Post-natal depression can affect any mum, writes Alison Canavan, so don’t be hard on yourself or afraid to ask for help Alison Canavan There is no denying that having a baby is a very special time in a woman’s life. You want everything to be perfect and we all want to be great parents. We…
Simon Flint describes his first three months as a VMM lay missionary teaching in Africa Simon Flint I came here in November into the searing heat of the warm heart of Africa as Malawi is sometimes called. My first month was spent with Damian and Bridgett who are both volunteers working with Network for a…
My First Holy Communion Keepsake Journal created by Avril O’Reilly (Lulu, available through Amazon, ISBN 978-1326480103 (girls), 978-1326542863 (boys), €20.00) With a “Special Record of first Holy Communion” Avril O’Reilly has had a delightful notion. She has prepared a keepsake of first Communion for girls. “This book,” she explains, “is designed to keep all the Communion…
Dear Editor, With the recent awards season (Oscars, BAFTAs etc.) I propose we strike a medal and award it to The Irish Catholic TV/radio critic, Brendan O’Regan. His tireless dedication in having to listen to hours of guff, propaganda and filth that most of our broadcasters spew out on the airwaves, deserves some recognition. Recently…
Dear Editor, How wonderful to read your report that male classroom assistants are having a positive influence on the exam results achieved by boys in St Paul’s High School in Bressbrook, Co. Armagh (IC 10/03/2016 ‘Classroom ‘father figures’ behind exam results boost’). It reminded me of the phrase ‘one good adult’ and the positive influence…
Dear Editor, Dr Eamon Phoenix’s dismissal as “simplistic” attempts to link the Rising centenary with dissident violence in the North (IC 10/03/2016) is both reassuring and persuasive. Even in 1966, at a time when Catholics in the North were denied some basic civil rights, the Rising’s 50th anniversary provoked little republican violence, the destruction of…
Dear Editor, We are only a few months into the ‘Year of Mercy’, but I think it is already safe to say that it has been a huge success. So many other special years have passed with little effort being made in the Irish Church to publicise or mark them in anyway. This jubilee year…
Dear Editor, As Mother Teresa is to be canonised this September and with the forthcoming threat to the Eighth Amendment in Ireland, it is timely to remind people what she said in the Noble Lecture having been awarded the Noble Peace prize in 1979. “I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because…
Dear Editor, While it is right to comment and praise the good things a TD has done for his/her community, such as Mary Kenny’s praise of Jimmy Deenihan (IC 03/03/2016), given that he voted for the 2013 abortion act, does this not now undo those good works, since abortion is never good for community nor…
I Follow St Patrick by Oliver St John Gogarty Oliver St John Gogarty, poet and surgeon, was a close associate of Arthur Griffith in Sinn Féin. He was appointed a senator in the first Senate of the Irish Free State. His memorable book, I Follow St Patrick, is an evocation of Ireland’s national saint through the places in…