Person: Seamas O'Reilly

Sign in

Person: Seamas O'Reilly

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

<p>Clocks go back an hour from 2am to 1am early on Sunday morning 27 October.</p>

columnists

Séamas O'Reilly: The clocks are going back this evening — apparently

If you’re reading this on Saturday, we’re right on its cusp. With a pleasing asymmetry, this time tomorrow won’t even be 'this time' tomorrow. It’ll be an hour earlier. I think...

<p>Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga in Shogun.</p>

columnists

Séamas O'Reilly: I was so engrossed in 'Shōgun' that I forgot I don’t speak Japanese

<p>Sources criticised Twitter/X for delivering its opening statement only an hour or so before the media committee met, and taking so long to make its presentation. Picture: PA</p>

ourview

Irish Examiner view: Disdain for Oireachtas committees is close to contempt for democracy

X representatives 'not aware' of Séamas O'Reilly's account suspension

news

X representatives 'not aware' of Séamas O'Reilly's account suspension

'Irish Examiner' columnist Séamas O'Reilly has X account reinstated

people

'Irish Examiner' columnist Séamas O'Reilly has X account reinstated

Séamas O'Reilly: I criticised 'free speech absolutist' Elon Musk's X. My account was suspended

people

Séamas O'Reilly: I criticised 'free speech absolutist' Elon Musk's X. My account was suspended

'Was it something I said?': 'Irish Examiner' columnist Séamas O’Reilly sees X account suspended

'Was it something I said?': 'Irish Examiner' columnist Séamas O’Reilly sees X account suspended

"Personally, I’m quite annoyed," said Séamas O’Reilly of his suspension from the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "Professionally, I’m alarmed."

Mon, 12 Feb, 2024

Séamas O'Reilly: A joint Bloomsday-Italia 90 Bank Holiday is one the whole nation can get behind

Séamas O'Reilly: My experiment in wellbeing, so far, points toward some improvements

I can’t speak for how any of this will work for anyone else, but it’s working for me even if I sometimes wish it weren’t

Sat, 20 Jan, 2024

Séamas O'Reilly: The constant atrocity in Gaza beamed into our pockets risks leaving us numb

Séamas O'Reilly: The constant atrocity in Gaza beamed into our pockets risks leaving us numb

The horror continues, and the fact that it crowds out our timelines is deplorable. But we cannot and should not look away.

Sat, 13 Jan, 2024

New Year Honours list 2024

Séamas O'Reilly: Britain's honours system - and the stench of mould

"Every time such egregious acts of cronyism are committed, there is a mild uproar. But nothing is done, changed, or amended out of some sense that the system currently in place is there for good or ill."

Sat, 06 Jan, 2024

Séamas O'Reilly: Presenting the first annual Séamie Awards for telly excellence

Séamas O'Reilly: Presenting the first annual Séamie Awards for telly excellence

"...I’ve taken it upon myself to conceive a brave new series of gongs to restore small screen achievements to their rightful place in the cultural firmament..."

Sat, 30 Dec, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: A joint Bloomsday-Italia 90 Bank Holiday is one the whole nation can get behind

Séamas O'Reilly: Managing a family Christmas... with ten siblings!

"Do you remember all their names? How did you all get around? Your parents mustn’t have had many hobbies, and always, eventually, Jesus, what were Christmases like in your house?"

Sat, 23 Dec, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Five proper Christmas films to get past the holiday-movie deluge

Séamas O'Reilly: Five proper Christmas films to get past the holiday-movie deluge

"Last year, Entertainment Weekly listed 172 new Christmas movies across all platforms. Extrapolating this backwards in time, it’s likely that around 700 Christmas movies have been produced and released since December 2020."

