Often it has been Ireland’s writers and artists that have called out the hopes and failures of national politics, holding the polity to account in the culture.
Just after the second world war, union membership was almost 65% of the workforce. Now it is just 15%.
Wikimedia Commons
A diminishing membership base, changes to labour and industry and heightened political attention has left the once-powerful trade union movement flailing.
Christian, criminal or cowardly? People once thought your hair could hold the answer.
The Yininmadyemi sculpture in Hyde Park celebrates Indigenous and Torres Strait Island service men and women. On Anzac Day, who are we honouring?
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Anzac Day is a big part of our national story. But the politics of memory mean the parts of this story that don’t fit neatly into the Anzac narrative are too often forgotten.
The association of female underclothes with fashion and seduction owes as much to the advertising and film industries as it does to technical innovation.
Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ which described the rise of an American dictator, was turned into a play seen by over 500,000 people.
A father and son attend commemorations in Belfast.
PA/Liam McBurney
As the Republic marks the centenary of this historic event, it is becoming a very contentious matter north of the border.
Koori women Treahna Hamm, Vicki Couzens and Lee Darroch wear ‘Biaganga’, traditional possum coats at the Melbourne Museum’s Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Melbourne.
Julian Smith/AAP
Museums are cracking open the temperature-controlled, dehumidified display cases and inviting people in. Working with Aboriginal communities is reawakening cultural connections and ancient art forms.
Detailed historical research on the colonial frontier unequivocally supports the idea that Aboriginal people were subject to attack, assault, conquest and subjugation: all synonyms for the term ‘invasion’.
Whose story are you telling? Neil Armfield’s The Secret River is a chronicle of colonialism.
The Sydney Theatre Company/Heidrun Löhr
The stage version of The Secret River gives us a deeper sense of our history. But can understanding the past from different perspectives help us confront the inequalities that linger in our present?
A new exhibition gives us an insight into the daily life – and language – of Australian soldiers in World War One.
Courtesy of University of Melbourne Archives, University of Melbourne.
When Australians went to the Western Front, language failed them. So they invented slanguage: a mix of slang, French words and creative swearing that, among other things, gave us the word “Aussie”.
Like any other player, Robinson needed to earn his spot on the Montreal Royals’ roster.
The Jackie Robinson Foundation
If the word “reform” implies genuine public benefit, then real reform has been in short supply for all of the 106 years of electronic media regulation in Australia.