One of the lessons I learned from Mervyn Taylor was that you can disagree with someone deeply, and still respect them enormously, writes Fergus Finlay.

Ireland doesn't merely tolerate inequality for people with disabilities — it insists on it. We need to cop ourselves on, listen to the Geary family, and end this shameful stupidity

From Rachael Blackmore to Leona Maguire, it has been a great year for Irish women in a sporting context. But a radio documentary lays bare the truth they face in the Defence Forces

We’ve lived through suppression and oppression, war and horror and famine and disease, to the point almost of extinction. And now we’re different. Thriving, achieving, building and rebuilding whenever we have to. 

Discourse about the festival is framed in terms of audiences and artists, but the big bucks end up in the hands of a multinational

Angela Merkel will leave an enormous hole in German and European politics when she finally waves goodbye next month, writes Fergus Finlay

We must open our doors to these families — and particularly women and girls — fleeing the most appalling fate imaginable 

The recent mess surrounding the Merrion Hotel party and Katherine Zappone's appointment and subsequent pulling out of the role of "special envoy on freedom of opinion and expression” to the UN, shows that the first rule of politics has to be that if you don’t want to get caught doing it, don’t do it in the first place

Due to the character of its people, this beautiful Irish jewel is a different, better place than when I first came to visit

We all owe a debt to his courage and integrity, but the country is still recovering from the rightward lurch initiated by the PDs