Vincent Van Gogh travelled a rough road, often of his own making. His chief artistic master, Jean-François Millet, said that art was a battle, and one that you had to put your whole life into. Van Gogh took this, as…

Donal Ryan has, in previous work, established his facility for inhabiting the minds and spirits of his characters

The proportion of Irish men who acknowledged responsibility for the

It is curious how ‘mimesis’, the ability to accurately depict nature, ‘skill’, the deployment of acquired manual dexterity, and ‘beauty’, formerly

The runaway slave Tony Small saved the life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald

What is alluring about dogs includes ‘their freedom, their lack of inhibition’, their dwelling in the moment – without apprehensiveness, but without hope. This is enviable in a way, yet we don’t entirely want it. Having a pet can extend…

It is not in the nature of states to give up territory. Why did the Provisionals, after several years of conflict, continue to believe that a few hundred men with Armalites could defeat a nuclear power? How could they claim…

In his latest book, Joseph Hassett seeks to restore the full poetic and personal context to some of Yeats’s most famous and most quoted lines. The result is one of the most beautiful and enjoyable books on the poet ever…

The thinking behind Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s working practice

Frank McCourt’s Limerick: a place where the sun never shone

Barack Obama had all the qualities that make for a great president. Competent, incorruptible, calm yet

It is widely accepted that there was often collusion – and more ‑ between