Dear Editor, “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” (John 13: 14-15) Pope Francis has washed the feet of prisoners in Rome, men and women, some of them…
Aileen Cox Blundell Baby-led feeding allows your child to explore food at their own pace and become a healthy eater, writes Aileen Cox Blundell Baby-led feeding works from the same principles as baby-led weaning. It begins when your little one is around the six-month mark and has started to show signs of being able to…
Hannah Evans “At all levels, a change of mind-set is needed. It is the same mind-set that is needed to tackle both climate change and world poverty.”(Laudato Si’ 175) The words of Pope Francis were gratefully received in 2015 when he released his ground-breaking papal encyclical Laudato Si’. Since Trócaire began the number of natural…
Patrick Claffey The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, edited by Douglas Abrams (Hutchinson, £12.99) A few years ago, taking a taxi into Nassau St to teach a module at Trinity College, the Dublin driver asked me what I taught. That afternoon, I told him, I was to give a lecture…
Time with the Master: Reflections on the Life of Jesus by Seamus Devitt CSsR (Messenger Publications, €7.95) Though Christmas seems to dominate the annual round, Easter Sunday has always been for Chrstians the central feast day of the year. As we celebrate next Sunday this little book by Fr Devitt will remind many people that…
Youghal Celebrates 1916 ed. Kieran Groeger (Youghal Celebrates History, €10; address Mary’s College, Emmett Place, Youghal Co. Cork; email: ytta@eircom.net) This booklet marking Youghal’s contribution to the 1916 celebrations includes a number of interesting articles, one of them relating to Sir Roger Casement. Patrick Cockburn writes about a link between his grandfather, Jack Arbuthnot, a…
The World of Books On January 20, 1947, The Times of London carried a short report: “NEW YORK. At 10.15 a.m. yesterday Mayor O’Dwyer, of New York, received a telegram from Mr John McCann, Lord Mayor of Dublin, which read as follows: ‘Poet Eoghan Roe Ward dying. Bananas may save life. Is it possible send…
Fr Conor McDonough OP Among the books on my shelves, one of my favourites is Ernest Klein’s two-volume Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. It doesn’t offer definitions of words, but shows their roots in other languages and periods. So the entry for the word ‘diamond’ traces it back to a Middle English word which…
Jim Bird The social aspect of the Pioneers has had a positive effect on my life, writes Jim Bird I hail from the small rural area of Boardsmill in Co. Meath. I’m 24 and currently studying history and geography in Maynooth University in the hope of entering the teaching profession. My parents are teetotallers all…
Dear Editor, I was delighted to read that Minister Frances Fitzgerald will not be lifting the ban on the sale of alcohol on Good Friday (IC 30/03/2017). Every year publicans bring up this issue as if it is some kind of religious persecution to deny them one day’s profit in a country that has a…