Despite suffering a heavy defeat to Six Nations holders England at Castle Park, Doncaster, captain Ciara Griffin insists the Ireland women’s team are closing the gap to the Red Roses.

The Lighthouse is being hailed as one of the best — and strangest — films of the year. Its director tells Esther McCarthy about casting Robert Pattinson, and why he used 100-year-old lenses

Alan O’Riordan looks back at his highlights of the year.

Des O'Driscoll talks us through his highlights for 2019.

Marjorie Brennan talks us through her highlights for 2019.

It seems an unlikely crossover to link iconic Irish writer Samuel Beckett with the business practices of 2019, but commerce has often taken inspiration from unusual sources.

It was the first day of meteorological winter yesterday, and the temperature had duly dropped on cue, perhaps reminding some at Old Trafford of Ice Station Astana.

The international acts get most of the attention but Alan O’Riordan says there is no shortage of home-grown talent playing on Leeside this weekend.

The theatre of Dead Centre has always been haunted: by the ghosts of Chekhov, Proust, Shakespeare, even, in Hamnet, Shakespeare’s son. So perhaps it’s a logical step that they have now given us a play performed by ghosts, or at least invisible actors.

A marked improvement in risk appetite has been a noticeable feature of financial markets this month, leading to a sharp rise in bond yields with equities making good ground.

The world premiere of How It Is (Part 2) at the Everyman in Cork lived up to expectations.

Currently in Cork for a Beckett play, actor Stephen Dillane tells Des O’Driscoll about some of his cultural reference points through the decades.

The British PM is right to think that suspending parliament has made a Brexit deal more likely. But the backlash could have serious consequences, writes Anatole Kaletsky.

Five things too look out for the week ahead with Des O'Driscoll

The Cork couple behind Gare St Lazare are back with a second instalment of their widely-praised take on the strange and wonderful ‘How It Is’, writes Marjorie Brennan.

A Portuguese fishing boat has been detained pending the payment of a bond of more than €150,000 after it was accompanied into Castletownbere by the LE Samuel Beckett on Thursday.

Judy Hegarty Lovett is from Monkstown in Co Cork, and is co-artistic director of theatre company Gare St Lazare Ireland.

After originally announcing new record i,i for the end of the month, Bon Iver took the music world by surprise with the digital release of the new album.

A new operatic piece devised by composer Brian Irvine and video designer Netia Jones tells the story of Rosemary Kennedy, writes Cathy Desmond.

The naval service is to tie-up two of its ships in port indefinitely due to a deepening manpower crisis.

Kevin Barry’s latest novel flits between the seamier side of Spain and his old haunts on Leeside, writes Marjorie Brennan.

From the Three Stooges and The Smiths, to opera that literally made him sick, Enda Walsh tells Des O'Driscoll about some of his cultural touchstones.

World premiers, comedy, music, and plays will dominate the summer/autumn programme at the Everyman Theatre in Cork.

The problem with Brexit is that it seems to restate the choice: are you Irish or are you British? says Victoria White

St Finbarr’s easily accounted for Carrigtwohill on Saturday evening in a resplendent Riverstown with a magnificent performance in the first round of the Cork SHC.

A 69-year-old man who suffered from ‘chronic shyness’ was dead in his home for some weeks before he was found.

Tonight, EU leaders including Mr Varadkar were discussing a detailed proposal to extend the March 29 date without any pre-conditions surrounding the deal.

Marjorie Brennan looks back on the year that was and selects her highlights of 2018.

Our Arts Editor selects his highlights of the year...

Mayfield 1-16 St Finbarr’s 2-9

Bill Beckett’s memories of St Finbarrs’ opening round game of the 2017 Cork senior hurling championship are stamped in his memory.

It’s funny to consider how much talk there is about hands in Irish sport once you concentrate on it, writes Michael Moynihan

Judy Hegarty Lovett of Gare St Lazare tells Marjorie Brennan about the Corkonian company’s journey into the musical mind of Samuel Beckett.

ON a cold January evening in Paris in 1938, Samuel Beckett was walking home with some friends after a night on the town when he was accosted and suddenly stabbed by a pimp called Prudent.

The Cabinet will today approve the redeployment of the Naval Service to the Mediterranean Sea to hunt down people-smugglers to ‘search and destroy’ their pipelines from Libya into southern Europe, while still saving the hapless men, women, and children who are sent out to their near-certain deaths in leaking dinghies.

Ahead of Gare St Lazare Ireland’s world premiere performance of Samuel Beckett’s How It Is in Cork, director Judy Hegarty Lovett addresses the audience, stressing that the Irish writer's original text was a novel, not a play, writes Marjorie Brennan.

Our regular contributors select their highlights of the year

The final series of the cross-channel drama can’t escape the shadow of Brexit, writes Gemma Dunn.

A debut book of short stories and a powerful new single dealing with suicide and are just two of the projects that Blindboy of the Rubberbandits has on the boil, writes Ellie O’Byrne

As the familiar scene played out – Stephen Cluxton and the Dubs going up the steps of the Hogan Stand while below on the field Mayo men gazed disbelievingly once again into the distance – neutrals above in the press box struggled to catch their breath and process just what they had witnessed.

Music, comedy, drama and the annual Christmas panto will bring the Everyman Theatre’s 120th anniversary celebrations to a close, the venue’s autumn/winter programme launch has revealed.

The Irish passport is rather wonderful — a montage of graphics, images, music and writing, communicating our Celtic past and present. It’s ideal if you’re stuck on a plane, with no reading material other than the mildly depressing sky-shopping and sky-café brochures.

Censorship in Ireland, which was largely overturned 50 years ago, meant the public couldn’t easily get their eyes on work by our best writers, making it a badge of honour, says Donal Ó Drisceoil.