Culture File

The Comfort Zone: artist and performer, Rónán Ó Raghallaigh asks Colm and Luke to focus on the work of French-American band, Gorjira's album, Fortitude, in a conversation that touches on metal's relationship with trance and pre-Christian Irish traditions of imbas forosnai, as well as the politics of noise, wind turbines, Prof. Ivor Brown, and Californian gay biker culture.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Shortwave Orchestra is a collection of experimental musicians who came together to play for the first time in Dublin in April. Following their world premier performance, Culture File convened a panel featuring Orchestra members, Aileen Wallace, Bryan O’Connell, Dennis McNulty and Orchestra instigator, Touch's Mike Harding, to talk about the modular synth scene, endangered communities and surviving in the avant garde. (photo: Fergus Kelly)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone's Colm Tóibín suggests reading a new literary biography by Nicholas Boggs, Baldwin: Alove Story; artist Harold Offed thinks a trip to your local Brazilian foods store would be a solid idea; and Luke Clancy recommends Emily leBarge's art 'n' trauma memoir, Dog Days.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone: TS Eliot Prize-winning Canadian poet, Karen Solie suggests our present moment might be an apt time for Colm Tóibín, Luke Clancy and everyone else to read Jim Thompson's nasty and hilarious Southern novel of crime, corruption and excrement, "Pop 1280".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Y'know, Cecil Taylor is way easier to enjoy if you slow it right down, and other insights from composer, musician, and .25 speed YouTube clip enthusiast, claire rousay. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you coming for an echtra, or ancient Irish outing to the otherworld, with artist Louis Haugh? Paddy Woodworth is waiting within, the greatest ever photobook of Costa Rican caterpillars in his hands; and Welsh triple harpist Cerys Hafana recounts a harp journey away from everything that is high, washy or angelic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why you need to see Truong Minh Quy's film, Viet and Nam, listen to Connie Converse's album, How Sad, How Lonely and read Tove Jansson's Finn Family Moomins. Colm Tóibín, Meghan O'Gieblyn and Luke Clancy have their reasons.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone: Helen Flanagan of "art hag" duo, Spooky Beore, suggests Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy spend some time contemplating the hand bells of medieval Ireland, and their many unintended uses, including in the laying on of curses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone: Helen Flanagan of "art hag" duo, Spooky Beore, suggests Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy spend some time contemplating the hand bells of medieval Ireland, and their many unintended uses, including in the laying on of curses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canadian composer, Thierry Tidrow who features in this year's New Music Dublin festival on the strange history of Claude Vivier, the art of capturing online speech in music, and his attraction to making opera for children.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legendary jazz vocalist Norma Winstone on learning to understand the voice as an instrument, the genius of bandmate, Kenny Wheeler, and how Drake became her most famous fan. Also, Paddy Woodwth awards Scott Weidensaul's Living on the Wind some cherished space on the Naturalist's Bookshelf.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone: New York-born, Dublin-based fine artist and photographer Ishmael Claxton invites Colm and Luke to head to an imaginary, demon-and-talking-animal-filled Japan in the 14th century, to encounter a masterwork from the Japanese Disney, Studio Ghibli, directed by its founder, Hayao Miyazaki.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Composer, improvisor and evangelist for the power of children's music, Ríona Sally Hartman leads a tour of her musical world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you enjoyed Orit Gat's essay on Tracey Emin's sort-of-retrospective at Tate Modern (which you can hear in the current edition of Culture File), here is some further conversation between Orit Gat and Luke Clancy, around Emin, Autofiction, Bad Museums, Rose Wiley and Nobel Prize Winners.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Orit Gat takes in the new Tate Modern show from former YBA, now officially OBA, Tracey Emin; Rachel Andrews is at Cork's Make2026, with Prof Helen A. Fielding to learn which AI to love; and Patrick O'Laoghaire's Island postcard comes from a road near Clifden.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marking your cards for some time well spent, The Comfort Zone's Colm Tóibín suggests spending (quite a few) minutes with The Met's latest production of Tristran und Isolde (screening in select Irish cinemas this weekend); artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh offers Carlo Ginsberg's The Cheese and The Worms; and Luke Clancy counters the two series of Lucia Keskin's sitcom, Things You Should have Done.