Football banter (or, in modern usage, “bants” or even “#bantz”), can range from the strange to the self-deprecating to the plain awful, but it will always need its edge.
Padraig Reidy: Football banter will always need its edge
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Padraig Reidy
Padraig Reidy
Padraig Reidy is the editor of Little Atoms and a columnist for Index on Censorship. He has also written for The Observer, The Guardian, and The Irish Times.
Padraig Reidy: What is the alternative to boycott?
The concept of boycotts, and particularly cultural and academic boycotts, have for a long time been problematic for people engaged in the promotion of free expression.
Padraig Reidy: Blasphemy laws protect only power, never people
Religious persecution is real, and should be fought. Freedom of belief is a basic right. But blasphemy laws protect only power, and never people.
Padraig Reidy: How your well-meaning retweet can do more harm than good
Whatever it is you care about, think before you tweet: Is this too good to be true? Do I have any way of checking this for myself?
Padraig Reidy: When truth is stranger than fiction
Three years ago this week, David Cameron announced that a public inquiry into phone hacking would be set up, under the guidance of Lord Justice Leveson. It may be difficult to imagine now, but this was generally seen as a positive step.
Has Ireland reintroduced criminal libel?
An Irish court has created a precedent where damage to a person’s reputation could lead to criminal sanction — and no one seems to have noticed, writes Padraig Reidy
A message for politicians: Don’t complain when reporters report
The narrative of evil newspaper versus innocent, naive, poor little politician is self-pitying and self-defeating, writes Padraig Reidy
Padraig Reidy: Ilham Aliyev’s nonexistent connection with reality
In an authoritarian society, with power utterly concentrated to the leader and his cadre, there is no such thing as an isolated failure. As a result, every aspect of life must be spun.
Padraig Reidy: Public outrage — from radio plays to Twitter mobs
In over 80 years, the mechanisms of public outrage have changed very little.
Padraig Reidy: Why use the “offended” line? Because it works
The archdiocese of Rio is offended and reportedly threatening to sue Italian broadcaster RAI for an advert showing the Christ The Redeemer statue wearing the Italy Jersey. Such complaints of “offence” are really demands for “respect” — in the Corleone sense
Padraig Reidy: Jeremy Paxman, poetry Stalin
Poets, we all agree, are terribly misunderstood and undervalued. If it were not for poets, how would we know what things were like other things. How would we live! How would we love! How would we die!
Padraig Reidy: Free speech at armageddon
Belfast’s Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle is one of those things that makes a soft Southern Irish atheist Catholic like me think I’ll never truly understand Northern Ireland.