France has long been admired – notably in the English-speaking world – as a society which has a much more “sophisticated”, even “civilised’ approach to love and sex. I once very much bought into these legends myself – especially after reading, as a teenager, the novels and biographies of Nancy Mitford. Why, the French accepted…
A longstanding Democratic Unionist Party MP has expressed his support for a Latin Mass pilgrimage reportedly under threat by Vatican guidelines set out in the 2021 motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes that curtailed celebrations of the Latin Mass, saying that “the Latin Mass prohibition is another example of a situation where believers are restricted in practising…
I didn’t know what subjects to study when I started at UCG in 1988. I tried out different classes in first year and settled on English and French for the degree. I had a nagging regret through in my second year that I hadn’t taken Gaeilge. But there were other ways to improve at Irish,…
In Good Time: A Memoir, by Martin O’Brien (Red Stripe Press, €15.99 / £14.79). J. Anthony Gaughan The Good Friday Agreement is a pair of Agreements signed on April 10 (Good Friday) 1998 which ended most of the urban warfare and violence of the previous thirty years in Northern Ireland. It is made…
I think it was Vincent Browne who wrote about the importance of writing. Grand plans emerge when people hear about new ideas, but these ideas have to be crystalised into print first: hence the importance of giving time and attention to writing. Writing precedes the making of plans: good writing helps get ideas off the…
Since the founding of the state in 1922 the question of a sort of Order of Merit, a Legion d’Honneur, or even a Presidential Medal of Freedom (a successor to the Presidential Medal of Honour) in the USA, has been much debated. The Constitution does not allow the awarding of any title of nobility, and…
Jean-Claude Juncker’s 70th birthday last month went largely unnoticed. If not quite a forgotten figure now, Juncker has largely faded from international view having for many years been the leading politician in his home country of Luxembourg, and a key player in EU affairs, especially in regard to crafting the Maastricht Treaty, later crowning his…
The sudden decision of the government of Israel to close its embassy in Ballsbridge because of, so the government in Jerusalem claimed, the outright “anti-Semitism” of the Irish government brings archive files relating to Robert Briscoe (dating from 1944 and 1955) in the latest release into focus, which suggest that the Netanyahu government’s grasp…
The poet and Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats died on 28 January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap Martin, on the French Riviera. In ill health for some years he had been staying there to enjoy the mild warm winter weather for several years. He had said to his family that if he died he might…
After reports confirmed that the Franciscan Friary in Clonmel was due to be closed on the first day of the year, Independent TD for Tipperary Mattie McGrath has decried the closure of a “fabulous institution” and said that he has written to the head of the friary to see if the decision can be reversed.…
Mary Kenny
Brandon Scott
Senator Ronan Mullen
Peter Costello