Why has Rachel English been allowed to go from Five-Seven-Live on RTÉ Radio One? I don't know whether it is because she wants to leave the slot or because the RTÉ authorities want her to leave the slot, but, one way or another, it is a mistake and a disillusionment.
Much of what we hear about the internet involves, say, teenagers trading sectarian abuse, paedophiles on the prowl and gamblers seeking new holes into which to pour their money. However, and despite the poor rollout of broadband in Ireland, if you're a politically active Villager, you're probably regularly online.
Little of any lasting good has ever been achieved through predictability. The best minds are both a thorn and a salve. T...
Last week Manchester United were linked with teenage Brazillian twins. They aren't in their late teens like Theo Walcott or even Wayne Rooney. Rafael and Fabio are under-15s and will actually arrive at Old Trafford in three years' time. Twenty or 30 years ago, both kids would really need to have played international football to have caught the eye of Alex Ferguson or the club scout. But the kids are middle-class enough to have agents at that age, and the club sharp enough to find them.
Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has moved to raise the bar on accepting participation with Sinn F&ea...
The Ombudsman and Information Commissioner is at it again, pontificating about the importance of openness and transparency and taking wild swings at bodies and organisations which fail to meet her high standards. Last week, at the launch of her third annual report, Emily O'Reilly attacked the Government, the Department of Education, the Health Service Executive, The Central Bank, An Garda Siochána, Coillte, the Central Applications Office and many more great populist targets.
Two weeks ago, this column pointed out the curious coincidence of the Irish Medical Organisation conference and the Sunday Independent's "exclusive" front page story blaming doctors for the A&E crisis. Two weeks later, on 14 May, the lead story of the Sunday Independent was again an "exclusive" based upon the same consultants' report on the health service.
The advent of the forthcoming World Cup has unleashed such rose-tinted nostalgic television histories of soccer that one...
Every couple of weeks or so, a newspaper runs a report about "deadbeat dads". Sometimes it's the Irish Examiner, occasionally the Irish Times (though it tends not to use the phrase), but usually it's the Irish Independent. The "facts" of this story are usually presented as follows: about 80,000 people, mostly women, are in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment. In each case, the absent parent is required to pay towards the upkeep of the child. However, figures from the Department of Social and Family Affairs show that only a small percentage are doing so.
An intimate look at the life of a young poet through the eyes of her father in Home Movie Nights, the life of a soldier wronged by the hands of time in Two Civilisations and the lives of drugged-up teenagers expressed through dance in Joyride