Compulsory Irish is a simple slogan that acts as a red rag to a bull in Irish language circles, and Enda Kenny's speech in Cork last weekend suggesting the removal of Irish as a subject of compulsory study at Leaving Certificate level has stirred up a predictable debate – one that is shrouded in ambiguity, misconceptions and rhetorical pretence.
The Irish Independent ran an exclusive on the Ferns Report ten days before the report was released – the story's key claims were wrong. Colin Murphy reports
Swingers in Ancient Rome; sexless singers in the 1980s; semis in Dundalk; songs from the soul and celebs in their element were all in a week of TV for Dermot Bolger
On a Sunday afternoon during the early 1990s rave heyday, a DJ was driving out to play a set for a well-known Dublin pirate radio station. He tuned in on the way, and was surprised to hear a CD being played on a loop. This was unusual, as the chap before him always turned up. Arriving at the suburban house of the station owner – the studio was located in a rickety shed at the back of the house – he couldn't get an answer at the door. Eventually, it opened. The station owner stood there, his face as pale as a bucket of milk.
The Irish Times has shifted to the right, where as the Guardian has been more "serious mainstream" recently.
We are either in for one of the longest election campaigns in recent times or Bertie's going to call a snap election if and when he thinks the conditions for such a contest would be most advantageous for Fianna Fáil. Timing will be everything. All the Leinster House parties are very clearly on an election footing.
On Saturday along with thousands of others I will make my way to Lansdowne Road to see the Irish rugby team play. I have been trying to remember how often I have done this and can't. A few times a year for the last 20 years, probably about 100 times.
The Los Angeles Times won five Pulitzer prizes in 2004, but didn't increase its readership or revenue. Now its parent company is slashing costs, and the editor has quit. Village reports on the newspaper's decline, and how it bodes ill for the media in the US – and, eventually, here. By Conor Brady.
In the 1970s, the portrayal and participation of women in Irish television was so appalling that Gemma Hussey got together a group to lobby RTÉ about it. Terry Prone put together a video for them, demonstrating "the gross devaluation of women in television", she recalls. Shortly after, Deirdre Purcell – who had been an actor, and has gone on to greater success as a novelist – became the first female staff newsreader. Prone remembers her as "one of the best ever".
Hidden History told how a woman was burned to death for witchcraft in 1895. Present-day practices still terrify Dermot Bolger, namely the revamping of ordinary people's house in Desperate Houses and the so-called sport of International Rules