One man tells his story. The sex trade is one that exists under the radar. It is a sub-culture that many of us have heard reports of but have never experienced for ourselves. The sexual offences bill (2015) is soon to be debated in the Dáil and if it is passed in its current form […]

7 years ago

As the crowd waited for Leo Varadkar to arrive at Dublin Castle on Saturday afternoon, their attention was drawn elsewhere. Photographers had gathered to watch the Taoiseach enter through a narrow gate, made even narrower by construction works, that leads out onto Castle Street. But then another figure who might pass unnoticed in many parts […]

8 years ago

Pat and Mary Lyons speak about their daughter Arlette’s journey to Liverpool. Preparing to talk about their daughter’s abortion, Mary and Pat Lyons lay out breakfast. There are croissants in the oven and coffee on the hob. Retired from life-long jobs, the Lyons are focussing on their garden, on their hobbies, on their families. Photos […]

8 years ago

Dressed down in black turtle necks they came to tell us about love. They said sex was beautiful but only within the binds of a marriage, they said babies were beautiful but only when formed inside the womb of a wife, they said women were beautiful but their bodies should only be seen by their […]

8 years ago

It is snowing across Ireland and Paddy Jackson is supposed to be giving evidence in his own rape trial in Belfast. The gallery is packed, word has gotten out that he is taking the stand. His suit and tie are gone. Instead he wears a crew neck jumper and a new haircut. The public gallery […]

8 years ago

It was a night out that began with pizza, chicken wings and Carlsberg in Blane McIlroy’s house. It is a night out that in many ways is still ongoing. N.B. This article first appeared on JOE on 2 March, 2018 Accounts of the night have been heard in court through the witness statements of the […]

8 years ago

NOT GUILTY. NOT GUILTY. NOT GUILTY. NOT GUILTY. NOT GUILTY. NOT GUILTY. Six times it rang out in courtroom 12. The jury reached their unanimous verdict. With each count there was a cry from the families, low and guttural they broke the silence of the room. The four men stood facing the judge as the […]

8 years ago

Paddy Jackson addressed the media outside the Belfast Crown Court. Jackson (26), from Oakleigh Park, was found not guilty of the rape and sexual assault of a 19-year-old student in June 2016. Jackson, addressing the media on the steps of the court immediately after the verdict was handed down, said: “I’d just like to thank […]

8 years ago

The jury in the Belfast Crown Court has returned its verdict. Ireland and Ulster rugby duo Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding have been declared not guilty of raping a 19-year-old student in June 2016. After 3 hours and 45 minutes of deliberation it reached a unanimous verdict on all counts. Jackson (26), from Oakleigh Park, […]

8 years ago

All of the evidence has been heard, the speeches have been made, the trial of Paddy Jackson, Stuart Olding, Blane McIIroy and Rory Harrison is coming to an end. The atmosphere in the courtroom is on a pendulum swing with each phase of the trial. This week it hit a ball of tiredness. Barristers paused […]

8 years ago

“The lads? The legends? You decide.” These closing words of prosecuting counsel were followed by an invitation to the jury to return a verdict of guilty in the Belfast trial. For more than two hours, Toby Hedworth QC held a captive audience as he laid out the prosecution’s case against Paddy Jackson, Stuart Olding, Blane […]

8 years ago

The courts don’t usually open on a Saturday, this week they did. In the witness box this weekend was 26-year-old Rory Harrison. A former history student of UCD, an insurance worker in Dublin and a schoolboy friend of Irish fly-half Paddy Jackson, Harrison is accused of withholding information and perverting the course of justice. Already […]

8 years ago

Paddy Jackson was on holiday. He had just returned from South Africa and he was over at his friend Blane McIlroy’s house in Belfast. The jury in the rape trial of Jackson and Stuart Olding at Laganside Courts in Belfast on Friday heard the transcript of Jackson’s interview with the PSNI on June 30th, one […]

8 years ago

In Laganside Court Complex in Belfast, the defendants in criminal cases come in through the main door and use the same facilities and seating as everyone else. That Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding are on trial for rape, Blane McIlroy for indecent exposure and Rory Harrison for obstructing justice, only becomes apparent when inside Courtroom […]

8 years ago

“Don’t tell me I’m still on this feckin’ island…” Odes to Ireland are so commonplace that the country is in constant danger of being immortalised. But why anyone should want to immortalise a place that is as flawed and as cruel as Ireland is perplexing. We have bad weather, bad housing and bad transport. One […]

8 years ago

Today is history. After a four-hour long cabinet meeting, with a break for pizza, Katherine Zappone, Simon Harris and Leo Varadkar walked onto a platform in the Department of the Taoiseach and announced that the Irish government will be holding a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution by the end of […]

