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Reviews

NOTHING ON EARTH – CONOR O’CALLAGHAN (DOUBLEDAY)

July 15, 2016
DUNDALK-born O’Callaghan is better known for his poetry, but here he tries his hand at Gothic fiction. The result is a haunting debut novel... Read more »

FOLLOW DONAL

July 2, 2016
RTÉ 1 THIS LATEST cooking and travelogue series sees Donal Skehan visiting major cities around Europe, accompanied by local guides. Made up largely of... Read more »

A TIME OF TORMENT

July 2, 2016
JOHN CONNOLLY – (HODDER & STOUGHTON) THE DUBLIN author (and former Irish Times journalist) John Connolly is best known in the US, where he... Read more »

THE CONSTANT WIFE

July 2, 2016
GATE THEATRE THIS 1926 W Somerset Maugham play is the Gate’s bread and butter: a light comedy of manners, bordering on farce, that dabbles... Read more »

DUBLIN’S GANGLAND WAR – TV3

June 28, 2016
JOINING THE conga line in over-the-top documentaries focusing on the continuing Kinahan-Hutch feud, this latest attempt went through the familiar motions of what now... Read more »

THE PONZI MAN – DECLAN LYNCH (HACHETTE)

June 17, 2016
SINDO columnist Declan Lynch has written several books exploring addiction and his weekly column regularly focuses on the subject. This latest novel is about... Read more »

TOWN IS DEAD – PEACOCK THEATRE

June 17, 2016
IT’S ALL too easy for new playwrights to be tempted by social commentary. Wrapping stories in broad themes helps drama to take on some... Read more »

SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER

June 1, 2016
SARA BAUME (WINDMILL) THIS UNLIKELY story traces an eventful year in the life of a 57-year-old recluse who adopts an abandoned one-eyed dog. The... Read more »

THE GUARDS

June 1, 2016
RTÉ2 DIRECTED BY Barry O’Kelly and filmed over two years, this short series shadowing the work of gardaí in Dublin got off to a... Read more »

QUINNT-ESSENTIAL FEARGAL

June 1, 2016
FEARGAL QUINN – (O’BRIEN) PERHAPS the biggest revelation in Superquinn tycoon Feargal Quinn’s memoir, Quintessential Feargal, is that he once lost his temper. He was... Read more »

REVIEW – CYPRUS AVENUE

May 5, 2016
PEACOCK THEATRE THE ABBEY decided that O’Casey could wait. For the first full production of its 1916 centenary season, which aims to explore the... Read more »

TRIAL OF THE CENTURY – TV3

May 5, 2016
SHOWN LAST weekend over three consecutive nights (to coincide with the anniversary of Pádraig Pearse’s execution), TV3’s take on the centenary commemoration imagined an... Read more »

WRECKING THE RISING – TG4

May 5, 2016
WITH centenary programmes now linking arms across the schedules, this three-part bilingual series (produced by Tile Films) was a TG4 project to mark the... Read more »

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? – GATE THEATRE

May 5, 2016
OF ALL Irish theatres, the Gate boasts the most predictable programme, keeping its dedicated clientele entertained with a stable of reliable revivals. Now director... Read more »

FLAWED – CECILIA AHERN (HARPER COLLINS)

April 21, 2016
GRIM ALLEGORICAL tales about dysfunctional futuristic societies have become staples in youth fiction over the past decade. ‘Young Adult’ novels – predominantly written by... Read more »

WHAT ARE YOU EATING? – RTÉ ONE

April 21, 2016
OVER RECENT years Philip Boucher-Hayes has spent a lot of time on television peeking into school lunch-boxes or people’s supermarket trolleys – and drawing... Read more »

MADAME DE MARKIEVICZ ON TRIAL – PAVILION THEATRE

April 7, 2016
AMID ALL the salutes and flag-waving, one of the more welcome aspects of this year’s 1916 commemorations has been the willingness to examine the... Read more »

BISHOP’S DELIGHT – PATRICK McGINLEY (NEW ISLAND)

April 7, 2016
PATRICK MCGINLEY was born in Co. Donegal in 1937 and moved to England during the 1960s. His earlier novels – particularly Bogmail, Foggage and... Read more »

A FANATIC HEART – RTÉ 1

April 7, 2016
THIS two-part documentary traced familiar aspects of WB Yeats’s life – including his obsessive interest in fairytales, the occult and Celtic mythology. There was... Read more »

THE DROWNED DETECTIVE – NEIL JORDAN (BLOOMSBURY)

March 24, 2016
THE OPENING chapter of Neil Jordan’s first novel since 2011 appears to be in keeping with the conventional fast-paced crime thriller. Jonathan, the... Read more »

SING STREET – DIRECTED BY JOHN CARNEY

March 24, 2016
JOHN CARNEY’S obsession with music and film and films about music continues in Sing Street. It is fair to say that this is his... Read more »

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS – ABBEY THEATRE

March 24, 2016
NO MATTER what, Sean O’Casey’s Plough was going to be the natural dramatic centrepiece of this year. One of our definitive documents about the... Read more »

RECAP: Inside Ireland’s Financial Crisis

March 9, 2016
Kevin Cardiff (The Liffey Press) KEVIN CARDIFF was a senior mandarin at the Department of Finance from 2006 to 2010 and secretary general from... Read more »

THIS LIVING AND IMMORTAL THING

March 9, 2016
AUSTIN DUFFY (GRANTA) THE TITLE of this debut novel refers to the remarkable effort cancer cells give to growing and multiplying. Duffy’s story opens... Read more »

JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK

March 9, 2016
GATE THEATRE WHEN IT comes to tenement life in 1920s Dublin, Thomas Hobbes nailed it: poor, nasty, brutish and short. That’s the dominant aesthetic... Read more »

REVIEW – GULL

February 25, 2016
GLENN PATTERSON (HEAD OF ZEUS) IN RECENT years, Glenn Patterson has made his name as a reliable chronicler of ordinary life during and after the... Read more »

BIG MAGGIE – GAIETY THEATRE

February 11, 2016
BIG MAGGIE is back, and cynics have plenty of reason to raise an eyebrow. The timing of this revival by Druid – a nearly... Read more »

THE SCRAP – GENE KERRIGAN (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

February 11, 2016
AS THE 1916 centenary approaches and the commemorative market becomes increasingly crowded, Gene Kerrigan’s book traces the involvement of one rebel unit – F... Read more »

REBELLION – RTÉ 1

January 14, 2016
THE LATEST version of the 1916 Rising is told from the viewpoint of three fictional characters: Elizabeth (Charlie Murphy), a privileged Church of Ireland... Read more »

ROOM – DIRECTED BY LENNY ABRAHAMSON

January 14, 2016
LENNY ABRAHAMSON has been the critics’ darling for over a decade since his excellent debut feature Adam and Paul (2004). With Room, adapted by... Read more »

EAST OF BERLIN – PROJECT ARTS CENTRE

January 14, 2016
FROM Sophocles to McDonagh, Western drama is rife with troublesome parent-child relationships. It’s no surprise for the misdeeds of one generation to be passed... Read more »