Sat, 16 Dec, 2023

Conor McGregor file photo

Séamas O'Reilly: Conor McGregor is a 12-year-old’s idea of a cool 14-year-old

'If [Elon] Musk is the stupid person’s idea of a smart person, [Conor] McGregor might be said to be a 12-year-old’s idea of a cool 14-year-old'

Sat, 09 Dec, 2023

School stock

Letters to the Editor: Sensible steps towards recruiting more teachers

The head of the Catholic Secondary School Parents Association responds to an 'Irish Examiner' editorial, while other readers consider topics from the Middle East conflict to assisted dying

Thu, 23 Nov, 2023

Cabinet Meeting

Séamas O'Reilly: It's hard not to feel that Britain is a deeply unserious country

"Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the figure of Rishi Sunak, a vaguely plausible hologram of a politician, an AI who’s been fed too few commands to pass the Turing Test."

Sat, 18 Nov, 2023

Trump Campaign Lawyers Hold News Conference In Philadelphia

Séamas O'Reilly: The US election of 2020 ended with the honk of history's greatest-ever clown car

"On November 7, 2020, while America awaited the results of the presidential election, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani held a press conference to discuss electoral fraud - this event was held, not at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Philadelphia, but in the carpark of a garden centre named Four Seasons Total Landscaping."

Sat, 11 Nov, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: I’ve been trying out new social media sites as an escape raft from Twitter

Séamas O'Reilly: Words way heavy in times of war, but silence on Gaza not the answer

"At every stage of the conflict, we’ve read bowdlerised accounts of Israel’s assault on Gaza, some of which only make sense if one considers all Palestinians responsible for the horrors done by Hamas, and Israel’s actions, and intentions, infallibly noble."

Sat, 04 Nov, 2023

TV Davies 3

Séamas O'Reilly: Nostalgia isn't what it used to be - especially as we get older

"Is that an impossibly young Jude Law in an old Sherlock serial? Is that Tamzin Outhwaite off Eastenders in a cop show that involves time travel for some reason? And for the love of God, which one is Dalziel and which one’s Pascoe?"

Sat, 28 Oct, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Writing of my mother's death recalibrated my grief

Séamas O'Reilly: Writing of my mother's death recalibrated my grief

"My mother died when I was five, so the grief of it is not something I process every day, at least not consciously."

Sat, 21 Oct, 2023

South Africa v Ireland - Rugby World Cup 2023 - Pool B - Stade de France

Séamas O'Reilly: The joys of fairweather rugby fandom

'Watching rugby, I experience what Alexander Pope called “the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, and only occasionally find myself bothered by not knowing what’s going on'

Sat, 14 Oct, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: The Cork-made Irish music film which has raised my spirits like no other

Séamas O'Reilly: The Cork-made Irish music film which has raised my spirits like no other

"...it was recorded during the 2021 Quiet Lights festival in Cork, in a host of locations around the city - all filmed with unfussy elan."

Sat, 07 Oct, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: I’ve been trying out new social media sites as an escape raft from Twitter

Séamas O'Reilly: The streetlights are on and we should use them to find answers and solutions

There’s a common pathology in making the left and right natural opposites, the horseshoe theory

Sat, 30 Sep, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: A joint Bloomsday-Italia 90 Bank Holiday is one the whole nation can get behind

Séamas O'Reilly: My new favourite TV show has to be seen to be believed

The show aired its final episode a few weeks ago, and it is one of the finest units of television I’ve watched in some time.

Sat, 23 Sep, 2023

Conspiracy ideas. Concerned man at computer think disinformation false ideas, vaccine covid ufo alien secret community informati

Séamas O'Reilly: How do we tackle the challenges posed by conspiracy theories?

"Conspiracies, however disparate, share a common goal; providing false explanations for complex phenomena and, more often than not, ascribing blame to a convenient outgroup rather than to their actual causes."

Sat, 16 Sep, 2023

Electric Picnic Festival 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: 'Celtic Symphony' detractors could do with thinking harder about their outrage

"The ‘Up The RA’ bit makes me cringe, mainly because it’s a tuneless football chant stuck in the middle of a song — a big shout, in every sense — which, to my ears, sounds awful."

