Asterix and his chubby, super-strong companion Obelix have never truly penetrated Irish culture, but in France, the little and large, wittily violent gauls and their ongoing battle against the pesky…
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MusicWhat’s On?
Thumper: “The idea of every song is to be able to strip back to piano and a single voice and still give the meaning”
Down and dirty Dublin rockers Thumper are, by their own admission, flying further than they ever thought they would. Led by the charismatic Oisín Leahy, a frontman who started the…
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For a country as small as our own, it’s widely accepted that Ireland’s music scene, not least in our own capital city, is disproportionately successful. Naturally, then, a question arises…
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Rising Icelandic folk-pop star Árný Margrét is, quite simply, one of those unforgettable voices. Seemingly singing her soul, she brings the texture of her home in the Westfjords of Iceland,…
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Once a pariah in certain quarters, Sinead O’Connor was firmly proven, over the years, to be consistently ahead of her time. Her passing last week in London came as a…
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Over the years, there’s often been a bit of a cultural bustle about Smithfield. The spot just north of the Liffey has Jameson’s popular museum, and the now twice-annual horse…
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The product of members from disparate musical backgrounds, hard-to-summarise Baltimore synth rockers Future Islands are psychedelic, poetic, entrancing and particularly known for their spellbindling live performances. In frontman Samuel T…
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In the middle of a forest clearing, a cork-screw like structure rises above the trees: wooden walkways gently sloping towards dizzying heights, with a swirling, steep metal slide positioned around…
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At first glance, the photos of Belfast’s docklands in the 1910s look like little more than giant swathes of structural metal over a concrete base. Keep looking, though, and you…
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Located in the oddly inaccessible French massif town of Clermont-Ferrand (best known in Ireland, perhaps, as the home of Clermont Auvergne rugby club), Europavox Festival is an ever-growing European showcase…