What did Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly talk about on the way to John Bruton’s funeral?Travelling together to John Bruton’s funeral was easy compared with the tightrope they must walk soonFri Feb 16 2024 - 06:15
Trust the romantic French to come up with a pragmatic solution on ‘durable relationships’France has devised a type of conscious coupling that has proven to be highly popularFri Feb 09 2024 - 06:15
If Leo Varadkar goes to the White House, it can’t be for a quiet word about GazaTaoiseach must convey Ireland’s message about Gaza publicly, unambiguously and for international consumptionFri Feb 02 2024 - 06:15
Ian Bailey could never resist having his name in a newspaper, ideally the headline Now the only suspect is gone with whatever secrets he had. And he had some, as he hinted in one of the poems he left meFri Jan 26 2024 - 06:15
Mansplainers are in full ‘listen ladies!’ voice, telling us we’re reading it all wrong as referendum nearsThe mansplainers are in full ‘listen-ladies!’ voice, telling us we’re reading the thing all wrongFri Jan 19 2024 - 06:15
By caving in to protests about asylum seekers, the Government has torched its own principlesRecent migrants found locked in a ship at Rosslare were Kurds and Vietnamese, people on the sharp end of global warming. This trend will only increaseFri Jan 12 2024 - 06:20
Keeping Enoch Burke locked in a cell, wallowing in his martyrdom, serves no oneBurke could potentially find himself spending longer in Mountjoy than some of the killers in his midst. That could not pass for justiceThu Jan 04 2024 - 14:23
Just reaching out about those odious Americanisms and infuriating academic affectations . . .Enough already! Now that’s a new year’s resolution that would really make the world a better placeFri Dec 29 2023 - 06:05
Irish writers, thespians and thinkers are having a renaissanceIt’s okay to gloat about our artistic accomplishments, fruits of a period of social turmoilFri Dec 22 2023 - 06:00
Nothing can justify this massacre of the innocents in Gaza. No politics. No history. No revengeNearly 7,000 children and minors have died in Gaza, which the UN secretary general has styled ‘a graveyard for children’. And for all his bumper-sticker sloganeering about good values, Joe Biden has presided over itFri Dec 15 2023 - 06:30
Irish politicians throwing around terms such as ‘scumbags’ and ‘thugs’ is a slippery slopeDublin riots have led to a dangerous political gameFri Dec 08 2023 - 06:00
It was wrong of Leo Varadkar to send a servant of the State to Ben Dunne’s funeralTaoiseach could always have attended himself in a private capacity but sending his official representative gave his Government’s seal of approval to DunneFri Dec 01 2023 - 06:00
In the Israel-Hamas war, history and propaganda repeat themselvesTo recite the Goldstone Report is not to suggest that Israel is all wrong and Hamas is all right; the point is the sense of deja vu it conveysFri Nov 24 2023 - 06:00
Molly Martens didn’t just kill her husband, she assassinated his reputationIf mitigation is proper in setting sentences – and it is – aggravation should be considered tooFri Nov 17 2023 - 06:00
The world needs a Mahatma Gandhi to lead us away from the abyssOur planet is going up in smoke while political powers in Moscow and Washington, Tehran and London are flexing their partisan muscles. We need to choose our own leaders wiselyFri Nov 10 2023 - 06:00
Erstwhile imperialists’ defence of Israel’s merciless slaughter makes a mockery of democracyNo matter how often Israeli politicians state that the military bombardment of Gaza is lawful, the watching world knows the truthFri Nov 03 2023 - 06:15
Justine McCarthy: When are the international police coming to investigate Israel’s wanton bloodletting?Neither were the babies and children who were massacred on Israel’s side of the border. The difference on the Gaza side is the scale, duration and the comparative lack of anguish elicited from world leadersFri Oct 27 2023 - 06:00
Women’s stories dragged Ireland kicking and screaming into a better futureAn extract from the preface of Justine McCarthy’s new book An Eye on Ireland: A Journey Through Social ChangeSun Oct 15 2023 - 06:00
Two wrongs do not make a right, they make a vortex of horrorOf the many sides in this war, the worst are the so-called friends who have the power to do something but choose to kindle revengeFri Oct 13 2023 - 06:21
Justine McCarthy: Ireland's richest are seldom mentioned when it comes time to balance the booksThe domicile levy was meant to be a net to catch the super-wealthy, but hasn’t quite workedFri Oct 06 2023 - 06:00
Ireland has museums for dinosaurs, country life and rugby. It’s time we had one for womenDisrespect underpins much of the apathy about and antipathy towards women in our society.Fri Sept 29 2023 - 06:30
Spinal surgeries scandal has the ring of such grotesquerie as to stop a country in its tracksThe series of appalling events in Temple Street must be fully revealed to the publicFri Sept 22 2023 - 06:30
Reverse snobbery about rugby is every bit as nauseating as plain old snobberyRugby World Cup: Everybody knows rugby is an elitist sport in Ireland. But you don’t achieve an egalitarian society by throwing stones at athletes who are representing your countryFri Sept 15 2023 - 06:00
Vera Pauw’s unforgivable sin was to stand up for herselfIf obstreperousness in a man can be an aphrodisiac, in a woman it is a crime punishable by firing squadFri Sept 08 2023 - 06:30
Amid Ireland’s summer of tragedy, we look to those who don’t have the luxury of allowing words to fail themJustine McCarthy: First-responders are the true matrix of Irish communitiesFri Sept 01 2023 - 06:30
Justine McCarthy: Enough of the meaningless hand-wringing over abuse by Christian BrothersAre councillors compassionate enough to rescind Edmund Garvey’s freedom of Drogheda as a powerful symbol of support for victims of abuse?Fri Aug 25 2023 - 06:30
