Person: Gareth O'Callaghan

Sign in

Person: Gareth O'Callaghan

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

<p>On the afternoon of October 23, 1986, Philip Cairns disappeared as he walked from his home to his school, Coláiste Éanna, Ballyoran. Despite a lengthy Garda investigation into trying to establish his whereabouts, he has never been located.</p>

S columnists

Gareth O'Callaghan: Unanswered questions haunt Philip Cairns case decades later

Gardaí’s decision not to upgrade Philip Cairns’ disappearance to a murder case raises troubling questions 40 years on

Gareth O'Callaghan.png

Gareth O'Callaghan: A woman's house should be a home — not a place of fear and fatal control

Gareth O'Callaghan.png

Gareth O'Callaghan: Tell us what’s going on at Bessborough — we have a right to know

Gareth O'Callaghan.png

Gareth O'Callaghan: Cool in 1976, crushed in 2024 — where did teen joy go?

Gareth O'Callaghan.png

Gareth O'Callaghan: Is Pope Leo XIV the spiritual leader America needs with Trump in power?

Gareth O'Callaghan.png

Gareth O'Callaghan: Recording tragedies like Luke Hyde's should carry criminal penalties

Gareth O'Callaghan: How violence and racism drove me away from football – and still keeps others out

Gareth O'Callaghan: How violence and racism drove me away from football – and still keeps others out

One terrifying night of football violence in 1985 left lasting scars — and shows why racism in sport still thrives

Sun, 20 Apr, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: Why Ireland must protect the presidency from political vanity and empty celebrity

Gareth O'Callaghan: Why Ireland must protect the presidency from political vanity and empty celebrity

Ireland has had three transformative presidents since 1990 — will the next one uphold their legacy or fall short?

Sat, 05 Apr, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: Asking for Angela shouldn’t be necessary — so why is it?

Gareth O'Callaghan: Asking for Angela shouldn’t be necessary — so why is it?

Toxic masculinity, online hate, and institutional failures are fueling violence against women — how can society stop the cycle?

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Donald Trump has found a new weird friend in Conor McGregor. Yes, we should all be worried

S Donald Trump has found a new weird friend in Conor McGregor. Yes, we should all be worried

Summit between a felon and the man found by a jury in a civil rape case to have assaulted a woman shows that wealth and power can buy friends and influence

Tue, 18 Mar, 2025

FILE PHOTO: Cemetery workers and funeral agency workers in protective masks transport a coffin of a person who died from coronav

Gareth O'Callaghan: Apart from how to wash our hands, we've learned nothing from covid

Five years after Covid, we claim life is back to normal — but is that a sign we’ve learned nothing?

Listen | Sat, 15 Mar, 2025

The Trump dictatorship debate and the dangerous parallels we can no longer ignore

S The Trump dictatorship debate and the dangerous parallels we can no longer ignore

Donald Trump’s second term is unfolding with eerie echoes of history — are we ignoring the lessons of the past?

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

'My shows made RTÉ €50m. Now I resent paying my licence fee'

'My shows made RTÉ €50m. Now I resent paying my licence fee'

Gareth O'Callaghan says RTÉ is an organisation that hasn’t been sustainable for years

Tue, 18 Feb, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: The changing face of Amsterdam — why locals are pushing back against sex and drug tourism

Gareth O'Callaghan: The changing face of Amsterdam — why locals are pushing back against sex and drug tourism

Amsterdam’s locals are growing tired of sex and drug tourism. Is it time for the city to change course?

Sat, 08 Feb, 2025

Donald Trump

Gareth O'Callaghan: Donald Trump has opened the door for people to weaponise mental health at work

My lasting impression of Donald Trump will be his nasty belittling attempts to defeat people whose only violation was to say the word 'no', writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Sat, 01 Feb, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: I’m so glad I took a chance to get away from this repressed country

S Gareth O'Callaghan: I’m so glad I took a chance to get away from this repressed country

Many of us made the decision to leave Ireland because we didn’t like being told how to live, what to believe, and what we could or couldn’t do or be

Sat, 25 Jan, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: When life is difficult, reach for nature rather than self-help books

S Gareth O'Callaghan: When life is difficult, reach for nature rather than self-help books

We can spend years of our lives hoping to find the holy grail of self-help books, only then to realise it’s been right there all along in the mountains and beaches and forests

Sat, 18 Jan, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: Finding purpose and meaning in life is where we must all begin

