In the shadow of the bombThe most consistent risk of nuclear disaster has come not from warmongering politicians but from computer glitches and human error. A loose wire could have triggered an apocalypse, says Eric Schlosser, the ‘Fast Food Nation’ author, whose new book, ‘Command and Control’, is about the management and politics of nuclear weaponsSat Nov 02 2013 - 01:00
Donal Skehan, kitchen hero? We’ll soon see about thatVideo: To mark the first day of The Irish Times Food Month we set Donal Skehan, the likeable 27-year-old television chef a test – can he pass on his expertise to a surly journalist with crumbs in his beard?Fri Nov 01 2013 - 01:00
Marathon runners of all shapes, sizes and ages united by one goalDublin’s streets had it all - from no-nonsense elite athletes to gleeful runners in elaborate costumesTue Oct 29 2013 - 07:43
The small societyBig ideas needn’t come from above. People work best from the bottom upSat Oct 26 2013 - 01:00
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: ‘Imagine what it takes to suck the entire blood system out of somebody’The Cork actor prepared for the role of Dracula in full-blooded fashion: by staring at strangers in Budapest ‘until they wanted to call the police, thinking I was a lunatic’Thu Oct 24 2013 - 01:00
Bad lands: Fahrenheit 451 and other fiery dystopiasRay Bradbury’s great dystopian vision is 60. Thankfully the book-burning world it depicts has not yet come to pass, so we can still read it and other dark visionsMon Oct 21 2013 - 01:00
Vocal protesters who harness music and passion to get their message acrossThe choir that believes a revolution without singing isn’t worth havingSat Oct 19 2013 - 01:00
Armando Iannucci on Veep: ‘Washington seems to have confessed it’s all true’Iannucci brilliantly captured British politics with ‘The Thick of It’ and now he’s doing the same in the US with ‘Veep’. Despite this, he thinks politics is immune to his satireWed Oct 16 2013 - 01:00
Why the cat scene in Love/Hate makes animal welfare inspectors wincePatrick Freyne visits the DSPCA’s rescue and rehoming centreSat Oct 12 2013 - 06:52
Jonathan Rhys Meyers brings Dracula to life in Dublin cryptSky to broadcast retelling of classic vampire taleFri Oct 11 2013 - 01:01
Lessons Love/Hate learned from US televisionGet an anti-hero. Hire Aidan Gillen. Don’t be episodic. These are some of the tricks RTÉ’s drama picked up from across the waterMon Oct 07 2013 - 01:00
Dance extravaganza gets in step with ‘Ireland of today’Riverdance founders hope to also bring Heartbeat of Home around the worldThu Oct 03 2013 - 10:56
Riverdance team Fuse flamenco and fiddlers in new show‘Heartbeat of Home’, a new dance show from the creators of ‘Riverdance’, with lyrics by Joseph O’Connor and music by Brian Byrne, is drawing a new musical map of IrelandSat Sept 21 2013 - 01:00
Stuff we don’t do any moreDrinking at lunchtime, using a bureau de change, writing a letter and using a phone box were everyday activities 20 years ago. What’s it like living as an Irishman from the not-so-distant past?Sat Sept 07 2013 - 01:00
Life is a PicnicOn its 10th anniversary, Electric Picnic turned on, tuned in, and sold out. ‘The Irish Times’ went down to the woods to get a big surprise. Here are the best bits …Mon Sept 02 2013 - 01:00
Slow Skies: Grey SkiesA textured vulnerability to Karen Sheridan’s vocals makes the whole thing more interestingSat Aug 31 2013 - 10:05
Wu Tang Clan: From Staten Island to StradballySeven kung fu-obsessed rhymers slowly take to the stage over a crunching backbeatSat Aug 31 2013 - 09:56
Are school fees fair?Belvedere College’s ‘social diversity programme’, which features in the new RTÉ documentary The Scholarship, offers a private education to pupils who can’t afford the Dublin school’s fees. Critics say such schemes wouldn’t be needed if our education system were more equalSat Aug 31 2013 - 01:00
Video: All the news that’s fit to singirishtimes.com features the first of a series of online ‘musical columns’. Temper-Mental MissElayneous, Doctor Millar and other songwriters will sing about Ireland and its crises, to rekindle the social fire at the heart of musicSat Aug 24 2013 - 01:00
Yellow Rose of Texas takes tiara and midnight madness begins‘What goes on in Tralee stays in Tralee . . . Ah, but it’s a great festival all the same’Wed Aug 21 2013 - 17:48
Texan with Monaghan links named 2013 Rose of TraleeDancing in the dark and some codding as frenetic pace slackens a little in second halfTue Aug 20 2013 - 22:13
