3 d. ago Dublin is the only large European capital without a metro: what would Leopold Bloom make of that? | Dermot Hodson

In James Joyce’s Ulysses, the city’s most famous fictional resident was as frustrated by its transport links in 1904 as many of us are todayIreland’s planning body, An Bord Pleanála, will determine later this year the fate of an ambitious proposal to build the country’s first underground railway. Residents of the Irish capital won’t be holding their breath, however. Since it was first proposed 25 years ago, MetroLink has been cancelled, revived and rebranded. The latest version of the plan, which involves just 18.8km of track, has been subject to delays, costs that have spiralled to five times the original estimate, and fierce opposition from homeowners, heritage bodies and businesses.A wide-awake city of tech firms, theatres and tourist attractions, Dublin is one of the EU’s richest metropolitan areas; it is also the only large western European capital without a metro. No Dubliner would have been more frustrated with the situation’s absurdities, and MetroLink’s slow progress, than ...

Politics

7 d. ago Frustrated residents have waited four years for new flats and now they are nearly ready

Councillors and council officials celebrated the topping out of a block of flats in Grangetown that residents have been waiting years to move into

Politics

1 week ago ‘When they are at risk they text me’: Gaza academic in UK powerless to rescue family

Nearly two years after accepting a UK scholarship, Bassem Abudagga has watched Gaza’s horrors close in on his relatives, and British bureaucracy fail to helpThe silence of the early hours was unbearable, perhaps worse than on any night since 7 October 2023. Bassem Abudagga paced around his flat in Manchester waiting desperately for an answer. He knew from a WhatsApp group of 800 relatives, set up by his extended family in Gaza, that houses near where his wife and two young children were holed up to the west of Khan Younis were being hit by Israeli missiles. His wife, Marim, was not picking up.“Every single minute, I am with them 24 hours a day and night. When there is any risk, I keep in contact all the time with them online,” he says. “It depends on the connections, sometimes they are very bad. Even when I am sleeping I keep the notifications very loud and I keep just waking up when one goes off. When they are at risk they just text me. It is very exhausting because they feel that ...

Events

2 w. ago Warning to UK drivers as town gets new speed limit for 'first time in two years'

The B5605 Wrexham Rd/High Street, in Johnstown and the A525 Bryn-Y-Grog Road have returned to 30mph following public consultation. Local residents have spoken of their frustration at the delays

Events

2 w. ago The Ritual review – Al Pacino is priestly mastermind in tale of infamous real

Pacino is somewhat flat and Dan Stevens seems to be waiting for the final curtain as they with a young woman in Iowa apparently possessed by a demonThis low-budget, minor-key and – frankly – dreary horror feature offers yet another dramatisation of the 1928 exorcism of a young woman (played here by Abigail Cowen), known by her alias Anna Ecklund and her real name Emma Schmidt. The real-life ritual, which transpired at a nunnery in Iowa, was overseen by elderly German Capuchin priest Father Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino) and local cleric Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) and written up as a pamphlet (“Begone Satan!”) that went on to shape the public understanding of exorcisms.All that historical detail is transfused into a weak tea of a script, credited to the film’s director David Midell and Enrico Natale. They have generated a work that is a little more interested in background and context instead of sweary pyrotechnics and supernatural fireworks often found in demonic-possessi...

Politics

2 w. ago London mum and 4 kids housed 30 miles away in studio flat after council said 'wait for bailiffs'

London mum and 4 kids housed 30 miles away in studio flat after council said 'wait for bailiffs'  MyLondon

Politics

3 w. ago Next's 'flattering' linen summer trousers in 10 colours shoppers 'can't wait to wear'

The summer weather is for wearing easy, breezy wardrobe staples.

Politics