Secret of the powers that be In 1977 Seán MacBride was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. An invitation was extended to the members of the cabinet, including the Minster of Foreign Affairs, to attend the award ceremony on 20 September. This posed the government with a problem. MacBride had been awarded the Nobel Prize in…
Secrets of the powers that be “Some people seem to like giving interviews.” These were the words typed on a card from the Pontifical Council for the Family in Rome. It was sent on January 2, 1986 to Geoffrey Keating, the Irish Chargé d’Affaires in Rome, by Monsignor Diarmuid Martin (as the present Archbishop of…
Secrets of the powers of that be Visitors to the national Museum are often astonished by the relics of early Christian Ireland that are on show there, from the Derrynaflan hoard and the Broighter boat, to the Ardagh Chalice and the Cross of Cong. But what many do not realise are the hazards of survival…
Secret of the powers that be This year saw the release of a backlog of files of various kinds going back to the 1920s. Many dealt with dismissals from the public service, the army, the guards, and the civil service generally. Most of these reveal little stories of incompetence and misbehaviour as often as not…
So much of life, particularly today, constitutes an unconscious conspiracy against reading. Lack of time, the pressure of our jobs, and electronic technology, among other things, are more and more putting books out of reach and out of mind. There is never enough time to read. The upside of this is that when I do…
Fr Bryan Shortall Christian faith can rest with the youngest and oldest among us, Fr Bryan Shortall explains. Talk about ‘out of the mouths of babes’. I was over with some parishioners who had been recently bereaved and we were to plan the funeral liturgy. Naturally there was sadness in the household as they were…
Prostate cancer, a once largely silent disease that was often diagnosed in its more advanced stages has become increasingly identified and treated at an earlier phase in men today. A greater awareness of disease symptoms coupled with improvements in detection and diagnosis, as well as treatment options has led to a huge benefit in survival…
Whoever said it was too late to send Christmas cards, forgot that Christmas doesn’t end until the feast of the Epiphany or the Three Wise Men on January 6th. Little Christmas is surrounded with tradition. As the official last day of Christmas, the tree is taken down, and the decorations are stored away for next…
Around the baptistry in our church there are beautiful wrought iron railings depicting flowing waters. In the midst of the waves there is another symbol, a spiral. The spiral is a symbol of life and energy, of growth and change. It is about being drawn back to the centre, to a place of truth and…
A male friend of mine has been in a lot of contact with me online recently, we have a lot in common and we are both single. I think there is a spark there, yet when I suggested meeting up he said he was too busy, yet continues to stay in contact with me. I…
Peter Costello
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Erin Fox
Bairbre Cahill
Wendy Grace