James Kent’s film about a great peace campaigner goes beyond the cliches of the trenches, writes Ed Power

NEXT week, The Irish Chamber Orchestra will present ‘Joyeaux Noël’, a programme of French festive music, at two of the country’s most historic cathedrals, St Fin Barre’s in Cork, and St Mary’s in Limerick.

Classy.

"A rotted body politic riven with lies and factions and a sense that debauchery, despotism and tyranny governs all," is how director, Michael Barker-Caven describes the background of The Rape of Lucretia.

Opera director Michael Barker Caven tells Colette Sheridan how The Rape of Lucretia still has much to say about sexual violence in war.

When an Irish composer with stacks of choral works to his credit and an enviable international reputation announces he is composing his first opera, it generates a wave of interest that reaches beyond the confines of new music cognoscenti.

This year’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival promises to be the best ever, writes Declan Townsend.

Adam Hills, Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker present The Last Leg tonight at 10pm on Channel 4. The trio are joined by comedian Frank Skinner.

The opening scenes of Tony Palmer’s documentary, Bird on a Wire, about Leonard Cohen’s five-week European tour in 1972 — which began in Dublin — show security manhandling concertgoers in Tel Aviv. Cohen coos softly, in his Quebecker drawl, into a microphone: “I know you’re trying to do your job, but you don’t have to do it with your fists.”

THIS was the question asked of Francis Humphrys, the artistic director of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, by the French horn virtuoso, Herve Joulain.

Though Benjamin Britten was an eccentric and unlovable man, his music dominates Paul Kildea’s benchmark biography says Eamonn Lawlor

ONCE again, Francis Humphrys has succeeded in attracting a host of wonderful performers to Bantry for the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, which begins on Friday.

Soprano Ruby Hughes is among the headline acts at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival this summer, writes Tina O’Sullivan

Brothers Kevin and Brian Cooper were the heroes as Marist College bridged a 35-year gap to capture the Connacht Schools Senior Cup at the Sportsground yesterday.

Arctic Monkeys have been honoured with the Best Pop prize at the British South Bank Show Awards in London.

The principal of Blackrock College has told the Brian Murphy manslaughter trial that he met one of the accused and another former student the morning after the incident and they wrote down their versions of what happened.

ByCharlie Mulqueen