Ireland
The untrustworthy Winston Churchill, 1916
From ‘Colonel Winston Churchill’, The Spectator, 13 May 1916: The return of Colonel Churchill to the House of Commons, which we are…
Might Eurovision determine the outcome of the EU referendum?
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
The Spectator’s advice on keeping Ireland quiet in 1916
From ‘Reconstruction’, The Spectator, 5 May 1916: What Ireland wants just now is firm and judicious military government. The rebellion of last…
The holy relics of the Easter Rising: from hallowed flags to rebel biscuits
The reverence for those involved in the Easter Rising is evident in an exhibition devoted to its centenary, says Harry Mount
Ireland’s new spirit of gentle maturity
A gentle spirit has survived Ireland’s many changes
The micro-businesses that give me hope for Belfast
At Stormont on Saturday, we observed a minute’s silence for the dead of Paris. Our conference group of Brits and…
Guinness and oysters — or beef and Haut-Brion — in deepest Ireland
We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly…
Maybe bitcoin isn’t the work of the devil, after all
I confess to being an out-and-out Luddite when it comes to bitcoin and other so-called crypto-currencies. To the extent that…
Colm Toibin on priests, loss and the half-said thing
Jenny McCartney talks to unstoppable literary force Colm Tóibín about loss, priests and half-said things
Euroscepticism is growing all over Europe
Europhiles have warned us for years of the dangers of Britain leaving the EU. But all the while a different…
If there’d been a Gilbert and Sullivan opera about Roland Barthes, it might have sounded like John Banville’s The Blue Guitar
The Blue Guitar is John Banville’s 16th novel. Our narrator-protagonist is a painter called Oliver Orme. We are in Ireland,…
Theatre, gossip and Guinness: the craic of Dublin
What a delight it is to toy with a wooden newspaper-holder rather than a smartphone, tucked away in the cosy…
Prue Leith’s diary: When did weddings stop being for parents?
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
Portrait of the week
Home A Bill to enable a referendum on whether voters wanted Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union figured in…
Charles Moore’s Notes: people who love making new laws like to present them as human rights
Amnesty International and others have placed a large newspaper advertisement telling Michael Gove ‘Don’t Scrap Our Human Rights’. The ad…
A sombre Irish family saga — that glows in the dark
The Green Road is a novel in two parts about leaving and returning home. A big house called Ardeevin, walking…
Why so many bankers secretly like Labour’s non-dom proposal
The interesting thing about Labour’s pledge to abolish non-dom tax status — a squib designed to trap Tories into expressing…
Bet on a swift Grexit
‘Will Greece exit the eurozone in 2015?’ Paddy Power was pricing ‘yes’ at 3-to-1 on Tuesday, with 5-to-2 on another…
A tatty new theatre offers up a comic gem that’s sure to be snapped up by the BBC
New venue. New enticement. In the undercroft of a vast but disregarded Bloomsbury church nestles the Museum of Comedy. The…
On the Yeats trail in Galway
The Go Galway bus from Dublin sounds an unlikely pleasure, but it is both comfortable and punctual. There is free…
The subversive wonders of Kilkenomics – where economics meets stand-up
‘What is a Minsky moment, anyway?’ asks Gerry Stembridge, an Irish satirist. ‘I’ve been reading about them in the papers…
A Troubles novel with plenty of violence and, thank heaven, some sex too
‘The Anglo-Irish, their tribe, are dying. . . . They will go without a struggle, unlamented,’ Christopher Bland, 76, declares…
Forecasting is a mug’s game – but I was right about the economic revival
‘Perhaps I should shift my prediction to 23 July 2014,’ I wrote in April 2012. ‘That’s the opening of the…
Start with a torpedo, and see where you go from there
Sebastian Barry’s new novel opens with a bang, as a German torpedo hits a supply ship bound for the Gold…
Don’t blame ministers for the Royal Mail sell-off. Beat up the bankers!
Vince Cable and Michael Fallon, ministers responsible for the Royal Mail sell-off, have been summoned for another select committee grilling…
