One of the best and astute political commentators the country has? (and he gets under the skin of the right people tbf) or has this accolade gone to his head a bit? His current "rent-a-thinkipiece" status leads to annoying comments about RTE not giving enough coverage to Northern Ireland's soccer team and also this article lately, saying Irish peoples antipathy to travellers is because we have a house and they dont is simplistic and well wide of the mark tbh - http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-travellers-keep-us-settled-in-our-ways-1.2406578
― tayto fan (Michael B), Thursday, 19 November 2015 18:11 (eight years ago) link
i think the internet has prob made most columnists worse and he's no exception. he takes arbitrary positions on things - that piece is particularly poor and looks like it took about 10 mins to write. fairly sure the reasons irish people are prejudiced against travellers is because there is a perception, rightly or wrongly, that they destroy the places they stay and behave anti-socially. all are tarred with this brush.
― doing my Objectives, handling some intense stuff (LocalGarda), Thursday, 19 November 2015 19:08 (eight years ago) link
He's a completely useless arse, the George Lee of George Lees, vapid rhetoric the likes of which would shame you to hand up as 'good enough' in a particularly low-rent politics degree.
― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 November 2015 19:26 (eight years ago) link
^^ i thought you were ok with him, darragh. youve posted a few of his articles here iirc
― tayto fan (Michael B), Thursday, 19 November 2015 19:40 (eight years ago) link
Not this past few years tbf. He's insufferable since the recession
― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 November 2015 22:02 (eight years ago) link
Was in front of me at theatre the last night- tellingly, we laughed at different parts the whole way through
― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Thursday, 17 December 2015 03:04 (eight years ago) link
theres some seriously gutbustingly funny quotes in that play tho. one of ye was trying to be too clever
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Thursday, 17 December 2015 10:00 (eight years ago) link
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/was-ever-a-generation-so-misled-1.2474254?__vfz=c_pages%3D8261900016606
this is really silly.
In May 2007, my late and much missed colleague Seán Flynn reported on the first Irish Times graduate survey of students in their final year. It makes blackly comic reading: “Final-year students in our seven universities are hugely optimistic about the future. Most believe they will own property by the time they are 30. Many expect to purchase a buy-to-let investment property within the same timeframe . . . And they are optimistic that the jobs will fall into their lap . . . By the time they are 30, most envisage a comfortable settled life with plenty of money and a dizzying array of travel and lifestyle options.”And they are 30 now. They’ve probably copped that “a dizzying array of travel and lifestyle options” meant “feck off to Australia or, alternatively, feck off to Canada”. The “comfortable settled life”, if it happens for many of them, will happen in Ireland’s 33rd and most attractive county – Co Elsewhere.
like beyond the ludicrous doom and gloom about leaving ireland, as if half the people here don't grow up dying to fuck off anyway.
further to that, i'm really surprised by the naivety of these students. i don't recall ever thinking that way and i'm from a fairly privileged background.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 22 December 2015 15:15 (eight years ago) link
FOT in mouth the whinging puling cunt
― darraghmac, Tuesday, 22 December 2015 16:57 (eight years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/northern-irish-peace-sacrificed-english-nationalism?CMP=share_btn_fb
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Friday, 24 June 2016 22:45 (seven years ago) link
Michael michael itll be civil war again if ya keep boosting this fool. You write better stuff yourself and id encourage you to do so on any topic o'toole schmoozes over
― Daithi Bowsie (darraghmac), Friday, 24 June 2016 23:12 (seven years ago) link
Oi oi im not a FOT booster!
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Friday, 24 June 2016 23:46 (seven years ago) link
can't believe he used the words "placed a bomb" in that article. pretty sensationalist and wrong.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Sunday, 26 June 2016 09:58 (seven years ago) link
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-there-is-a-way-to-beat-terror-seen-in-nice-1.2723338
garbage rhetoric from garbage rhetoric wasteman fuckwit. lock thread
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Saturday, 16 July 2016 03:40 (seven years ago) link
gahhh fuck this guy
Could you cite one or two of the sentences which provoked this reaction?
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 16 July 2016 03:46 (seven years ago) link
well theres absolutely nothing of substance there
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Saturday, 16 July 2016 03:56 (seven years ago) link
out of curiosity, did you read someone else addressing the same event with ideas you found more substantial? because I'm at a loss to think what sort of substance it was that you hoped to find.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 16 July 2016 04:03 (seven years ago) link
it is a terrible article
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Saturday, 16 July 2016 06:24 (seven years ago) link
to my eye it's just the normal empty blathering engaged in by political/social commentary columnists everywhere.
is fintan o'toole the irish times' equivalent of the new york times' david brooks? if so, then I would understand how endlessly repeated doses of irritating blather could lead to such a violent outburst of pique.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 16 July 2016 17:33 (seven years ago) link
I was being a bit OTT with the rancour. I suppose I expect better from this guy (altho im not sure why at this stage).
