The Duke of Wellington’s drunken Dublin yearsLong before he introduced Napoleon to his Waterloo (200 years ago on June 18th), the idle young duke-to-be could be found carousing the hot spots of his native Dublin. Let’s take the tourMon Jun 15 2015 - 06:00
Johann Hari: ‘I should have to meet a higher bar’The newspaper columnist derailed a fiery career with plagiarism. Now he’s back with an exhaustive exploration of the war on drugs, and has a sideline helping Russell Brand. But, he says, he’s not looking for a second chanceSat Jun 13 2015 - 09:20
Patrick Freyne: meet the medium confusing the recently bereaved for moneyPatrick Freyne watches two new episodes of Long Island Medium, which is about a loud and terrifying woman who confuses the recently bereaved for moneyThu Jun 11 2015 - 23:33
Patrick Freyne: This week, Red Rock redefined car-crash telly, while Pat Kenny happily remembered the madnessRed Rock is nicely self-contained, focusing its melodrama around the local police station, with the rest of the suburb depicted as a desolate hellscape of empty warehouses where people go to schemeFri Jun 05 2015 - 11:50
Beck to the future: Musical chameleon returns to his originsBeck Hansen is now ready for a ‘deepening of the conversation’, he tells Patrick FreyneFri Jun 05 2015 - 11:21
Superhero-free zone: the weird comics of Daniel ClowesClowes, the artist behind such funny, melancholic comics as Ghost World and Eightball, is happy to work in obscurityWed Jun 03 2015 - 03:00
Patrick Freyne: A baby smuggling ring holding baby auctions? Better call the cybercrime unit“Any crimes involving electronic devices is by definition ‘cyber’,” Avery tells her boss, a little defensively, foreshadowing episodes in which they investigate shoplifted iPadsThu May 28 2015 - 12:00
Same-sex marriage: gay couples react to Yes vote‘It means that we’re the same as everybody else. We are now officially part of Ireland’Sun May 24 2015 - 14:26
From the archive: Patrick Freyne writes a song for the EurovisionIn an attempt to bring Ireland back to its glory days, Patrick Freyne asks the experts how to write a Eurovision song and co-writes his ownSat May 23 2015 - 13:00
Same-sex marriage: gay couples await people’s decision‘It’s a terrible thing to ask all the people can you get married and to think they might say No’Fri May 22 2015 - 23:20
How to write a Eurovision winnerOn tomorrow night's Late Late Show, five songs battle it out to represent Ireland at the Eurovision. Patrick Freyne asks the experts how to write a Eurovision song and co-writes his own.Thu May 21 2015 - 16:13
Patrick Freyne: Tears are currency in the Big Brother house and the overlord won’t be deprived of their salty goodnessAaron, who wishes to be seen as more than an underwear model, dances in his underwear and shouts: ‘I love wine. Wine is my friend.’ Later we watch him vomiting aloneWed May 20 2015 - 16:00
Gambling Big: ‘When you hear the poker chips rippling, there’s an energy’Our series on winners and losers in gambling concludes at an international poker tournament in Dublin, at which some of Ireland’s 50-odd professional players battle rivals from around Europe for a €50,000 prize, gobbling up a few ‘fish’ in the processTue May 19 2015 - 01:00
Paddy Power: online is 'the sexy part' of the businessPaddy Power made €167m in 2014, but how much comes from ‘problem gamblers’?Mon May 18 2015 - 01:00
Gambling 24/7: The addiction Ireland doesn’t know enough aboutAs betting moves out of the bookies’ and on to the mobile phone, a new kind of gambling addict is emerging. Who are the losers and winners in Ireland’s fast-changing gambling world?Sun May 17 2015 - 10:30
My gambling problem: ‘Online there’s no concept of the money’‘The bookies were open 24 hours a day online. There was always something to gamble on – racing in the US, football in South America’Sat May 16 2015 - 01:00
Footballer Oisín McConville: Gambling beat the sh*t out of meThe former Armagh GAA player spent years betting compulsively, losing tens of thousands of euro before confronting his problemsFri May 15 2015 - 14:30
Derek Davis: ‘Everybody comes off a little bit scarred by RTÉ’Patrick Freyne remembers a happy few hours spent with the broadcaster in 2008Wed May 13 2015 - 13:37
Patrick Freyne: Empire is built around Cookie but she’s not the only scene-chewing monsterCookie and Cookie Monster are fabulous divas who know what they want. Cookie Monster wants cookies. Cookie wants ‘what’s mine’ (possibly cookies)Fri May 08 2015 - 09:08
‘You don’t need to be suicidal to ring the Samaritans’At the Samaritans office in Dublin, the team talk about why people ring them, how they help those in distress, and those dreaded calls when the line goes deadMon May 04 2015 - 06:00
Oh lord: next generation takes the keys to Waterford countyWhen he inherited Curraghmore House – and the title of Lord Waterford – Henry de la Poer Beresford had to change the name on his bank cards. But he’s happy to embrace his newly conferred role, which includes hosting the Curraghmore Bluebell FestivalSat May 02 2015 - 01:00
Patrick Freyne: Remembering a time when murder was fun and shorts were skimpyWhen it comes to catching killers, Thomas Magnum will always have the edgeThu Apr 30 2015 - 15:04
‘Video is the internet’: meet the young Irish YouTubersAs YouTube celebrates its 10th birthday, Ireland’s vloggers discuss community, authenticity and the problems that come with putting their lives on showMon Apr 27 2015 - 06:00
