Article Category: Pillars of Society

Profile: Neil Jordan

September 21, 2017

THE HUGE audiences attracted to Sky TV’s recent blockbuster series, Riviera, tuned in despite, not because of, its creator, Neil Jordan (with John... Read more »

Profile: Fintan O’Toole

September 7, 2017

IRISH Times writer Fintan O’Toole is regarded as the media’s pre-eminent political intellectual and literary critic. Globally he is certainly the best known... Read more »

Josepha Madigan TD

August 24, 2017

Josepha Madigan JOSEPHA MADIGAN TD is one of Leo Varadkar’s vamps, politically speaking of course, ticking all the right (and right-wing) boxes on... Read more »

Billionaire property tycoon Luke Comer and his horseracing handicap

August 10, 2017

Luke Comer THE PROPERTY boom is again making some people very rich, none more so than Luke Comer and his younger brother, Brian,... Read more »

PROFILE: SUSAN DENHAM

July 27, 2017

Susan Denham AS SHE heads into bucolic retirement, Chief Justice Sue Denham will have ample time to enjoy the “horses and gardens” she... Read more »

Vincent Browne

July 13, 2017

IT IS not exactly characteristic of Vincent Browne to walk out of a €400,000 pa contract which still has a year to run.... Read more »

Ailbhe Smyth

June 15, 2017

THE archetypal feminist in today’s Ireland is a Labour or Fine Gael supporting, middle class professional with aggressive secularist leanings. This brand of... Read more »

Leslie Buckley

June 2, 2017

THESE ARE testing times for the chairman of Independent News and Media (INM), Leslie Buckley, trusted lieutenant and boardroom representative of the group’s... Read more »

Kate O’Connell

May 17, 2017

IS Kate O’Connell a transient backbench TD whose election in Dublin Bay South (DBS) owed more to various forces intent on burying the... Read more »

Garry Hynes

May 3, 2017

WITH THE recent exit of Michael Colgan as artistic director of the Gate Theatre after 33 years attracting oodles of media attention, it... Read more »

Paddy Prendergast

April 19, 2017

EXACTLY 100 years after John Pentland Mahaffy, the much-celebrated provost of Trinity College, distinguished himself by suppressing the college’s Gaelic Society (over its... Read more »

Alan Kelly, TD

April 5, 2017

THERE is an official and an unofficial agenda at this month’s Labour Party conference. The first is an attempt to breathe life into... Read more »

Tim Collins

March 23, 2017

WHEN in January 2016 Tim Collins became Newstalk’s fifth CEO in 11 years, he was presumably unaware that its owner, Denis O’Brien, was... Read more »

Paul Reynolds

February 23, 2017

COMMISSIONER Nóirín O’Sullivan is the cop in the eye of the storm over Sgt Maurice McCabe but RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds is... Read more »

Dara Murphy

February 9, 2017

THE perverse priorities of An Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s political appointments are personified by the undistinguished Dara Murphy, junior minister for European affairs. Murphy... Read more »

BRENDAN OGLE

January 25, 2017

BRENDAN OGLE is a dangerous man. You can tell that from the media reaction to the Ogre’s leadership role in the Apollo House... Read more »

Jim O’Callaghan

January 12, 2017

OVER the past five years, while his position as leader of Fianna Fáil was open to question on all sides, Micheál Martin very... Read more »

Denis Naughten

December 14, 2016

Once regarded as a potential leader of Fine Gael, then expelled from the party five years ago, Denis Naughten has managed to claw... Read more »

Brendan Howlin

December 1, 2016

LEADER of the smallest Labour Party in its century long existence, Brendan Howlin must now have a keen understanding of the phrase, Be... Read more »

Ruth Coppinger TD

November 3, 2016

RUTH COPPINGER’S clever manipulation of the abortion issue has helped to give the AAA/PBP a three-point boost to 9% in the latest Red... Read more »

Frances Fitzgerald

October 20, 2016

NOT merely a safe pair of hands, as compared to the irascible Alan Shatter, but a potential successor to Enda Kenny was how... Read more »

Jim Sheridan

October 5, 2016

FILM DIRECTOR Jim Sheridan has had a helluva ride since he struck lucky with his very first film, My Left Foot, in 1989.... Read more »

Max Barrett

September 21, 2016

The news that justice minister Frances Fitzgerald intends appealing last month’s High Court ruling by Mr Justice Max Barrett, allowing retired judge Barry... Read more »

Brendan O’Carroll

September 7, 2016

IN THE recent Radio Times survey to name the Best Sitcom of the 21st Century, smutty comedian Brendan O’Carroll’s Mrs Brown’s Boys came... Read more »

SHANE ROSS

August 24, 2016

SHANE ROSS has spent much of his political life, spanning four decades, fighting with Fine Gael either as a party member, an Independent... Read more »

Charlie Flanagan

July 15, 2016

A very bad fortnight for Enda Kenny saw minister for foreign affairs and trade, Charlie Flanagan, also ship collateral damage in the matter... Read more »

Brendan O’Connor

July 2, 2016

Brendan O’Connor should be an editorial has-been by now, a casualty of Denis O’Brien’s new regime at Independent News & Media (INM), which... Read more »

Alan Moloney

June 17, 2016

ALTHOUGH Alan Moloney of Parallel Films was executive producer, he managed, as usual, to stay pretty much below the radar when Brooklyn earned... Read more »

Dr Peter Boylan

June 1, 2016

DR PETER Boylan, former Master of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), recently ramped up the row between the NMH and St Vincent’s Hospital... Read more »

Enda Kenny

May 18, 2016

IS Enda Kenny the luckiest politician in modern Irish politics, or is he Fine Gael’s answer to ‘the most brilliant, the most cunning,... Read more »

Profile: Bob Geldof

May 5, 2016

WAS William Butler Yeats reincarnated and dumped back on Earth as Sir Bob Geldof? St Bob seems to think so. In his hyperbolic... Read more »

Martin McDonagh

April 21, 2016

AN IRISH playwright (well London-Irish but that has never seemed to matter before) picked up one of the most prestigious awards in UK... Read more »