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Comfort Zone: Artist Maeve Stone champions Katie Paterson's deep time artwork, Future Library, and sparks a conversation with Colm Tóibín about space, eternity and marshmallows.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Events on Valentia Island around 360 million years ago set in motion an exhibition from artist Bryony Dunne, currently at the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sound artist and composer Tarek Atoui, musician and recordist Natalia Beylis, and Oxn drummer, Eleanor Myler probe the act of making a sound, and the art of receiving one. Recorded at IMMA, Kilmainham.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Essayist, Meghan O'Gieblyn invites Colm Toibin and Luke Clancy to an encounter with French philosopher and mystic, Simone Weil, in particular her posthumously published essay/poem  Attention and Will.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rion Hanora O'Donovan on the place of 'bad' graffiti in her clothes designs; Dermot Rogers puts some sunlight on the legacy of jazz guitarist, Louis Stewart; Paddy Woodworth slips Esther Woolfson on to the Naturalist's Bookshelf; and Patrick O'Laoghaire starts a new series musical Island postcards.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. Artist and performer, Harold Offeh encourages Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy to think/talk about the late US artist, William Pope.L's performance crawls, as well as the powers of lounging and of silliness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File XXXL Edition | After a troubled Northern Irish childhood, Vivien Hewitt found a new life in Italy, and in opera. The director and designer takes a seat in the afternoon quiet of Trieste's Theatre Verdi to talk about a life in the dreamworld of opera.(Photo credit: Vivien Hewitt)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. XXXL Edition. Drummer, vocalist and member of the danktrad supergroup, OXN, Eleanor Myler leads Colm Tóibín into the nice 'n' steady sound of krautrockers, Neu! (From 111025)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Culture File panel explores the place of quiet and loud in the contemporary attention economy, with poet, Paula Meehan and musicians and composers, Siobhán Cleary, John Godfrey, and Christine Tobin. Recorded live at New Music Dublin 2025. (From 260425)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone XXXL Edition: Artist and curator, Kerry Guinan join Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy to rake over the embers of art-provocateurs K-Foundation's 1994 performance of burning £1 million on a Scottish island. (First broadcast July 25)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How birds and their metaphors move through the work and the lives of novelist, John Banville, art critic, Orit Gat, novelist, Sara Baume, journalist and author Paddy Woodworth. Under consideration are: The Pigeon; The Swift; The Wheatear; and The Crane. But which scribe fancies which wìngéd muse? (First broadcast Dec 24)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this XXXL edition of The Comfort Zone, The Rats: 'horrademic' Prof Darryl Jones brings a favourite 1970s gorecore novel into the Zone, with a steer that James Herbert's The Rats, racism, misogyny and homophobia notwithstanding, has something to offer the world of 2025. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this XXXL edition of the debate, an ancient Irish farming tradition that sees the wisdom of leaving some farm land free from the imperatives of production -- ‘The Hare’s Corner’ -- is celebrated in poetry, story, discussion and music. Paddy Woodworth leads a panel featuring Jane Clarke, Catherine Cleary, Jane Carkill and Colm Mac Con Iomaire.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. Music critic Michael Dervan wants everyone in the zone to enjoy the artistry of The Great Slydini and other masters of sleight of hand and misdirection.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Outlandish Theatre Company's performance event Freedom uses the myth of Antigone to explore the act of speaking about Gaza, about the limits of art and speech. Listen to the piece in its entirety here. Recorded live at Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD, Dublin in November 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Outlandish Theatre's latest, Freedom works with the myth of Antigone to focus on the act of speaking about Gaza, about the world in which it exists, and about the limits of art and speech. After the show's Dublin debut, the creative team gathered to explore further for the Culture File Debate. Check the Culture File feed for a live recording of the Freedom performance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. Translator, Joshua Barley encourages Colm Tóibín to watch Reconstruction (Anaparastasi) Theo Angelopoulos' 1970 avant police procedural set in the rock-studded, murder-harbouring landscape of the Northern Greek province of Epirus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone XXXL Edition. Translator, Joshua Barley encourages Colm Tóibín to watch Reconstruction (Anaparastasi) Theo Angelopoulos' 1970 avant police procedural set in the rock-studded, murder-harbouring landscape of the Northern Greek province of Epirus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 Hour Raga People at a festival in Redhook, NY; by the banks of the River Nore, Tadhg O'Sullivan journeys into art that might not get made ; and in Piccadilly, the largest ever European Survey for the veteran American, Kerry James Marshall, a painter of Black American life like no other.