I have never read david brooks
― Neptune Bingo (Michael B), Sunday, 17 July 2016 12:00 (seven years ago) link
Speaking at the award ceremony after receiving the prize, O’Toole said “the greatest honour of all is to be in the same sentence as George Orwell”
Darragh is spluttering
― Well bissogled trotters (Michael B), Friday, 16 June 2017 02:44 (six years ago) link
“The degree to which Irish people understand Britishness is why some of the best analysis on Brexit has not come from within Britain but from an Irishman, Fintan O’Toole” https://t.co/rcKfI8kxoc— Jasper Sharp (@jaspersharp) November 21, 2018
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 20:49 (five years ago) link
says who?
una voce?
― old yeller-at-clouds (darraghmac), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 20:52 (five years ago) link
we held a referendum
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:01 (five years ago) link
bad enough to see fot here but um no
― old yeller-at-clouds (darraghmac), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:02 (five years ago) link
this is his personal thread, it seemed the least bad place to see him
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:04 (five years ago) link
its true i clicked to scoff but instead the horror the horror
― old yeller-at-clouds (darraghmac), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:05 (five years ago) link
*mission: successful*
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:06 (five years ago) link
There's no such thing as Britishness.
― Monica Kindle (Tom D.), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:13 (five years ago) link
we held a referendum abt that as well tbf
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:22 (five years ago) link
disenfranceised
― old yeller-at-clouds (darraghmac), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:22 (five years ago) link
ppl* on my timeline are currently saying "the ham of fate" is the only good thing ever written
*not me i have not read it
― mark s, Saturday, 20 July 2019 21:08 (four years ago) link
fling enough shit at a wall.
fot is expansive opinion bloviating without any research or insight and if you happen to agree with him in an article im sure you could read it without finding anything to particularly criticise but he is weak sauce of the smuggest pallor
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Saturday, 20 July 2019 21:19 (four years ago) link
the gist I got (from not reading it and reading responses to it instead) was that brexiters are nationalists + ppl people like boris are globalists and don't gaf about their supporters fantasies of autarky in the UK, despite constantly paying lip service to this nonsense ... it's probably not earth shattering insight + no ham on rye.. probably.
― calzino, Saturday, 20 July 2019 21:26 (four years ago) link
cant be doubted that bj dgaf about the drooling animals that want brexit but throwing any framework of intent on it beyond his being entitled rich prince anointed and them being beneath his contempt is a reach imo
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Saturday, 20 July 2019 21:34 (four years ago) link
lol in case anyone thought i wz exaggerating ("chapeau!")
I think this is possibly the best piece of political writing I have ever read - certainly the best analysis of a single politician. Sharp, funny, meticulously researched, beautifully written, and dead right. Chapeau, @fotoole.. https://t.co/UKoCB0cCf8— joycemcmillan (@joycemcm) July 20, 2019
― mark s, Sunday, 21 July 2019 00:17 (four years ago) link
I can't get past the title.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 21 July 2019 09:35 (four years ago) link
i reviewed this for sight and sound (it was very bad):
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51m4kjLgF3L.jpg
― mark s, Sunday, 21 July 2019 10:13 (four years ago) link
ok i read it
on one hand he does the homework so we don't have to: closereading bojo's novel and his biography of churchill for clues -- of course he's hunting for what he wants so he finds it, a stray use of a greek word from aristotle in the first*, a passage or two on the way our Great Wartime etc converted a lifetime's comical bungling, via very conscious performance, into a longlasting personal success (which many also take to be the rescue of the nation from the brink of doom). it also makes the usual dog's breakfast of plumbing all this into the poshboy milieu BJ is sorta-kinda from (eton etc), before obscurely finessing this with something like "the paradox being these posh guys are actually all globalists when the brexit masses are extremely narrow ultra-nationalists". treating this as merely a symptom of a currently very visible social set is a way of sidestepping how we got here and how we will get away from here (the name murdoch -- also in some sense a "globalist" -- is at no point mentioned)**
so tl;dr: bj is knowingly (even learnedly) pitching for a Great Man of History in Our Moment of Need, working his very specific learnt skills (clownishness and plus also being an extremely deft tabloid-style liar (and highly paid for exactly this talent) to wobble his way thru into the history books. aha but! cries FoT at this point, what if not tragedy this time but farce! and iris out complacently
*the word is akratic: which is indeed an unexpected word to find in a j.archer-type political novel: its root being akrasia, as discussed in the nicomachean ethics = literally “not being in command of oneself” viz exhibiting “weakness of will” and/or “incontinence”*****also unaddressed: the fact that "globalist" has become -- certainly on the far right -- a shorthand for "global jewish conspiracy", and thus not really a word you want to be tossing around lightly and vaguely? **here is a much better version of the akrasia argument (i also linked it on the brexit thread).i'm not really a fan of the neologism "stuplime" (tbh i think it's the main reason the essay doesn't quite land) and it feels dated in its immediate concerns (it's from 2017, just after the election and is now scattered with too much abt the anti-corbyn specifics of that campaign). but i like its rage and its will to step back and think structurally -- despite his (not awful) preparedness to dig into the literature, FoT at no point steps back to consider the deeper politics, of course, which is why the piece comes across so smugly (and why it appeals to those who don't feel in any sense responsible or in the direct firing line).