Secrets of a ‘grassrootsy’ start-upCould you become a social entrepreneur? Paul O’Hara wants Irish people to launch 100 community projects in 100 days, and will provide the high-tech backup to make it happenSat Apr 25 2015 - 01:00
Patrick Freyne: Wannabe pop star Nadia Forde is chasing the dream; and when she catches up with it, it’s f***edThe poor dream. It doesn’t make you a screaming environmentalist to find dream-hunting cruel.Thu Apr 23 2015 - 17:45
Numb: war journalist ‘memoir’ originally written as novelAuthor Colin Carroll promoted his book as a work of non-fictionSun Apr 19 2015 - 14:52
‘Numb’: Louis La Roc and the war memoir mysteryA supposedly factual new book about ‘Alan Buckby’, a war reporter with a double lifeSat Apr 18 2015 - 01:00
The problem with politics: ‘Everyone wants to be the kids in the back seat’Journalist and author Zoe Williams thinks that we need to reclaim politics from politicians and that it’s folly to believe ‘the right party will come along and everything will be fine’Fri Apr 17 2015 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne: Game of Thrones is back and with it, more dragons and zombies and shapeshifters“The future is shit, just like the past,” Tyrion says before vomiting on the carpet, thus summing up the wider message of Game of ThronesWed Apr 15 2015 - 13:00
Ghost-writer denies memoir of war correspondent is fiction‘Louis La Roc’ says late British journalist was involved in gang rape, murder and other crimesFri Apr 10 2015 - 15:11
‘It’s quite terrifying’: staging To Kill a MockingbirdRacist Chelsea fans, Ukip, the shooting of Michael Brown . . . the stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird is not intended as a museum piece about 1930s AlabamaFri Apr 10 2015 - 02:00
Bear Grylls is the latest in a string of despots with islands. Will he have more luck than Dr Moreau?"I once hoped Bear Grylls was a programme about an ursine barbecue enthusiast. Sadly, this was not the case."Thu Apr 09 2015 - 22:00
Patrick Freyne: Look, it’s a drama made by E! – what did you expect, Downton Abbey?The Royals takes place in no identifiable time period, though the presence of Elizabeth Hurley suggests it’s probably 1994Wed Apr 01 2015 - 22:00
Mary Berry: Queen of puddingsMary Berry tells of her journey from teaching people how to use their ovens to fronting one of the most popular programmes on British television.Sat Mar 28 2015 - 19:00
Alastair Campbell: walking with winnersWhy should we win? The political strategist admits that’s one question he never asksFri Mar 27 2015 - 08:00
Like some crazed monarch, Ant and Dec could probably cover up a live-on-air killing if they wishedFrom PJ and and Duncan to the dual-headed light-entertainment hydra Ant-and-Dec, they have complete control of your television scheduleThu Mar 26 2015 - 11:00
Hollywood bites after seeing Irish director's proof-of-concept trailerIrish film-maker Ruairí Robinson’s latest project 'The Leviathan' has been picked up by X-Men writer and producer Simon Kinberg and Chappie director Neill BlomkampWed Mar 25 2015 - 10:27
I like tricorn hats as much as the next guy, but enough with the angry clown-peopleThe Mr Darcification of period drama notwithstanding, ‘Poldark’ is more enjoyable than ‘Banished’, which is no fun at allWed Mar 11 2015 - 15:00
Mr Underwood goes to Washington and paints the White House a bloody shade of redBefore reading this, please note that there will be spoilers and you need to picture me turning to the camera: I’ve binged on all of ’House of Cards’ so you don’t have toThu Mar 05 2015 - 06:00
‘The Late Late Show’ is madness itself but it cannot change because nobody knows why or how it worksLast week, someone left both Chris de Burgh and a guitar on the couch... then came God and the Devil on a haunted trainThu Feb 26 2015 - 13:35
My Cork: a lost paradise of Datsun Sunnys and winding streetsWe left the real capital when I was six, so for years I used to be from Cork. Then I discovered that I’m always from the citySat Feb 21 2015 - 01:00
Put the knife down, Meryl: your guide to watching the OscarsCup of hotdog water? Check. Cruel jibes to aim at actors who are wearing their clothes all wrong? Check. Existential angst for the dead actors montage? Check. Okay, you’re all setFri Feb 20 2015 - 06:00
Falling for the fierce cuteness of the animal kingdom, from hummingbirds to koalasWhoever came up with this programme is basically an evil genius, writes Patrick FreyneThu Feb 19 2015 - 12:25
Patrick Freyne on ‘Taking New York’In the hope of finding sweet telly glory, watching hunks frolic is the price we must be willing to payFri Feb 13 2015 - 06:00
Fifty Shades: Women on fun night joined by uncomfortable men‘It’s soft porn. There was chick-lit and Mills and Boon but ladies maybe require a bit more now’Fri Feb 13 2015 - 01:00
Who is God?For Stephen Fry, God is ‘monstrous’ and ‘a maniac’. But what do people in Ireland think? We asked some of themSat Feb 07 2015 - 06:00
Josie Long: ‘Everyone expects me to talk about politics’She is known for political comedy, but in her new show she opens up about family and her broken heartFri Feb 06 2015 - 13:40
Why are we here? Is there a god? What is the meaning of ‘The Meaning of Life’?The meaning of life according to some celebrity is etched on Gay Byrne’s Big FaceWed Feb 04 2015 - 16:16
My Cork: John Spillane‘The city always seemed magical, mythical and fantastic to me’Sat Jan 31 2015 - 01:00
So Walter O’Brien is one of the five smartest people alive. Who are the other four?RTE's new drama ‘Scorpion’, based on a 'real-life' Irish computer whiz Walter O’Brien, is not actualy about a magic crime-fighting robot-wizardFri Jan 30 2015 - 10:58
