Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole (born 1958) is a columnist, literary editor and drama critic for The Irish Times.[1][2] He has written for the paper since 1988. O'Toole was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001 and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He is an author, literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views. His recent books have focused on the rise, fall and aftermath of Ireland's Celtic Tiger.[3] He has been a strong critic of political corruption in Ireland throughout his career.

O'Toole was born in Dublin,[2] grew up in a working-class family, and was educated at University College Dublin.[4]

In 2011 he was named by The Observer as one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals",[5] although he is not British and does not live there. In 2012 and 2013 O'Toole was a Visiting Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University, and contributed to the Fund for Irish Studies Series.[6][7]

Early life and career

O'Toole was born in Dublin on 16 February 1958 and educated at Scoil Íosagáin and Coláiste Chaoimhín in Crumlin (both run by the Christian Brothers) and at University College Dublin, where he studied English and Philosophy.

Soon after graduation, he became drama critic of In Dublin magazine in 1980. He joined the Sunday Tribune on its relaunch by Vincent Browne in 1983, and worked as its drama critic, literary editor, arts editor and feature writer. From 1986 to 1987 he edited Magill magazine.

He joined The Irish Times as a columnist in 1988 and his columns have appeared twice-weekly ever since. He took a sabbatical in 1990-1991 to work as Literary Adviser to the Abbey Theatre. In 1994 he was one of the presenters for the last season of BBC TV's The Late Show. From 1997 to 2001 he was drama critic of the Daily News in New York. In 2011 he was appointed as literary editor of The Irish Times. He also has published articles regularly in the New York Review of Books.

Views

O'Toole has criticised what he sees as negative attitudes towards immigration in Ireland, the state of Ireland's public services, growing inequality during Ireland's economic boom,[8] the Iraq War and, the US military's use of Shannon Airport, among many other issues. In 2006 he spent six months reporting for The Irish Times in China.[9]

His former editor, Geraldine Kennedy, was paid more than the editor of the UK's top non-tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, which has a circulation about nine times that of The Irish Times. Later, O'Toole told a rival Irish paper, the Sunday Independent:

"We as a paper are not shy of preaching about corporate pay and fat cats but with this there is a sense of excess. Some of the sums mentioned are disturbing. This is not an attack on Ms Kennedy, it is an attack on the executive level of pay. There is double-standard of seeking more job cuts while paying these vast salaries."[10]

In June 2012 O'Toole compared the Constitutional Convention to the Citizens Union, a reformist political organisation which Tammany Hall did not bother suppressing so long as it did not threaten its hegemony.[11]

Bibliography

Writings

  • The Politics of Magic: The Work and Times of Tom Murphy, 1987;
  • A Mass for Jesse James: A Journey Through 1980s Ireland, 1990;
  • Black Hole, Green Card: The Disappearance of Ireland, 1994
  • Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: The Politics of Irish Beef, 1994;
  • Macbeth & Hamlet, 1995;
  • A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1997;
  • The Ex-Isle of Ireland: Images of a Global Ireland, 1997;
  • The Lie of the Land, 1998;
  • The Irish Times Book of the Century, 1999;
  • Shakespeare is Hard But So is Life, 2002;
  • Contributor, Granta 77: What We Think of America, 2002;
  • "Jubilee", Granta 79: Celebrity, 2002;
  • After The Ball, 2003;
  • Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule the World, 2005 (with Tony Kinsella);
  • White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America, 2005
  • The Irish Times Book of The 1916 Rising, 2006 (with Shane Hegarty)
  • Ship Of Fools, How Stupidity And Corruption Sank The Celtic Tiger, 2009.
  • Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic, 2010.
  • Up the Republic!: Towards a New Ireland (editor), 2012
  • A History of Ireland in 100 Objects, 2013
  • Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks, 2016
  • Judging Shaw, 2017

Awards

  • 1993 AT Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism
  • 1994 Justice Award of the Incorporated Law Society
  • 2000 Millennium Social Inclusion Award
  • 2012 TV3 Tonight Show Journalist of the Year
  • 2013 Irish Book Awards (Best Irish Published Book of the Year), A History of Ireland in 100 Objects [12]
  • 2014 GALA Journalist/Broadcaster Award
  • 2017 European Press Prize (Commentator Award) [13]
  • 2017 Orwell Prize for Journalism
  • 2017 Ireland Journalism Awards Broadsheet Columnist of the Year

See also

References

  1. ↑ External Links:. "Irish Times Articles by/concerning F.O'Toole". IrishTimes.com. Retrieved Nov 2012. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. 1 2 "Fintan O'Toole - Personally Speaking Bureau". Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  3. ↑ O'Doherty, Cahir. "Who sank the Celtic Tiger?". irishcentral.com. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  4. ↑ McCarthy, John-Paul. "2003 interview with Fintan O'Toole". The Science and Art of Communications. http://penhire.ie/. Retrieved 29 November 2012. External link in |publisher= (help)
  5. ↑ Naughton, John. "Britain's top 300 intellectuals". 8 May 2011. The Observer.
  6. ↑ "Fintan O'Toole, Lewis Center for the Arts". Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  7. ↑ Princeton.edu News "Theater critic O'Toole to give Robert Fagles Memorial Lecture" Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine. accessed November 2012
  8. ↑ The Irish Times - Tuesday, 3 August 2010, "Inequity the bedrock of McDowell's 'Republic' "
  9. ↑ "The Corporate Media - Part 1, interview with Fintan O'Toole,". mediabite.org/. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013. Retrieved Nov 2012. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  10. ↑ "Irish Times staff revolt at editor and directors' 'indefensible' salaries", Irish Independent, 7 August 2005
  11. ↑ O'Toole, Fintan (26 June 2012). "Tammany Hall lives on in feeble reforms". The Irish Times. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  12. ↑ Roddy Doyle’s ‘The Guts’ named novel of the year Irish Times, 2013-11-27.
  13. ↑ "Winners European Press Prize 2017 - European Press Prize". European Press Prize. 2017-04-20. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
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