1+ hour, 43+ min ago   (244+ words) People see me reading in cafes and remark on it. “Oh, the life,” they say, with a laugh that is not entirely a joke. And I get it. It’s 11am; I have a coffee, a novel and no place I need…...

1+ hour, 39+ min ago   (748+ words) The novelist Elif Shafak has published 21 books that have been translated into 58 languages and won multiple awards. Each time she sits down to write, though, she does something unfathomable. “I always listen to heavy metal when I’m writing,” she said…...

1+ hour, 37+ min ago   (339+ words) Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s pitch to make the process of obtaining Irish citizenship more lengthy – from five years to eight – and Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s strangely woolly reasoning for this is best viewed as part of what’s happening in the…...

1+ hour, 40+ min ago   (269+ words) Sir, – Listening from my home in Siem Reap to Irish radio coverage of Ireland’s latest Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, it is difficult not to be struck by the contrast with the country in which I have lived…...

1+ hour, 43+ min ago   (600+ words) Proposals to toughen the requirements for acquiring Irish citizenship through naturalisation have been drawn up with an eye to “what the rules are in other countries”, according to Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan. So how does Ireland compare? The length…...

1+ hour, 43+ min ago   (484+ words) A lack of suitable placements for “exceptionally vulnerable” children in care was the “dominant issue” in more than a sixth of cases before the courts examined in a new report. The ongoing placements crisis – which has meant Tusla’s increasing dependence…...

11+ hour, 11+ min ago   (250+ words) Israel has bridled at British foreign secretary Ed Miliband’s accusation of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in the “illegally occupied” West Bank. But ethnic cleansing is what it is. The E1 settlement project would forcibly displace over 18 more Bedouin communities in the…...

16+ hour, 33+ min ago   (265+ words) July 1972. I was 11 years old. In a country tense with uniformed killings and violent recrimination, my mother’s Austin A40 made a tortuous one-day journey to Toormore Bay in west Cork. It was a warm summer, but televised outrage had kept the…...

19+ hour, 1+ min ago   (336+ words) John Francis Flynn is up against it at Bohemian FC’s Dalymount Park, where he has to overcome not only the revelation that he once had a passing fancy for Bohs’ nearby rivals Shelbourne, but also the audience’s incessant chatter. The…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (784+ words) The Covid-19 lockdown provided the nudge Edel Duffy needed to launch her online business, Her Place Cosmetics. The Galway native and marketing graduate had moved to Australia in 2010, settling in Sydney, having first lived in Perth, but she missed her…...