Category: Culture & Arts
The Progressive Subversion of Leaving Cert ‘Politics and Society’
This year, around 900 students from 41 pilot schools across the country will sit the first ever Leaving Cert exam for ‘Politics and Society’. Introduced in 2016, the new subject supposedly is designed to educate students in regards to both...
Welcome to Post-Catholic Ireland
On a cold January afternoon in 1922, Irish history changed forever in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, as the last Viceroy of Ireland handed over the keys of the city’s most historic building to the new Provisional Government of the...
The Shape of Water’s Vulgar Relationship
The 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture was given to The Shape of Water. This film did not only skilfully prove our elders right by denominating what is vulgar as being related to the vulgus (the throng), it also contributed...
Art Review: Seasons End: More Than Suitcases
What is art? Some art is used to evoke a sense of aesthetic pleasure in the viewer, whilst other pieces are created to do almost the exact opposite, perhaps to show them another side of the world. The exhibition Seasons...
A Proposal for a Course on National Studies
What with the “Beast from the East”, the upcoming abortion referendum and the ongoing crises in health and housing, you’ve most likely missed a double celebration of the Irish language that’s languishing at the bottom of the media’s priority list....
Reviving the Irish Revival
Many years ago, I tried to read Clive Barker’s gargantuan fantasy novel Weaveworld, which centres around a magical world hidden in a carpet. I didn't make it even half-way through its six hundred pages, and I only have a very...
The Perilous White Male Rhetoric
The students’ union in Trinity has a new president, one Shane De Rís. He apparently doesn’t like me (or indeed himself) very much. “I want this to be the last time four white male candidates stand upon this stage. I...
Book Review: Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan is a book that I’ve meant to read for a long time, and I finally got around to it last year. My main interest in Brendan Behan is as an icon of Irishness, and as...
Judging 80’s Ireland
The long overdue apology by an Garda Síochána issued last month to Joanne Hayes, whose life was blighted forever by the almost forgotten “Kerry Babies” scandal, has triggered a thoroughly risible campaign to re-write recent Irish history. The media coverage...
The Curious Case of the Canadian Psychologist
One day I requested Jordan B. Peterson’s first book, Maps of Meaning, from the university library stacks. I already had an electronic copy and watched the whole lecture course, so the hassle was probably a waste of time, but I...