Gareth O'Callaghan: Finding purpose and meaning in life is where we must all begin

Brendan Kennelly’s poem transformed an unexpected moment of raw grief and vulnerability, played out before a nation of television viewers, into a moment of restoration

Sat, 11 Jan, 2025

Gareth O'Callaghan: Twixmas is often a time we'd prefer to forget

Gareth O'Callaghan: Twixmas is often a time we'd prefer to forget

That state of suspension between Christmas and new year is a time of reflection, including memories we would prefer to forget — there's no getting away from the fact 2024 has been a sad year for humanity

Sat, 28 Dec, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Finding comfort in the mystery of grief during the Christmas season

Gareth O'Callaghan: Finding comfort in the mystery of grief during the Christmas season

As we grow older, we become more cynical, which is sad. Cynicism is not healthy, but, thankfully, strange things happen at Christmas that are beyond our control, writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Wed, 25 Dec, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: You don't have to be living rough to feel the pain of homelessness

Gareth O'Callaghan: You don't have to be living rough to feel the pain of homelessness

For someone like Jim, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the time he dreads most. His wife is dead, his son is homeless, and he lives alone in an empty house that was once a family home.

Sat, 14 Dec, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Nothing has changed politically in 50 years

Gareth O'Callaghan: Nothing has changed politically in 50 years

There are many similarities between the Fianna Fáil leader of five decades ago, Jack Lynch, and the man who is about to become taoiseach, Micheál Martin

Sat, 07 Dec, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Will RFK Jr’s health policies be as dangerous as his conspiracy theories?

Gareth O'Callaghan: Will RFK Jr’s health policies be as dangerous as his conspiracy theories?

Apart from being the quintessential covid protester, he believes the CIA has infiltrated the US media, and that pesticides in drinking water are creating ‘sexual dysphoria’ in young men

Sat, 30 Nov, 2024

General Election Ireland 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: People are wondering if they will bother to vote at all

The biggest shock next week could be the number of politicians who lose their seats. Nor would it surprise me if the turnout was the lowest ever

Sun, 24 Nov, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Posters present us with new faces spinning same old yarns

Gareth O'Callaghan: Posters present us with new faces spinning same old yarns

Most of the brochures that have come through my letterbox in recent days are no different in content — promises, platitudes, and pleas — to those that arrived five years ago. All that has changed on many of them is the candidate

Sat, 16 Nov, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: How much longer can we avoid nuclear war?

Gareth O'Callaghan: How much longer can we avoid nuclear war?

Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, but verbal rumblings are getting louder at the prospect of another world war — a war that could not only end all wars but also civilisation

Sat, 09 Nov, 2024

Watching movies and series with smartphone. On demand (VOD) service. Future multimedia technology in mobile phone. Man pressing

Gareth O'Callaghan: In a world of constant connection, our phones are doing our thinking for us

We’ve lost what we once called free time, when we would read and reflect, or escape into our thoughts and memories

Sat, 02 Nov, 2024

Alfred Smith Dinner

Gareth O'Callaghan: Catholics and Republicans slowly becoming joined at the hip

The historic Al Smith black tie dinner is an event held annually at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel to raise funds for Catholic children’s charities in the New York archdiocese

Sat, 26 Oct, 2024

Lonely Tramp

Gareth O'Callaghan: We're all in this together? Tell that to those living in absolute misery

We like to believe that Victorian poverty and the shocking history of our own beggarly past are behind us. Far from it

Sat, 12 Oct, 2024

Pope Benedict XVI Celebrates Mass At Nationals Stadium

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Priests are having affairs — is it really such a shocking fact?

I have never seen any sense in the vow of celibacy. It has always struck me as biologically and emotionally unnatural. So why won’t the Catholic Church allow its priests to marry?

Sun, 06 Oct, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: It took losing a close friend to realise I need to mind my health

Gareth O'Callaghan: It took losing a close friend to realise I need to mind my health

Doctors call prostate cancer, among others, the silent killer — it’s worth adding cholesterol to that list

Sat, 21 Sep, 2024

School stock

S Gareth O'Callaghan: The shocking start to my school years would impact me deeply

'I have very few happy memories of my time at school'

Sat, 07 Sep, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: We’re facing a fearful future if radicalisation is allowed fester

Gareth O'Callaghan: We’re facing a fearful future if radicalisation is allowed fester

Unfortunately, Ireland still mostly basks in an illusory mindset that the Patty Hearsts of this world don’t exist here

