Tonie Walsh (58) says he’s been making a show of himself his whole life, but at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, he’s getting up on stage to do so.

Williams has been adopted, willingly, as the battle queen of modern feminism, a shining emblem of the global movement towards equality and to right the wrongs dealt by millennia of patriarchy, writes Tommy Martin

Last Tuesday, we did it again. A State apology was offered to a previously marginalised group of Irish society who had suffered terribly, an, in some cases, fatally, at the hands of a brutally cruel system.

The death of Liam T Cosgrave is being greeted with genuine sadness by the vast majority of Irish people of all political persuasions.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

Historian Diarmaid Ferriter has criticised the ‘baptism barrier’ in Irish national schools, calling it a dark stain on the country’s conscience.

The heroes of the War of Independence suffered an inglorious aftermath to their sacrifices as politicians played favourites along Civil War lines, writes Diarmaid Ferriter.

Richard Fitzpatrick reveals some books that are certain to cause a stir this spring.

In his latest book, “Vivid Faces The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923”, Professor Roy Foster of Oxford again seeks to condemn Major John McBride’s role vis a vis the divorce case with his wife Maud Gonne.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Kerry Babies case in 2014, historian Diarmaid Ferriter and Irish Examiner writer Donal Hickey published a hard hitting news special on the events that many feel changed Ireland forever. Their work is no less powerful today as we reflect on the apology that has now been extended to Joanne Hayes.

A short letter whose 11 words helped change the course of Irish history is to be sold almost 98 years after it severely curtailed the Easter Rising.

Ireland manager Mick Kearney’s fascinating insight into a magical Six Nations climax in Paris.

SEVERAL days after 15-year-old Ann Lovett died in hospital, just hours after giving birth to a 6½lb baby boy found dead beside a Co Longford grotto, an anonymous caller phoned the Sunday Tribune newspaper to explain what had happened on that cold and dark winter afternoon on Jan 31, 1984 outside Granard.

In the pantheon of Irish patriots, a higher place might, under different circumstances, have been reserved for James Fintan Lalor.

The future of the Green Party was thrown into disarray last night as its leader, Eamon Ryan, announced that he intends running for election in the European Parliament next year.

A campaign group advocating a reform of Seanad Éireann rather than its abolition has said that the removal of the upper house would silence dissenting voices, limit debate, and amount to a “power grab” for the Government.

A campaign to save the Seanad, involving a number of prominent historians, academics and political personalities, will be launched today, promising to strongly oppose the Government’s “populist” proposal to abolish the Upper House.

Richard Fitzpatrick on two powerful men, operating on both sides of the Atlantic, who admired each other’s methods.

Diarmaid Ferriter’s new book on Ireland in the Seventies highlights the sporting influence on the nation’s culture, writes Michael Moynihan

Richard Fitzpatrick rounds up his top tomes of the year

Diarmaid Ferriter’s Ambiguous Republic portrays an Ireland where change came very slowly. Alan Dukes wonders how much, if anything, has changed

The chairman of the board of the National Museum has described as “cultural cannibalism” the decision by the Government to abolish the boards of the National Library and National Museum, two of the nation’s most cherished institutions.

As strong as the Catholic Church may have seemed, one of the reasons for the Pope’s 1979 visit was worry over its decline, writes Diarmaid Ferriter

ENCOMPASSING all the art forms, as well as food-themed events and debate, Kinsale Arts Festival (Jul 7 to 15) really has something for everyone.

Turtle Bunbury is inviting you into his family’s stately home, Lisnavagh House, for a one-of-a-kind history festival,says Arlene Harris

THE outcome of a public vote for the best Irish book of the last decade may not be revealed until next week, but sales through one website alone would make John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas a hands down winner.

WHAT the “special vice squad”, which patrolled the streets of Cork in 1935 because of concern about “the growing number of sexual offences coming to light”, would make of any Irish city today is not hard to imagine.

BOOKER prize winner Anne Enright last night added another literary award to her growing list of successes.

IT seems your columnist Diarmaid Ferriter (May 15) seeks to use the unfortunate experiences of writers Nuala O’Faoláin and John McGahern in effect to psychoanalyse the entire nation, and it appears the verdict is not particularly favourable to the rest of us.

ERIC CONWAY (Letters, April 17) is probably right when he says we should undertake a “critique of feminism”.

DIARMAID FERRITER won an unprecedented three Irish Book Awards with his book, Judging Dev, at the 2008 Irish Book Awards ceremony in Dublin yesterday.

FAR be it from me to cast aspersions on the historical bona fides of your esteemed columnist Diarmaid Ferriter.

THE book which last year claimed a senior politician, an airline pilot and a nun had admitted to taking cocaine has been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards.

TOM COOPER (Letters, February 14) refers to the the intolerance that has poisoned relations between Christians on this island for generations and polluted the good name of Protestantism.

YOUR columnist Diarmaid Ferriter (February 21) has drawn attention to the argument advanced by Niamh Puirséil, historian of the Labour Party, that “social partnership could have become a reality much earlier if Fine Gael had not been so hostile to trade unions when in government in the 1980s”.

YOUR columnist Diarmaid Ferriter dealt with the origins of Fine Gael (February 21).

I DISAGREE with most of what your columnist Diarmaid Ferriter had to say about Cardinal Connell (February 14).

DIARMAID FERRITER’S column headlined ‘American hero who threatens to wound a whole New generation’ (February 7) lambasted John McCain. Since when did you engage writers who could be from the Obama and Clinton campaigns to write opinion pieces?

THE recent news that the census returns for 1901 and 1911 are to be made available on the internet is very welcome.

THE managing director of Mercier Press, Clodagh Feehan, is upset that Diarmaid Ferriter’s major work, Judging Dev, has been circulated to the schools (Letters, December 5).

NOW that historian Diarmaid Ferriter’s recent book on Eamon de Valera has been sent to all the schools at our considerable expense, when can we expect a follow-up with Martin Mansergh’s epic The Spirit of the Nation — the collected speeches of one CJH?

THERE is no doubt that in Judging Dev, historian and newspaper columnist Diarmaid Ferriter has written a fine book, but it is also one that takes a favourable view of its subject.