Page 9 - Barry Egan News Today

Free speech is the cornerstone of democracy and comedians like Ricky Gervais need the freedom to make jokes that offend or anger some people.

I don’t imagine for one moment that it was Ricky Gervais’s intention last night at the 3Arena to increase or endorse intolerant and nasty attitudes towards minorities who get enough sh*t from the world as it is.

“Jon and Hannah from Series 1 were my all-time favourite couple from Love Island,” Iain Stirling – who narrates the hugely popular reality TV dating show (Lena Dunham and Lizzo are fans) – says in his thick Scottish brogue.

What was in the news 100 years ago today? Richard Forrest reports in our Echoes of the Past column.

Christy Dignam’s father used to cook the Sunday dinners at home in Finglas. While he prepared the food, he sang ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ and various songs by Mario Lanza, Nelson Eddie and Jeanette MacDonald.

Dermot Bannon swims in the sea near his home in Malahide, Co Dublin, most mornings. There’s plenty of room out there in the ocean to free himself of any existential angst. He has been doing this since he was a teenager.

It was all so urbane. Twenty-one years ago, in the Tea Room of Dublin’s Clarence Hotel, a clerkish looking John Banville was deliberating the merits of Camembert over Gouda on the cheeseboard with Irvine Welsh’s literary agent from London.

The global record industry is dead. But the live music scene has never been more alive. And front and centre of that scene is a former boyband star who crosses musical genres like he crosses gender divides.

Animal Rights: During a concert with One Direction in 2015 in San Diego, he asked the audience: “Do you like dolphins?” After the crowd responded with cheers, he said: “Don’t go to SeaWorld.”

In late May 1923 at a special meeting of the council of the Cork Chamber of Commerce, its President John Callaghan Foley presided over a debate on tourism promotion in Cork city and the wider region.