8 years ago

Outside Leinster House, gardaí are setting up barricades. The kind used for mosh pits at arena concerts. A black flag with a white lightning bolt is being hung from a parking pole and a projector is set up, ready to show the Dáil debate on abortion on the north face of Buswells Hotel. A sly […]

8 years ago

No one in Crossakiel will answer my question. “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said the bar woman in McCabe’s pub and immediately hung up. “Calling from Dublin, eh? Asking a thing like that over the phone? Come down here and show yourself to me if you want to know,” said the woman in The […]

8 years ago

No matter how hard Conor Skehan tries, they will not let him go… The chairperson of the Housing Agency planned to retire from his position. He handed in his notice, the end was in sight. No one thought much of it. The role is unpaid, despite its €103 million budget.  A new chairperson would be […]

8 years ago

Time’s Up, screamed badges from every lapel, Time’s Up, said female actors as they accepted awards, Time’s Up said Oprah at the Golden Globes as she told a story of a black woman who was raped by six white men in 1944 and spoke with a deep tenor of hope, reminiscent of Obama’s 2008 presidential […]

8 years ago

Kate O’Connell TD has a lot to say and she does not hold back. In the past year, O’Connell has called for the removal of tax on condoms, for free contraception to be made available to women, for repeal of the Eighth Amendment, for the legalisation of cannabis, for the decriminalisation of all drugs and for […]

8 years ago

This is the cancer killer secret “they” don’t want you to know… For years “they” have been keeping this from you, lying to you, or worse, they don’t even know they’re not telling you the truth. People are getting rich, lining their pockets by keeping you and your loved ones sick, but finally the real […]

8 years ago

Politicians are no strangers to negative reactions, but Kate O’Connell says she has received a whole new level of online abuse since she announced plans to publish a new bill. “Obviously in politics you get abuse all the time. But the level of vitriol over this Fact Act is stratospheric,” said O’Connell. O’Connell has previously […]

8 years ago

The way to end homelessness is not by muddling along with temporary and emergency accommodation, the clear solution to the crisis is to give people homes. Rent prices are 23% higher than they were in the height of the Celtic Tiger, house prices are set to rise by 20% over the next three years and […]

8 years ago

Michéal Martin sits in his office on the 4th floor of Leinster House, where the central heating is turned so high he rolls a plastic water bottle across his cheeks to provide some cool relief. As the year comes to a Dáil close, Martin is here to talk Brexit ” the greatest challenge facing the […]

8 years ago

It is a common display of outrage; an American reporter called an Irish actor British! Cue national outrage now! We hate being called British, we furiously resent people not knowing where the Northern Irish border lies, we drum up fury at the suggestion of our commonality and yet the connection between the UK and Ireland […]

8 years ago

It is the most watched show of the year and there was that one moment that made it… Gone are the accusations of The Late Late Toy Show promoting voracious consumerism and fuelling double sided santa letters. Gone too are its Dublin-centric notions, loyalty to the Billy Barry Kids and focus on celebrity. We have […]

8 years ago

Some of us are born in Ireland and some of us choose to make this island home. More than 110,000 people have been granted Irish citizenship since the Department of Justice began holding citizenship ceremonies in 2011. JOE followed one man, Samuel Isidoro, during the run up to this year’s ceremony in Dublin’s convention centre. […]

8 years ago

Kuda Mangoma, the son of Elton Mangoma – the leader of an opposition party in Zimbabwe and presidential candidate – speaks to JOE about growing up in Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship. “I went to boarding school when I was a teenager because my family thought I would be safer there,” Kuda Mangoma tells JOE. “I remember […]

8 years ago

A poppy is an instant identifier, an immediate association with Britain and for the time someone wears one, it sets them apart from all those who don’t.

8 years ago

Do you believe there is a safe working environment in Leinster House? This was the question put to Leo Varadkar today. Without pause for reflection the Taoiseach spun the question all the way back to a comfortable topic… himself. After a week in the USA, the Taoiseach seems to have brought home Donald Trump’s ability […]

8 years ago

“A nuisance for the Taoiseach.”

