James Ryan and the development of independent Ireland, by Michael Loughman (Four Courts Press, €24.99 / £22.50) By any standards, this is a remarkable biography of a truly remarkable man. James Ryan was born into a large, comfortably off farming family in Wexford on December 6, 1892. A much more low-key figure than either…
The General Secretariat of the Synod today publishes the first two Final Reports of the Study Groups established by Pope Francis following the First Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops: that of Study Group No. 3 on The mission in the digital environment and that of Study Group No.…
Recently, I had three encounters with modern technology in the space of a few weeks. Each one left me thinking — not so much about machines, but about what it means to be human… and Church. The first happened in a restaurant. I scanned a code on the table to read the menu, placed my…
Two Dublin city centre churches are opening their doors to the tens of thousands of people baptised there as part of a collaborative Lent initiative with the Archdiocese of Dublin. St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral and St Andrew’s, Westland Row are the sites of countless infant baptisms, and starting on March 7, anyone baptised at these two…
Q: In a recent homily, my parish priest suggested that we all “give up prayers of petition for Lent.” He said we’re not being good friends to God if all we do is ask him for things, and that “you’ve all said enough prayers of petition, it’s time to say some other prayers.” But I’m…
Pope Leo has declared the Eight Centenary of the death of Francis of Assisi the special Jubilee Year of St Francis, “a year of grace”. In 1226 Francis of Assisi left this world. Lying naked on the naked earth close to the little chapel of the Portiuncula he had rebuilt, he went to meet his…
Norwegian Bishop Erik Varden preached a series of meditations for the first Lenten retreat of Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia, reflecting on the splendor of truth and the Christian idea of freedom, as well as sin, abuse and Church corruption. Bishop Varden of Trondheim, a Trappist monk, shared wisdom from contemplative life during…
The former Sisters of Mercy Convent in Ballina is set to become a community centre, as a planning application was recently submitted to Mayo County Council. A decision is expected to be made by April 12. The convent was built in 1876 and is a protected structure; it closed its doors in 2008. In 2024,…
If Ray Winstone is the poor man’s Robert De Niro, Danny Dyer is the poor man’s Winstone. But what a performance he gives in The Last Deal (18). It isn’t so much a film as a one-act play with the camera turned on. Brendan Muldowney’s fluid direction makes us forget that. Dyer is Jimmy Banks,…
Blessed are the Peacemakers”, said the greatest peacemaker of them all. This week my headline might be ‘Man who seeks peace prize starts war’. And so it was that I woke up last Saturday morning to the horrible news that the USA and Israel had launched an attack on Iran, including its capital Tehran. And…
Renata Steffens
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan