Fintan O’Toole is op-ed columnist and literary editor of The Irish Times. Born in Dublin in 1958, he has been Leonard L Milberg lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton, drama critic of the Sunday Tribune, The New York Daily News and The Irish Times, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and Literary Advisor to the Abbey Theatre. He also edited Magill magazine. His most recent books are A History of Ireland in 100 Objects; Up the Republic!; Enough is Enough; and Ship of Fools.
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Published in: openDemocracyUKListen England, it is Ireland talkingBrexit is fuelled by an English nationalism as crude and self-deluded as Irish nationalism used to be. The best response is to follow Ireland's journey to an inclusive, pluralist vision of patriotism.
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Published in: Can Europe Make It?Britain must accept ambiguity to survive BrexitTheresa May and Brexiteers both insist on a damaging binary view of the UK and Europe.
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Published in: Can Europe Make It?Why the Irish political elite is terrified of SyrizaThe Irish political elite is deeply invested in an essentially religious narrative: Ireland sinned, Ireland confessed, Ireland did penance, Ireland has been forgiven, Ireland will be rewarded. If Syriza's strategy in Greece succeeds, this will be exposed as a folly.
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Published in: HomeInto EuropeEach EU country has a relationship to Europe which tells you about its own makeup, character and inclinations. Ireland, which entered the European Economic Community in 1973, is no exception.
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Published in: HomeIreland: the challenge of failure
The Irish government’s request to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for a financial bailout to rescue its broken economy reflects a far deeper decay in the country’s political culture and institutions. This is the very moment to begin to transform them, says Fintan O’Toole.
