I went into the library in Ennis last Saturday, having successfully dug-out a long overdue book from among the dust balls under the bed. The Bad News Bible by Anna Blundy. Quite a good read. Her dad was The Sunday Times journalist David Blundy who was killed in San Salvador in 1989. His death threads through her novel because how could it not?
Marshall McLuhan may have fallen out of favour with media pundits, but his insights into the media and the global village are well worth revisiting, writes Conor Brady
"If I had been there with her in that room overlooking the back yard in Haya and Tsvi's flat at that moment, at half past eight or a quarter to nine on that Saturday evening, I would certainly have tried my hardest to explain to her why she mustn't."
It's terribly frustrating the way the mainstream Irish media often refuse to pick up on stories in more obscure publications that may not share their top-class journalistic values. Publications like Newsweek, for example.
This week's television was a mixture of uncontained excitement, mammoth feats and
mind-numbing boredom, writes Dermot Bolger
If Martians were to arrive in Ireland – presuming they could get into the country without a work permit or an Irish earthling spouse, and also presuming that they aren't already here writing columns for The Irish Times – and were to ask the traditional question that space aliens presumably ask, ie "Take me to your leader…" I would be hard-pressed to know whether to point them in the direction of the Taoiseach's office or Michael Mc Dowell's.
It all depends on who you believe. Or who you believe in.
I've been here before, of course. In the early 1980's, Sinn Féin the Workers' Party made a breakthrough to mainstream politics when Joe Sherlock (now a Labour Party TD) won a seat in Cork East in 1981. By 1989 the Workers' Party (as it was named from 1982 onwards) had pushed that up to seven, including Pat Rabbitte, Proinsias de Rossa and Éamon Gilmore, now household names in the Labour Party.
The refusal of The Irish Times to apologise for the publication of the stigmatisation of children and parents and the disingenuous retraction by Kevin Myers prolongs trauma for the newspaper. By Vincent Browne
Journalist: Harry Browne'
The 'bastard son of a renegade priest'