Sacred music can “bring us closer to God” and deepen people’s experience of prayer, the administrator of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, has said. Fr Barry Matthews was speaking after the Charles Wood Singers took part in Sung Mass at the Cathedral as part of this year’s Charles Wood Festival and Summer School, which has particular…
New Pastoral Areas in Cloyne Diocese “embrace the challenges of adjusting our parish patterns to work more effectively with one another,” says Bishop William Crean in his September 2026 clerical appointments letter. After prayer and dialogue, the bishop said, 15 Pastoral Areas will be created in the diocese. “The big change for priests”, the letter…
Priests Against Genocide UK and Ireland sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to call him “to recognise the UN finding of genocide, ban trade with illegal settlements, and impose a full arms embargo.” In the letter, signed by priests from Liverpool, London, Manchester, Surrey, Dorset and Fermanagh, they say: “We were…
Irish missionary Fr Shay Cullen has launched a new book recounting more than five decades campaigning against the exploitation and trafficking of women and children in the Philippines. Justice and Truth Win Freedom tells the story of Fr Cullen’s work with the Preda Foundation, which he founded in 1974 to protect vulnerable children, provide therapeutic…
A Belfast-based law firm has served pre-action correspondence on the Department of Education regarding its Initial Teacher Education Bursary Scheme, whose eligibility criteria excludes approximately 120 current students training to teach STEM and Irish-medium subjects at St Mary’s University College and Stranmillis University College. Phoenix Law is challenging the eligibility criteria of the bursary scheme,…
There has been quite the furore over the Government’s National Strategy for Women and Girls. To me, ‘tradwife’ is the updated term for the Irish Mammy: a no-nonsense woman with traditional values, self-assured and perfectly content raising her children at home. ‘Irish Mammy’ was never exactly a term of endearment, but it carries affection and…
Many of us, as people striving to follow Christ in a busy and demanding world, find ourselves trapped by invisible barriers of our own making. ‘I’ll serve at church once my schedule clears up.’ ‘I’m not ready to volunteer until I learn more.’ ‘I’ll reach out and mend that relationship when I’m a better person.’…
I have been a religious sister for a long time, and I thought I had a fairly good sense of which conversations would surprise me. Then a young woman in her late twenties recounted in a post her recent return from her first silent retreat, and that it had been ‘the most genuinely restful thing…
A tale of two Marys, amid many faith stories. That was my experience of the National Novena at Knock 2026: joy at the vision of Our Lady, who appears above St Joseph, the layman, and St John, the priest and evangelist, and sorrow that the journalist, Mary Kennedy, during her privileged position as speaker at…
During the darkest years of the Troubles, crossing the border often meant lengthy delays, roadblocks and searches by British security forces. Cars were stopped, boots and bonnets opened, while soldiers searched for weapons, explosives and anyone or anything else that they deemed a threat. Sean Mellon was carrying something entirely different. Rather than guns or…
Renata Steffens
Martina Purdy