Boyfriend Kyle takes a gamble on Molly as Roses stay on messageImpervious to irony, and terrifying in their positivity, the Roses still impressTue Aug 20 2013 - 00:53
Mass, Muppets and mayhem as Roses prepare for today’s first round in Tralee‘The smiling hurts a bit, but it’s all natural’Sun Aug 18 2013 - 23:01
'Charlie Brooker is not an angry crank'He made his name with his excoriating TV reviews. Now the Screen Burn columnist is more likely to be the one making the programmes. Either way, Charlie Brooker hasn’t lost his sense of the absurd – or of the macabreSat Aug 17 2013 - 01:00
It could be a close shave at this year’s Rose of TraleeGlow-in-the-dark dancers and kissing fish – this year could be one to watchWed Aug 14 2013 - 01:00
Funerals: sticking with traditionThe majority of funerals in this country are still Catholic, a rural priest talks about the phenomenonSat Aug 10 2013 - 01:00
The way we die nowThe Irish are famously good at throwing a funeral, but with more wakes, cremations and nonreligious ceremonies, how we mark a loved one’s passing is changingSat Aug 10 2013 - 01:00
Arts co-operative draws on ‘free space’ to create a community-focused ethosA ‘social experiment’ in arts and cultural participation faces a precarious futureSat Aug 03 2013 - 01:00
Investing in the people’s bankCredit unions, sucked into a banking crisis that now threatens the viability of some, are the financial life-blood of many appreciative communitiesSat Jul 27 2013 - 12:00
Belong To celebrates 10 years of showing teens that ‘being gay is okay’The organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) young people focuses on their mental health needsSat Jul 27 2013 - 01:00
Curiouser and curiouser: the key to health and happiness?Research suggests that maintaining an inquiring mind can make us happier and even prolong our lives. Just as well the Festival of Curiosity starts in Dublin on July 25th, thenWed Jul 24 2013 - 01:00
Dead pigeons, live sheep, naked men: welcome to Kino KabaretThere’s been a burst of film-making in the heart of Dublin thanks to Kino, an international network of guerrilla filmmakers.Sat Jul 20 2013 - 00:00
A sorry situation: when politicians grapple with apologyPolitical gaffes and seeking forgivenessWed Jul 17 2013 - 01:00
Cool to be kind: an experiment in nicenessAhead of Clonakilty Random Acts of Kindness Festival, Patrick Freyne set out to discover how people react to acts of altruism on the streetsTue Jul 16 2013 - 01:00
No longer a waste of space as group aims to create parks and recreation around cityA Dublin collective is getting ready to open its first pop-up park on a derelict siteSat Jul 13 2013 - 01:00
Bitcoin – the people’s currency or dangerously subversive?Value of cybercurrency has fluctuated between €30 and €140 in recent monthsSat Jul 06 2013 - 01:00
Revolutionary art: the writing on the wallThousands of Egyptians will protest tomorrow to mark the anniversary of President Morsi’s first year in power. The street art of Bahia Shehab has played an unlikely role in the revolutionSat Jun 29 2013 - 01:00
‘It is humanity in all its beauty, hairy arse and warts’Finding one’s inner clown is part of a tradition dating back to ancient GreeceSat Jun 29 2013 - 01:00
The torture never endsThousands of survivors of torture live in Ireland. We talk to three of them, from Uganda, Zimbabwe and Northern IrelandSat Jun 22 2013 - 01:01
‘There’s a need to present a positive alternative to the G8, a different way . . . ’The local is global for Fermanagh marchersTue Jun 18 2013 - 01:00
‘God must be a capitalist,’ says a disappointed man at G8 protest in BelfastThe scale of security seemed to dwarf the good-natured protest activitiesMon Jun 17 2013 - 01:00
Sky’s latest laugh with its comedy commitmentSky’s first ever head of comedy, Lucy Lumsden, talks about the serious business of funnyMon Jun 10 2013 - 01:00
Marxist plotting an Irish revolutionIn the wake of mass movements in Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey, a Dublin socialist tells Patrick Freyne that revolution here is possibleSat Jun 08 2013 - 01:00
After tough times Irish hoteliers are managing againThe hotel industry offers a perfect illustration of Ireland’s boom - and then bust. With many controlled by Nama, or paying off huge mortgages, smaller tourist numbers and Irish customers wanting ever better deals, how are today’s hoteliers coping? Patrick Freyne and Rosita Boland reportSat Jun 08 2013 - 00:00
Graphic novelist with a $100m movie on his mindIrish Lives: Mark Mahon aims high with graphic novel about the VikingsSat Jun 01 2013 - 01:00