― mark s, Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:03 (four years ago) link
Don't know this piece, but don't agree that FOT in general is bad. He did a lot of real journalism in the past on beef scandals etc. He's been very strong on the history of Irish theatre - was just thinking today I'd like to read his book on Shaw. I've seen him give a very good public lecture on Flann O'Brien. His political writing on C21 Ireland was substantial enough to get a proper respectful critique in the NLR:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II90/articles/daniel-finn-rethinking-the-republic
- that's probably the most substantial work I've read on him.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:15 (four years ago) link
its abroad aul world and good different opinions are good
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:26 (four years ago) link
i should probably advance a point of view that the NLR would possibly be properly respectful of a front-line paper-of-record star name who presumably very much follows their preferred broad thrust of ideology, ireland a very interesting case study for political/social analysis given our compacted and extreme economic/social history over the scope of living adult memory.
and ofc from outside that is going to read as a strong case for merit in and of itself.
also ofc its all a matter of personal ideology and taste but put fintans pieces up against in the first instance the wildman ravings of a morgan kelly and over a longer, more measured term of reference the expert reassurance of a john fitzgerald (showing my own pref for v assured economist/theoreticians obv) and he starts to look a lot like what in the opinion of the thread he is- the egon spengler to david mcwilliams walter peck, except they dont disagree so much as never meet
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:36 (four years ago) link
who presumably very much follows their preferred broad thrust of ideology
not really: NLR is (broad thrust anyway)full-spectrum internationalist marxist -- tho i think yr right that it's a little too easily swayed by fancypants cultural credentials
― mark s, Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:40 (four years ago) link
Having mastered the form over Brexit (Heroic Failure), O'Toole is now going to churn out an "X has exposed the myth of British exceptionalism" piece for the liberal press till he dies. 2030: "The arrival of the Tralfamadorians has exposed the myth ..."https://t.co/UKCn8c90BO— David Timoney (@fromarsetoelbow) April 11, 2020
― calzino, Saturday, 11 April 2020 13:26 (four years ago) link
https://thebaffler.com/latest/ireland-we-hardly-knew-ye-sheehan
― mark s, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 15:28 (two years ago) link
Loved and learnt quite a bit from that piece.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 17:16 (two years ago) link
I have been putting off this piece all day for when I’ve time but just starting it now. You know when you know a piece will be good because of some perfectly chosen reference? That’s the Reeling in the Years mention early on. Here’s a flavour of it:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y65eSi0RnY
― mardheamac (gyac), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 17:25 (two years ago) link
"what happens to the boy in the bubble when the bubble bursts? he falls from a great height."
― mark s, Saturday, 9 July 2022 12:42 (one year ago) link
me yelling "im so sorry the correct answer is the MOOPS" at fintan
― mark s, Saturday, 9 July 2022 12:44 (one year ago) link
lads
When my son was 2, I heard him mumbling to himself as he was going to sleep, 'Mikhail Gorbachev'. It sounded like a promise that the world he would grow up in would be less fearful and more hopeful.— Fintan O'Toole (@fotoole) August 30, 2022
― mark s, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 08:45 (one year ago) link
:)
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Wednesday, 31 August 2022 09:41 (one year ago) link
i had just abt persuaded myself that fintan was in fact in on the joek when here comes stephen b to complicate the story lol
Surprised at the number of people suggesting this wouldn't happen - toddler repeats name that is often on the radio, more on this story as we get it. Have people on Twitter never sworn in front of a toddler? https://t.co/7rgo3qXO0w— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) August 31, 2022
― mark s, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 10:56 (one year ago) link
oh no it's broken Bush. If it was a joke then it's a decent attempt at this genre of shitposting.
― calzino, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 11:03 (one year ago) link
i mean obviously i dont want to admit FoT into the affiliated guild of acceptable shitposting fellows but
― mark s, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 11:07 (one year ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeEaVfWYAArs1K?format=jpg&name=medium
there was this photograb gem in the replies. Even Bush might put it in the "so didn't happen" category.
― calzino, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 11:28 (one year ago) link
This a week or so after Alexander Dugin claimed his daughter's first words were "Russia" and "our great country". Is this something wankers do now?
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Wednesday, 31 August 2022 12:15 (one year ago) link
it's a long-running* twitter symptom
*for weeks now and possibly even months
― mark s, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 12:25 (one year ago) link
In about July 1988 Bobby Charlton, live on BBC TV, referred to the USSR as 'that great country'. I was touched.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 12:36 (one year ago) link