9 years ago

The line-up for The Capital B this week is akin to a PG episode of narcos, it’s got drugs, gold and computer hackers… Speaking on JOE’s business show Dr James Linden of Greenlight Medicines, said Ireland has the perfect climate to grow cannabis and he believes we have the potential to become the next cannabis […]

9 years ago

The Capital B is back this week with a show that will make you want to quit your job and be your own boss… Heading up our business show this week is the man who masterminded the change in Ryanair’s public image. From hated airline to less hated airline, Kenny Jacobs talks to our presenter […]

9 years ago

Heading up our business show this week is the man who revolutionised the Irish mattress industry…who even knew it needed revolutionising? The Capital B is like ‘doing an MBA without being surrounded by a bunch of people called Oscar’ (sorry Oscar). It’s business without the jargon and it is back in zingy form this week […]

9 years ago

The Capital B episode 4 has arrived! Leave the wind and rain and unseasonal frost behind and get a slice of global pie with this week’s The Capital B. Presented by renowned journalist and author Nick Webb, The Capital B brings you business savvy with  JOE founder Niall McGarry and Róisín Hogan, the Irish woman […]

9 years ago

Episode three of The Capital B has arrived and the line-up this week is exceptionally sporty. Presented by renowned journalist and author Nick Webb, The Capital B brings you the sharpest and most relevant business features every week. The panel includes  JOE founder Niall McGarry and Róisín Hogan, the Irish woman who very nearly became Alan […]

9 years ago

On Tuesday Vera Twomey will walk or be wheeled into Dublin depending on how her legs hold up. It will be her 9th day of walking, completing a 272-kilometre pilgrimage from Cork to the Capital.  Hoping to arrive on Tuesday, Vera’s intention is to stand outside the gates of Leinster House and demand that the […]

9 years ago

Our days of youthful innocence have long since passed. The innuendo is so strong here it pretty much hits you wet in the face. All day people have been spotting these signs in Shannon, Co Clare and sending them our way. We’re fairly sure the owners of Smithstown Auto Repairs, knew what sort of sexual […]

9 years ago

We’re already playing Purple Rain. This is big, this is huge, fans of Prince have long been confined to listening to his music on CDs and radio stations after Prince pulled his music from YouTube in 2014, and took it off all streaming services except for Tidal in 2015. All of Prince’s albums from 1978 to […]

9 years ago

“Let’s be brave, because then we don’t have to be afraid of the future” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of Germany. A centre-left politician was elected to the position of the German presidency today. In his acceptance speech, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 61, said Germany should be an ‘anchor of hope’ while democratic institutions were under threat across the […]

9 years ago

This may seem like an obvious one… It may seem like a clear yes or no, black and white, no grey answers, kind of question, but ask yourself, how many naked pictures have ended up on your phone of people you’ve never met, people who definitely never intended for you to see them naked? We’re […]

9 years ago

The taoiseach was speaking on RTÉ News. After a week of scandal, involving government ministers, state organisations and the gardaí, calls for a general election have started to roll in. Yes, so far the calls have come only from Gerry Adams, but the man is apparently a Twitter ‘influencer’, so we’ll hesitantly say; he’s got […]

9 years ago

Up there for thinking… We’ve seen some originality in the past, as people use every resource known to man to defend themselves against the erratic nature of Irish weather. Never before however has a man so wonderfully defended himself from the glare of the Spring sun. Sunglasses alone are not enough when Irish rays beat […]

9 years ago

“We are a democracy, not a one-man show. We are not another Trump enterprise” While there is an of unwritten rule in America that ex-presidents don’t weigh in on the current president’s policies domestic or foreign, none such etiquette applies to former presidential candidates. Although Hillary Clinton has confined her Trump sentiments to a tweet […]

9 years ago

There’s a lot more to it than just the obligatory swish swoop tap tap tap before a round of Our Father. If you’ve ever been on a bus and noticed a sudden mass movement of arms and fingers, you may have feared that everyone around you was silently preparing for imminent death and you’d somehow […]

9 years ago

The results are in… Over 3000 of you voted in our poll where we asked you who should pay the bill on the first date? Living in an unpredictable world where the ground beneath your feet no longer seems a sure thing, the established codes of dating might be the only certain thing we have left, […]

9 years ago

The citizens assembly is meeting for the final time today on the topic of abortion in Ireland. The assembly has been asked to make a recommendation to the Irish government as to whether the laws restricting abortion in Ireland should be changed. The citizens assembly, consisting of 99 citizens of Ireland, is intended to be […]

9 years ago

The trip has just been confirmed. Gerry Adams has confirmed that he will be traveling to the USA for St Patrick’s day to brief leaders and politicians on the peace process in the North, Brexit and the needs of the undocumented Irish in America. The Sinn Féin President announced he will be meeting with the Friends of […]

9 years ago

Protesting is the new American new hobby Ever since the Women’s marches that dominated American cities in the days following President Trump’s inauguration, protests have become an activity of fervour the world over. Rather than photos of brunch and cats clogging newsfeeds, there are videos of protests, homages to sassy signs and and there are […]

9 years ago