The raucous new version of the Dickens classic is winning much praise, writes Laura Harding.

Below is a join-the-dots of some of 2020’s cultural anniversaries around Europe.

Chris Wasser takes a closer look at the enduring legacy and phenomenal impact on literature and film of Charles Dickens’ life-affirming classic, ‘A Christmas Carol’

Joan Diver is the drummer and vocalist with Donegal all-sister Celtic pop band Screaming Orphans. They play Cyprus Ave in Cork on Sunday with Leo Moran (Saw Doctors) and Padraig Stevens.

REVIEW: This superb adaptation of A Christmas Carol puts a contemporary twist on Dickens' classic tale, writes Alan O'Riordan.

Irene Kelleher’s play puts a modern twist on Dickens character Miss Havisham, writes Colette Sheridan

By providing a benign shelter for conflicting identities, the European Union helped end the Troubles in the North. To forget this is to risk a return to the past. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ is a warning from history that should not be forgotten, says Roisin McAuley.

It’s as if they learned everything they know about Ireland from comic books when they were eight, writes Fergus Finlay

It seems humanly impossible not to have some sympathy for the Islamic State “brides” and their unfortunate children, many of whom are dying in refugee camps.

Having a Jewish husband and a son with Down syndrome ensured Irish composer Deirdre Gribbin’s piece on the Kindertransport movement is particularly personal. It will be premiered in West Cork, writes Cathy Desmond.

Macbeth and Hamlet were mentioned by the main protagonists, but in truth, it was far closer to A Christmas Carol.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald has backed calls for the Government to find €1m to fund implementation of a 2002 national sexual abuse report, saying a “large-scale” review of the scale of the problem is “worthwhile”.

“Sure there’s a catch, Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.” — Joseph Heller, Catch-22

SOME novelists expect their readers to learn a new language. Clockwork Orange is challenging, and so, more recently, is Trainspotting. The Gringo Champion is equally demanding.

Eleanor McEvoy suffered the tragic loss of her collaborator while making her new album, writes Ed Power.

On the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, Olivia Kelleher, talks to Trinity lecturer Daragh Downes about the woman, her talent and her legacy

You don’t need to be one of Agatha Christie’s famous detectives to uncover the charms of this famous spa town, says John Chambers.

Des O’Sullivan on the discovery of a portrait by Cork’s Daniel Maclise. An x-ray of the painting revealed 70% of it’s surface to be unoriginal.

‘Dodgers’ is Bill Beverly’s dazzling crime novel that follows the blood-soaked journey of East, a Los Angeles gang member, and his three friends sent on a mission to kill a key witness. John Daly savours the grizzly tale.

Did Charles Dickens execute the most audacious literary fraud ever or was the Pickwick Papers a work of stunning originality? Mary Leland unravels the threads of a riveting fictionalised account of the book’s origins.

Peacekeepers — The Irish in South Lebanon is on RTÉ One at 9.35pm on Tuesday.

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy decries Brexit, claiming it is the victory of fusty England over an England open to the world and fully in touch with its glorious past.

"You speak English, but you can’t even rap, your rhymes are non-existent like my inner thigh gap!”

WHEN Christopher Hitchens died from oesophageal cancer in December 2011, the world of letters lost one of its most compelling and provocative minds. 

A judge at the Dublin Children’s Court has compared the litany of shoplifting charges against a 13-year-old girl to something “out of a Dickens novel”.

Cork-born Cónal Creedon is a novelist, playwright and documentary film maker. His latest book, The Immortal Deed Of Michael O’Leary, is an account of a man from Inchigeelagh, Co Cork, who became a hero of the First World War.

Just What ‘Class’ is Roy Keane, Then?

This distinctive property near Kinsale has plenty of potential for prospective buyers, writes Tommy Barker.

This distinctive property near Kinsale has plenty of potential for prospective buyers, writes Tommy Barker.

Legendary folks from the 1800s will be joining up with our assassin’s for Syndicate in a massive bonus game mode.

Emily Lockhart writes for young adults but does not shy away from themes no matter how difficult they are but, she tells Tony Clayton-Lea that it is important to realise that her readers are on a journey of exploration.

My idea of misery is to be stuck in a house without a book. When I was a child, being a writer never entered my consciousness.

RICKSHAW drivers occupy a ubiquitous presence on the streets of the West End. But most Londoners never even give them a moment’s thought.

Peter Ackroyd is one of the most productive and elegant biographers writing in English today but is often accused of not uncovering anything new about his subjects. That doesn’t matter, he tells Tony Clayton-Lea

AIDAN Dooley is from Claddagh, Co Galway, and gave up a job in AIB to work in theatre. He brings his Tom Cream — Antarctic Explorer to the Everyman in Cork on May 19-23.

Architect-designed Gadshill was cutting-edge and has an impressive BER rating of B3, says Tommy Barker.

by Thomas Pynchon

The evidence, the damning evidence, that we have not properly planned for well-flagged developments is all around us. 

Millions of wills including those of Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Alan Turing, and Beatrix Potter are now available online.

Millions of wills including those of Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Alan Turing, and Beatrix Potter are now available online.

The British Home Office is expected to come under fire today when a key report into its handling of child sex abuse allegations is published.

When Carl Plover was a boy his mother read Under Milkwood to him and his new show marks today’s centenary of the Welshman’s birth, says Colette Sheridan