Sat, 09 Sep, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: The push factors toward a United Ireland

Séamas O'Reilly: The push factors toward a United Ireland

"With the news that Australia’s ruling Labour party passed a motion supporting a United Ireland, it strikes me that their government is being more direct than our own, which is odd since the prospect of reunification has never seemed more likely..."

Sat, 02 Sep, 2023

Close up of wooden stump by batsman standing on field

Séamas O'Reilly: Sticky wickets, mental somersaults, and letting people enjoy things

"Like a benevolent God allowing His people their callow pursuits, I stride through social media, feeling every bit the moral colossus, refusing to be drawn on music I don’t care for, food that’s not to my taste, or films I actively despise."

Sat, 26 Aug, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: The generational human catastrophe of the housing crisis

Séamas O'Reilly: The generational human catastrophe of the housing crisis

"68% of all people between 25 and 29 living with their parents is not just suboptimal on a human level – it signals something deeply, deeply wrong with the way our society is ordered."

Sat, 19 Aug, 2023

Clickbait Online Clicks Web Links Cursors Millennials Addiction

Séamas O'Reilly: The clickbait business — and its taunting, teasing condescension

"There are fewer moneymaking ads and more weirdly compelling taunts about how to do everyday things. I speak, naturally, of “you’ve been doing this wrong your entire life”."

Sat, 12 Aug, 2023

Donald Trump

Séamas O'Reilly: Explaining and clarifying the charges against Donald Trump

"...America’s former president is currently under investigation in at least three criminal cases so bafflingly ridiculous that it is hard to get this fact across without sounding hyperbolic."

Sat, 05 Aug, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Climate change denial continues - among those in a position to help offset it

Séamas O'Reilly: Climate change denial continues - among those in a position to help offset it

Unless we commit to asking serious questions of those who want us to stop asking serious questions, we’ll do none of the things necessary to make sure future generations ever draw breath

Sat, 29 Jul, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Explaining the 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon and what it says about cinema

Séamas O'Reilly: Explaining the 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon and what it says about cinema

"The collapse of adult contemporary cinema was already being lamented for a decade before covid lockdowns arrived and, it would seem, cemented the final death of a certain type of cinema-going experience."

Sat, 22 Jul, 2023

Ulster bonfires

Séamas O'Reilly: The Twelfth of July — and the North's complexities

'Flattening the complexity of the six counties’ divisions into religious lines has always been a bugbear of mine — not least because it’s so difficult to avoid'

Sat, 15 Jul, 2023

RTE pay revelations

Séamas O'Reilly: Musical theatre ideas that could put RTÉ back in the black

"As a man of letters in want of a few quid, I submit myself to the powers that be, and offer my services to manage and oversee a few shows..."

Sat, 08 Jul, 2023

Hand Petting Scared Cat in Cage

Séamas O'Reilly: The 'kids identifying as cats' hoax is one of malice, not stupidity

"...my familiarity with this meme goes back a little further - I’ve been hearing of the litter box hoax for years, and my initial feeling was to be quite tickled it had made its way to somewhere I knew in real life..."

Sat, 01 Jul, 2023

Seamas O'Reilly: Roald Dahl edits more about corporate ownership than a 'woke elite'

Séamas O'Reilly: The merits of horror series 'From' - and the horrors of streaming media

"I’ve tried my best to recommend it to people, and it’s not exactly hard to find. It’s available to watch on Amazon Prime, NOW TV, and Sky Sci-Fi, but my pleas fall on deaf ears, because recommending TV shows is not the fizzing joy it once was."

Sat, 24 Jun, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Everyday strangeness and heart-swelling love — making of a modern Dad

S Séamas O'Reilly: Everyday strangeness and heart-swelling love — making of a modern Dad

'I blame the countless movies in which hapless dads are left alone with babies, conducting themselves like golden retrievers who’ve been left in charge of a nuclear submarine'

Sun, 18 Jun, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: The search for the Next Big Thing - and VR's permanent tomorrow

Séamas O'Reilly: The search for the Next Big Thing - and VR's permanent tomorrow

"...the company that owns Facebook and Instagram has spent two years pushing a free online virtual world to their user base of 4 billion people, and you have never used it, nor met anyone who has."

