and a…
Musician of the Month: Evin O’Brien
I always considered myself a late bloomer when it came to music. Growing up, I…
The Myth of the Spiritual Contract
According to Western medical science I suffer from a condition called depression. And from my…
The Implications of Evolution
Evolution by natural election is the ‘greatest idea ever’ — a view which has been…
Michel Houllebecq and the End of History
Inspired by Michel Houllebecq’s novel Atomised (1998), Ben Pantrey considers the endurance of the Christian…
The Cruel End Result of the Affair
In the wake of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s extraordinary gaffe in Washington the day before Paddy’s…
Musician of the Month: Magdalena Jacob
My musical journey started with a lot of Church organ and Bohemian brass music in…
OPLA: An Oireachtas within the Oireachtas
Since my last article detailing the manner in which the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisor…
Privatisation is the Enemy
When writing about JobPath in 2016 I attempted to articulate something disturbing I had seen…
Interview On The Liffey
Jonathan O’Brien of City Kayaking says they began taking litter out of the River Liffey…
Irish Prison Service Whistleblower: The Strange Story of Sean O’Brien
To meet ex-prison officer Sean O’Brien for the first time I drove through a sparse…