Sat, 31 Aug, 2024

2024 Democratic National Convention: Day 4

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Harris's integrity could see her beat Trump's brand

Harris’s politics is about breaking boundaries, coming from a childhood steeped in the civil rights culture of the 1960s and 1970s, writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Sat, 24 Aug, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: How protests are uniting unlikely bedfellows

S Gareth O'Callaghan: How protests are uniting unlikely bedfellows

Old turf rules appear to have changed now that a joint intolerance towards immigration has resulted in a shared prejudice

Sat, 17 Aug, 2024

Generic health pics

S Gareth O'Callaghan: One woman’s bariatric nightmare

Jane and Paul open up about their horrific experience following tourism surgery

Sat, 10 Aug, 2024

An american bully XL dog in nature

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Stopping some people from owning a dog is better than banning a breed

So many owners fail to understand that a dog’s unpredictable behaviour should never be underestimated.

Sat, 03 Aug, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Kamala Harris is an antidote to Donald Trump's arrogant bigotry

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Kamala Harris is an antidote to Donald Trump's arrogant bigotry

When Joe Biden stepped aside and gave his thumbs up to his vice president Kamala Harris for the presidency, he refortified the pillars of democracy just as they were in danger of crumbling, writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Sat, 27 Jul, 2024

Asian woman hand playing keyboard of a piano in romantic atmosphere. Music instrument, solo pianist, song composer, hobby, pract

S Gareth O'Callaghan: As the years pass, my outlook is that the best is yet to come

I can’t recall the morning I woke up and realised there were more years behind me than what lay ahead

Sat, 13 Jul, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Give me Middle Class Joe over his trumped-up opponent any day

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Give me Middle Class Joe over his trumped-up opponent any day

Much has been written about why Joe Biden shouldn’t run for a second term in the White House, but there’s been little if anything on why he’s refusing to tender his resignation

Sat, 06 Jul, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Any man who sets out to attack a woman belongs in a cell

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Any man who sets out to attack a woman belongs in a cell

Until we start to see these Neanderthal savages for what they are, then we can never say with hand on heart that we respect women.

Sun, 30 Jun, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: RTÉ puppetry lives on — but who is pulling the strings?

Gareth O'Callaghan: RTÉ puppetry lives on — but who is pulling the strings?

Little has changed over 40 years in how RTÉ spends money, so why should the public now expect anything new, asks Gareth O'Callaghan

Sun, 23 Jun, 2024

Black color figurine among crowd white people background. Social lifestyle and business competition and strange person concept.

S Gareth O'Callaghan: We are failing to hear the rising charge of racism

Racists are screaming their vile bigotry from the rooftops, and the reason no one calls them out is because racism has become more trivialised now than ever before

Sat, 08 Jun, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Traditional values of voters have changed — or have they?

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Traditional values of voters have changed — or have they?

If there’s one thing we have in common as we stand in polling booths and place numbers next to candidates’ names, it’s that we might get away with lying to others, but we can’t lie to ourselves

Sun, 02 Jun, 2024

Launch of new insurance detection system for Gardaí in partnership with the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI)

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Gardaí have become a target as dissent grows

From the historic trials at Green St to the fiery riots of last November, Dublin’s northside streets tell a powerful tale

Sat, 25 May, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Social media has changed the landscape of elections

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Social media has changed the landscape of elections

Not that long ago, the main sources of influence that extended far into our lives, shaping our views and beliefs, were our parents, our teachers, and the church, writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Sat, 18 May, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: A conspiracy theory is a risky mutation of information

S Gareth O'Callaghan: A conspiracy theory is a risky mutation of information

It’s deeply worrying that the conspiracy theory is so highly regarded

Sat, 11 May, 2024

elementary school students with smartphones

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Parental neglect and the loss of our children to the sewer of social media

When I was a small boy, I spent my breakfast time every morning before school studying the back of the cornflakes box, a hypnotic cardboard scene filled with colourful cartoon figures. It was daydreaming in the most harmless way.

Sat, 27 Apr, 2024

Funeral with casket carried by coffin bearer

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Death comes to us all — that's why we need to talk about it

It's dying, not death, that's the difficult part

Sat, 20 Apr, 2024

Gareth O'Callaghan: Simon Harris must put country before politics to stay in the job

S Gareth O'Callaghan: Simon Harris must put country before politics to stay in the job

'I call politics a game because there’s no other way to describe how farcical it has become — it’s jaded'

Sat, 13 Apr, 2024