Justine McCarthy: It’s time for RTÉ to pull the plug on the Rose of TraleeMaking Thomas co-host is a desperate effort to extend the longevity of the antediluvian eventThu Aug 17 2023 - 12:59
Justine McCarthy: Staggering hypocrisy of the Christian Brothers, or Cheapskate BulliesCongregation ought to be renamed the Cheapskate Bullies for its persistent torment of abuse survivors via the legal systemFri Aug 11 2023 - 06:00
Justine McCarthy: We should thank Charles Haughey for Ireland’s Booker Prize success To explore the success of Irish artists without mentioning Haughey is like staging Hamlet without the princeFri Aug 04 2023 - 06:30
Justine McCarthy: Reforming our garbled VAT system would be a good start in the fight against climate changeGo to a garden centre and you will pay the same 13.5 per cent tax for a packet of environment-enhancing wildflower seeds as for a bag of peat compost, which strips bogs of their sequestered carbonFri Jul 28 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: Ryan Tubridy should keep his job, but not his roleBroadcaster known for cheery banter but we have learned there are more layers to him than a liking for mom and apple pieFri Jul 14 2023 - 06:11
Justine McCarthy: It’s a pity politicians so furious about RTÉ spending weren’t bothered to stir themselves before thisRTÉ payments crisis: Revelations of a them-and-us culture at the top in RTÉ are not newFri Jul 07 2023 - 06:15
Justine McCarthy: Tubridy is paying a high price for not exposing RTÉ's deceitFolly of judging somebody’s worth by size of their remuneration is lesson Ireland has repeatedly been taught, yet never seems to learnFri Jun 30 2023 - 06:00
Justine McCarthy: Judge Deirdre Murphy’s warning on our broken legal system must not be ignoredMurphy’s assertion about legal fees has an ear-splitting ring of plausibility, and a disgusting stench of scandalFri Jun 23 2023 - 06:30
Justine McCarthy: Sinn Féin has a point. Nobody is entitled to veto anyone else’s storyRemembering nation’s past must be collective endeavour, it is more urgent than rearranging administrative infrastructureFri Jun 16 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: Young people are the new frontier in the hatred warsThe weaponising of children certainly did not start last weekend, but it is reaching new lowsFri Jun 02 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: What part of branding refugees as potential rapists is not racist?Unconscious bias must be checked when words such as ‘unvetted’ drip from our mouths with scornFri May 26 2023 - 06:15
Justine McCarthy: The idea of news organisations with a political agenda is nothing newMen with wallets as big as their egos have always sought news organs as conduits for their world viewFri May 19 2023 - 06:00
Justine McCarthy: At last, women are getting their revenge on Donald TrumpA handful of strong women are proving his biggest obstacle to getting back into the White House. Let’s hope the women who voted for him follow their leadFri May 12 2023 - 05:15
Justine McCarthy: The €15.90 chicken wrap that proves Michael D Higgins has a pointIn this wrapanomics culture, greed is the enemy of solidarity. The first thing the Government has to do is tackle rip-off cultureFri May 05 2023 - 05:00
Robert Watt affair shows an issue can be very much in public interest even when public aren’t interestedLeo Varadkar claims the public doesn’t care about Robert Watt and his controversies, which is most convenient for the upper echelon of the Civil ServiceFri Apr 28 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: British media was right - Joe Biden’s Ireland belongs to Dark AgesThe code was 'don’t mention the war', whether cultural wars or American wars, and just surrender to the heart-warming nostalgia of it allFri Apr 21 2023 - 15:01
What is the difference between a sexual assault on a Protestant school boy and a Catholic school boy? An inquiry dedicated primarily to one social class and exclusively to one religious denomination will be undermined before it even beginsFri Apr 14 2023 - 05:00
Bertie Ahern says he should have taken constitutional challenge against planning tribunalFormer taoiseach says lawyers advised him challenge would have halted inquiry into personal finances but he wanted to defend himself ‘politically rather than legally’Mon Apr 10 2023 - 06:00
Bertie Ahern interview: I see all this stuff now about TDs with 20 houses - I’m still with me one houseFormer taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party talks about his parents, the Belfast Agreement, the planning tribunal and his plans for the futureMon Apr 10 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: What makes a Greek scholar qualified to choose a senator?Justine McCarthy: It’s sickening to watch TDs who lost their seats in the Dáil swanning into the Seanad for a five-year breather. Their treatment of it as a halfway house debases the institutionFri Apr 07 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: We still have a long way to go before Ireland is safe for womenIt is high time Ireland faced up to the fact that misogyny and abuse are the realities of life for many women, right here, right nowFri Mar 31 2023 - 05:02
Justine McCarthy: We should not scoff at the idea of Johnny Sexton as a national role modelRugby suffers from reverse class snobbery, with more than a modicum of justification, but it can also transcend historic barriersFri Mar 24 2023 - 05:00
Justine McCarthy: Can’t live with Twitter? Then live without itGary Lineker’s spat with the BBC highlights the insidious relationship between the platform and news organisationsFri Mar 17 2023 - 05:00
Welcome to Ireland, where trivial things are magnified and important things are ignoredJustine McCarthy: There are too many examples of this cause-and-effect pattern of political diversionFri Mar 10 2023 - 05:00