Sat, 17 Jun, 2023

MGN phone hacking trial

Séamas O'Reilly: The Harry trial - and Sky News surrealism

"British courts do not allow cameras and, presumably, Sky News thought that the traditional route for covering such things — pastel courtroom drawings, voiced over with monotone quotes from proceedings — lacked panache, so instead they had their actor stand in the studio, directly giving Harry’s testimony to the host"

Sat, 10 Jun, 2023

Seamas O'Reilly: Roald Dahl edits more about corporate ownership than a 'woke elite'

Séamas O'Reilly: Pondering the practicalities of the 'may the road rise to meet you' poem

"May the road rise to meet you - a charming message, hailing back to the days when Irish peoples’ lives were more in communion with the elements"

Sat, 03 Jun, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: On Tommy Bowe and that 'ten siblings!?' slip-up

Séamas O'Reilly: On Tommy Bowe and that 'ten siblings!?' slip-up

"Within micro-seconds, we become the centre of a meme which would entwine myself and Tommy in a braid of mutual empathy for all time."

Sat, 27 May, 2023

National Conservatism Conference

Séamas O'Reilly: Authoritarian nationalism has been a long-running political project

"In fairness, if your party has been in charge of the country for over a decade and delivered complete ruin to its economy, institutions, and quality of life, while becoming mired in innumerable scandals, incompetence, avarice and cruelty, you can’t exactly run on policy."

Fri, 19 May, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Asking the hard questions about Ireland's Eurovision decline

Séamas O'Reilly: Asking the hard questions about Ireland's Eurovision decline

"My first 10 years alive saw us win five titles in that time alone, back when we were the unassailable masters of the maudlin euro hit - usually eschewing the up-tempo dynamics of our continental cousins"

Sat, 13 May, 2023

King Charles III coronation

S Séamas O'Reilly: 'Whether I like it or not, I remain a British subject'

'The UK is undergoing the greatest cost-of-living crisis in living memory, with around 20% of its population in poverty, and two to three million using food banks each year.'

Fri, 05 May, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: The rise of 'stupid ideas' - and the fall of 'smart ideas'

"...imagine acquiring a platform on which nearly every single famous person on the planet, from Lebron James to the Pope, was an active user - then imagine inducing nearly all of those people to definitely broadcast that they would never pay you to do so..."

Sat, 29 Apr, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Spoiler alert - spoilers don't detract from the art of cinema and telly

Séamas O'Reilly: Spoiler alert - spoilers don't detract from the art of cinema and telly

"Knowing, or even suspecting, what was going to happen in that Succession episode was mildly annoying, sure, but that feeling left me the second my mental faculties adjusted to focusing on how it was done..."

Sat, 22 Apr, 2023

Séamas O'Reilly: Should Joe Biden just do a Zoom call next time?

Séamas O'Reilly: Should Joe Biden just do a Zoom call next time?

"Confusing the All Blacks with the Black and Tans was, let’s be honest, a masterstroke - as was his choice to greet the fine spread in a Dundalk deli with the exclamation “I don’t know why my ancestors left!""

Sat, 15 Apr, 2023

Seamas O'Reilly: Roald Dahl edits more about corporate ownership than a 'woke elite'

Séamas O'Reilly: Masked Gardaí attendance of evictions is worthy of artistic critique

"The entire controversy over this artwork appears to be a deliberate, and almost laughably clumsy, attempt to distract from the fact that thousands of people in Ireland are currently facing eviction from their homes"

Sat, 08 Apr, 2023

Royal visit to Kent

Séamas O'Reilly: Paul O'Grady was loyal to his roots, both Irish and Merseyside

His was a smile that showed the teeth, and we’re all the poorer without it

Sat, 01 Apr, 2023