My Sporting Life By Jimmy Deenihan (Red Hen Publishing, €20 / £16.50) There is a unique link between politics and sport in Ireland. This is nowhere more apparent than in this autobiography by Jimmy Deenihan. Appropriately entitled ‘My Sporting Life’, it charts his successful transition from the playing fields to Leinster House and eventually ministerial office.…
A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation By Martin Laird (Oxford University Press, €15.85 / £11.99) Angela Macnamara The key to unlocking doorways of prayer is in our own silence. We live in times when ”our attention is riveted to surface noise” and silence is difficult to achieve. Even though some people live alone…
Pro-life campaigners are putting pressure on Fine Gael to keep the party’s pre-election promise not to introduce abortion legislation. The Minister for Health James Reilly announced at the weekend the members of the 14-member ‘expert group’ from the medical, legal and nursing profession which will report to the Government on the issue within six…
What is the heart of education? One photograph, over the past week, said it all for me. It was the picture of more than 50 parents camping out for up to two days to get their daughters into the Presentation Secondary School in Tralee, Co. Kerry. The all-girls’ school is clearly such a beacon…
The View John Waters When I was a child, in the manner of children everywhere, I would express my identity as: John Waters, Main Street, Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, Europe, The World, The Milky Way, The Universe. Now, all the time, the pressure is on me to live in a smaller and smaller…
To mark Christian Unity Week, Dean Robert MacCarthy offers a remedy to current woes This is winter time for the Church and unlike the climate it is not soon going to be succeeded by spring and summer. The evidence of sexual abuses in America and Europe has triggered a worldwide decline in the Roman…
Standing in a room filled almost floor to ceiling with chocolate certainly puts a strain on a girl’s new year’s resolution. However, self control is needed because these goodies are destined to be distributed through meals on wheels, food kitchens and food banks to Dublin’s most needy. This chocolate fantasy room was only a small…
Are reforms at Maynooth for the better or a return to the sort of rigid seminary life of yesteryear, asks David Quinn Last week, this newspaper reported changes that are being undertaken at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in the wake of the Apostolic Visitation conducted on behalf of the Pope by Cardinal-designate Timothy…
The al Shabaab group may at last be fighting for its own survival, writes Paul Keenan Has the al Shabaab group in Somalia shot itself in the foot? The answer seems to be ‘maybe’ based on events since The Irish Catholic last reported (The enemy from within IC 11/8/11) on a group that has…
Letter from Rome The new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be appointed in April, writes Andrea Tornielli Next week, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will hold a plenary session in the Palace of the Holy Office. Everyone expected the name of Cardinal William Levada’s successor…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Mags Gargan
David Quinn
Paul Keenan