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone XXXL Edition. Composer, Fiona Merivale encourages Colm Tóibín to tune into The Art of Listening: Under Water, a recent work by the legendary Norwegian recordist and composer, Jana Winderen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hamburg-born composer and pianist, Niklas Paschburg on the shortcomings of perfection and his footstamping solo piano outings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this XXXL edition, Luke Clancy and panel make the case for loving some teeming critters of the invertebrate kingdom. Advocating for their favourites are: Rachel McKenna (shieldbugs); Liam Lysaght (wasps); Cassia Gaden Gilmartin (earwigs); and Nessa Darcy (woodlice). Recorded live at National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin as part of Dublin Book Festival.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Curator, Beulah Ezeug takes a tour of some of the work she's brought into the big tent of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2025, including the immense quilts by artist, Jessica Zamora-Turner.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. XXXL Edition. Beatledemic Christine Feldman-Barrett joins Luke Clancy and Colm Toibin to watch the latest in a long line of Beatlementaries, and talk about Taylor Swift, fandom and the secrets of sex appeal (they're secret).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén on the music of a Celtic Utopia in their new documentary, plus Light Moves festival teams up with Palestinian Movement Film Festival, as well as Catherine Young Dance and the Palestinian company El Funoun, for a Palestinian dance solidarity happening.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Worshiping giant sturgeons at the Iron Gates in Barbara Knežević's new film; keeping the Hot Club de Paris sound alive on the banks of the Tolka; and Navid Navab and Garnett Willis on their Organism platform, erected around a collection of organ pipes salvaged from a Montreal church.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone. Academic and editor, Rosie Lavan wants us to think again about John Boorman's rosey 1987 Blitz biopic, Hope and Glory.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Musical director of African Gospel Choir Dublin, Adeniyi Allen-Taylor on the ingredients of his music - and his Ọba Ńlá 2025 concert, showcasing his Afro-beat Orchestra.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File | The place of perfume in music making with DJ-Producer, Moving Still; how Dublin pub Grogan's defies the partification odds; the sound of Palestine, with all female choir, Banat Al-Quds; and Paddy Woodworth on the cosmic lives of swifts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Presents: The Comfort Zone XXXL edition. Drummer, vocalist and member of the danktrad supergroup, OXN, Eleanor Myler leads Colm Toibin into the nice 'n' steady sound of krautrockers, Neu!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colm Toibin and Comfort Zone visitor, composer Jennifer Walshe, share some things worth bringing into your head and your home.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The myths and meanings of fire with: Dr Cathy Smith of Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires; ANNEX co-founder Donal Lally; Andrew Scott, Professor of Modern and Ancient Fire Systems, and artist and performer, Rónán Ó Raghallaigh. (First broadcast 291022)Luke Clancy's culture come-all-ye, featuring bright spots in music, performance, film, tv and art from Ireland and the world. Broadcast Wednesday night at 9pm and Saturdays at 6.30pm on RTÉ lyric fm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The horticultural turn in contemporary art has a long history, but the urgency with which artists address our patches of green has never been greater. Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Sara Muthi, Helen Flanagan and Elida Maiques join Luke Clancy to discuss artists and gardens. Recorded live at Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, County Wicklow.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Culture File Digital Single meets Filmmaker, Tadhg O'Sullivan who speaks about his new film starring Brenda Fricker, The Swallow, a watery, elegiac meditation on memory and loss, and memory loss.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.