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Crime fiction: Graeme McCrae Burnet, Paula Hawkins, Kate Summerscale, Ian Rankin and the debut of the year from IS Berry
Twice Booker Prize longlisted McCrae Burnet’s wickedly funny French-set novel owes as much to Albert Camus as to Georges Simenon; Rankin’s septuagenarian Rebus returns for another round
‘We used to be invisible as Irish speakers in Belfast but there’s a new confidence now to shout it from the rooftops’
Children’s writer Máire Zepf talks about her books and TV work, and how Kneecap bringing ‘beautiful, real Belfast Irish’ to the big screen has been powerful
Colm Tóibín on poet Paul Durcan turning 80: ‘Beside the wildness, there is tenderness’
Durcan’s poems are risk-taking explorations of where tragedy and comedy meet in contemporary Ireland. A selection of his finest work is gathered in a book
MORE CULTURE
Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Pan Pan’s loose retelling of Shakespeare contains flashes of real artistry
Dublin Theatre Festival 2024: Manuel Zschunke is particularly compelling as the paranoid king Leontes in an uneven reimagining of The Winter’s Tale
The mystery Irish woman who lived at the crossroads of revolutionary history
My research into the Irish radical who lived in Moscow’s Hotel Lux in the 1920s led me to uncover a grand love story
Ireland’s most infamous unsolved murder: a massacre intended to strike fear into the hearts of Catholics
In a new book Edward Burke identifies the man he believes to have been responsible for the brutal killing of a Belfast Catholic family in 1922, a massacre whose repercussions continue to be felt
Four new films to see this week
Turgid Joker: Folie à Deux falls flat, despite Phoenix and Gaga. Plus singular dark comedy A Different Man, West Bank-set drama The Teacher, and deadpan horror comedy Humanist Vampire...
Crime fiction: Graeme McCrae Burnet, Paula Hawkins, Kate Summerscale, Ian Rankin and the debut of the year from IS Berry
Twice Booker Prize longlisted McCrae Burnet’s wickedly funny French-set novel owes as much to Albert Camus as to Georges Simenon; Rankin’s septuagenarian Rebus returns for another round
TV guide: the best new shows to watch this week, beginning tonight
The pick of the new shows on TV, from John Creedon’s latest musical roadtrip around Ireland, to a look at the life and times of Michael Smurfit to Cate Blanchett thriller Disclaimer
‘We used to be invisible as Irish speakers in Belfast but there’s a new confidence now to shout it from the rooftops’
Children’s writer Máire Zepf talks about her books and TV work, and how Kneecap bringing ‘beautiful, real Belfast Irish’ to the big screen has been powerful
‘The church no longer has the same grip on moral values and lives but is still very much in our bodies and our mindsets’
Belfast International Arts Festival 2024: Patrick J O’Reilly on the power of Yerma, Lorca’s haunting rural tragedy, which he has relocated to Cooley for Tinderbox’s new production
‘I want to be alone’: Greta Garbo, sure. Daniel Day-Lewis, maybe not so much after all
The unconvincing retirement has history as a promotional tool in show business. Nobody believes that’s what’s going on with Day-Lewis
Heart of Philip Glass: A musical through line from Blondie and Talking Heads to maverick minimalism
Michael Riesman, music director of the Philip Glass Ensemble, on the works by the composer that they’re bringing to Ireland
Arooj Aftab: ‘If we all listened to more things that surprise us, we’d all be better for it’
Nobody does sound design like the Pakistani-raised singer and producer, whose new album is ‘about being flirty and crazy’ and who will soon seduce Dublin
Colm Tóibín on poet Paul Durcan turning 80: ‘Beside the wildness, there is tenderness’
Durcan’s poems are risk-taking explorations of where tragedy and comedy meet in contemporary Ireland. A selection of his finest work is gathered in a book
Atlas of the Irish Civil War. New Perspectives: History presented with imagination and innovation
Issues raised in third volume of historical series are at core of concerns still with us today
Form and function: What makes one object art and another ‘mere’ craft?
At Sara Flynn and Joseph Walsh’s collaborative new exhibition at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, the distinctions are in the eye of the beholder
The Guide: The Last Dinner Party, Lauryn Hill and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
October 5th-11th: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
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
Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch: ‘I had a tough time, a physical and mental breakdown. The thing I clung on to was the book’
The Belle and Sebastian frontman’s debut novel, Nobody’s Empire, draws on his own experiences, including of ME. Part travelogue and memoir, it’s also a love letter to his favourite music
Anna Geary: ‘Losing a sibling is not talked about a lot. They are meant to be there with you when your parents aren’t’
Camogie made Anna Geary a star but her media career has blossomed in the past decade. Despite great personal hardship in recent times, she’s embracing the future
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood: ‘Bone-bare’ prose offers the space to dwell in questions
The simplicity of the sentences in the Booker shortlisted novel brings to mind an unpolished stone
The Late Late Country Music Special: Not quite up there with the Toy Show but in the same ballpark
Television: Evening reaches a high when Daniel O’Donnell and Shona McGarty perform Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee as host Patrick Kielty looks relieved
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty: Debut depicts troubles with a delicate brush and indelible ink
You may be a long time forgetting this novel’s exploration of identity, belonging and loss
Let’s Dance by Lucy Sweeney Byrne: Cocaine, consumerism and profound loneliness
There are tremors of a young Bret Easton Ellis in the drug-fuelled central story of this stylish collection
Hide Away by Dermot Bolger: Bleak subject still makes for an invigorating read
The novel’s main drift is to underscore the harm done to individuals complicit in violent acts
A breathtaking novel by Ursula Parrott, an author who has long deserved more readers
Also reviewed: new books by Daniel Foxx, Toby Wilkinson, Shannon Sanders, Paola Ferrante and Jessica Anthony