Research for the Royal Irish Academy’s ongoing Dictionary of Irish Biography often uncovers significant forgotten figures, writes Patrick Maume Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald – novelist, suffragist and Catholic convert who corresponded with the elderly John Henry Newman – is a forgotten person. (His surviving letters to her have been published; some of hers to him…
Past decade sees 170,000 children’s rights ‘gravely violated’ – report The past decade saw troubling levels of violence against children, with some 45 children seeing their rights “gravely violated” each day during the 2010s, a new report from the United Nations has said. In total, more than 170,000 children were affected by conflict throughout the…
Finding a Voice To celebrate the music of female composers throughout the ages, a three-day concert series will take place in Tipperary this March. Founded in 2017, Finding a Voice has featured music by more than 50 women composers, from Hildegard of Bingen to newly commissioned works, and performances from leading Irish and international musicians.…
Róise McGagh Personal Profile It all began when Fr Martin Keane, superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Kenya, approached Olive Halpin over 10 years ago. Fr Martin has been living in Kenya for around 40 years. He had visited Ireland after his brother passed away. While at home he came to Olive, who…
It’s time to outgrow Richard Dawkins, the author of a new critique tells Luke Silke When it was published in 2006, Richard Dawkins’ takedown of faith The God Delusion remained on the bestseller list for 51 weeks. It was part of a fresh war of words on religion which has since been termed ‘the…
Dear Editor, Every year we have Catholic schools week, a week in which we celebrate the importance of the Catholic ethos of our Church-run schools. Lofty words are spoken about the importance of our Catholic values in the education of the young. But the test of those words in the near future will be the…
State Papers Secrets of the powers that be In 1989, Mrs Eileen Barrington, the wife of the eminent lawyer Donal Barrington, who was the niece of Harry Boland, the associate of de Valera executed during the Civil War, wrote to Brian Lenihan, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, seeking his help with a family mystery.…
State Papers Echoes of the past from the archives The annual release of files often reveal historical ironies in the private papers of the state that how perspectives on events and individuals in public life change constantly. In the summer of 1989 Cardinal Bernard Law made a pilgrimage to Ireland to visit the shrines…
Irish officials skipped an international meeting highlighting persecuted Christians, Tánaiste Simon Coveney has admitted to the Dáil. He did not give an explanation when questioned by Fianna Fáil’s Seán Haughey. The Second International Conference on Christian Persecution met in Hungary at the end of November and heard from Christians from the Middle East and other…
State Papers Secrets of the powers that be In 1961 the Eighth Duke of Leinster, Gerald FitzGerald, then living in England, presented the Royal Dublin Society with a 16th-Century relic of his family in the form of the Geraldine Rent Table that had once stood at Carton, and later at Kilkea Castle. It came…