The housing market slump in the U.S. has spread to Europe, according to this morning’s Wall Street Journal. It’s the same story over there as here: higher interest rates, tighter lending standards and wavering confidence.
France in the third quarter had its first quarterly home-price decline in almost a decade, and the Celtic Tiger, Read More
When people have asked me to name the greatest film of all time—in my humble opinion, of course—my instant answer has been unvarying for the past 30 years or so: Max Ophüls’ Madame de … (1953). It was released in the United States under the somewhat misleading title, The Earrings of Madame de …. I Read More
It’s a pity that Brian Friel’s wonderful Translations at the Biltmore Theatre is talked about as particularly “relevant” to the Iraq War. Relevance has become a nagging mantra of our times, as if topicality counts for everything. Mr. Friel, Ireland’s greatest dramatist, is a poet whose enduring plays aren’t overtly political. They point to the Read More
John McCain was back in town yesterday for a Irish-American event at the New York Yacht Club. Niall Stanage has the details:
Senator John McCain stored up some ethnic backing for a possible 2008 presidential bid last night, stressing his support for immigration reform – and recounting a story about a pair of drunken Irish Read More
It’s great news that Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore is to transfer to Broadway. Not only is Wilson Milam’s production of the dark comedy for the Atlantic Theater Company perfect, but Mr. McDonagh has written the most laughably staggering play I have ever seen.
Now, it could well be that there are better Read More
Dan Ireland’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, from a screenplay by Ruth Sacks, is based on the novel by the late English author Elizabeth Taylor (no, not the movie star with the profoundly purple eyes). Seventy-six-year-old Dame Joan Plowright has been cast here in the most dominant and demanding role that she has ever undertaken Read More
They closed lower Broadway to traffic on Oct. 3 to make way for horse-drawn carriages bearing the skeletons of African slaves discovered while we dug deep into the Manhattan earth 12 years ago.
The remains arrived via ferry after a tour of several cities, making land at Wall Street, where the people they once were Read More
Steve Humphries’ Sex in a Cold Climate , a documentary denouncing the Magdalene Asylums, which were operated by Catholic nuns in Ireland for over 100 years, caused an uproar when it was televised in England in March 1998 as part of Channel Four’s Witness series. An estimated three million people watched the documentary, one of Read More
The first thing you should know about Ciaran Staunton is that he doesn’t smoke. The second thing you should know is that Mr. Staunton runs a small business that may go under if Mayor Bloomberg’s smoking ban becomes law.
Mr. Staunton runs a pub called O’Neill’s on Third Avenue in midtown. It’s a place where Read More
The social clubs of Little Italy, where mobsters reputedly did business at the pool table or over a game of cards in the back room, aren’t places you’d expect to find blood-orange dipping sauce with your calamari, or rabbit-and-ginger sausage on your tagliatelle. But Wyanoka, concealed behind a glass door marked simply with a “W” Read More
