Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan — Arriving in Kazakhstan, a country that borders Russia, Pope Francis said he came as a “pilgrim of peace” at a time when “our world urgently needs peace; it needs to recover harmony”. “I am visiting you in the course of the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion…
Dear Editor, With all the hullabaloo surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s death, the energy crisis, war in Ukraine etc… the fact that we are living through a housing crisis seems to have slipped from the agenda. This is the issue that seems unsolvable, at least it seems that way due to a host of inept politicians and…
Helen Vyotska My boyfriend has a lot of problems. I am worried about our relationship and I am not sure where it is going. We do love each other though and always make up. What should I do? The purpose of dating anyone is to find a worthy spouse, not to rehabilitate a troubled guy.…
The other day, I awoke early and checked the time. For one strange half-awake moment, the second hand on my watch seemed to be moving unnaturally fast. It soon settled to its normal pace. This odd temporal misperception seemed like a warning of the speed at which time is passing by. The parents of small…
Can the tooth fairy get Covid? That was the perplexing question I had to ask myself, when my 7-year-old Covid patient lost a tooth. She and I recently spent 10 days isolating in the apartment at the side of our house, to protect the rest of the family. It was strange to spend all day…
The kids were only back in school a few days before the inevitable message from school came through. A child in one of our kids’ classes had tested positive for Covid. We soon learned that it was not a child in our child’s pod, and so she could continue to go to school if we…
August is the new October. A succession of low-pressure systems hit the west coast of Ireland this August, just in time for peak holiday season. We found ourselves needing full winter clothing as we explored the windswept Aran islands or the rain-drenched streets of Galway. Of course there were gaps in the weather, when the…
The summer holidays have again crept up on us. We go through our workaday, busy lives with a vague notion of respite at some distant time, until suddenly you realise that the long-promised date with idleness is next Friday. Then, panic ensues. Getting ready for holidays means work: there’s grass to be cut, bills to…
Irish people are not usually designed for the sunshine. In fact, the stereotypically Irish fair skin evolved so as to enable people to manufacture vitamin D under the murky grey skies of northern Europe. It’s therefore quite a shock to the system when Ireland, without warning, becomes a tropical paradise. We become fish out of…
“I really love you dad.” Such words, when so sincerely spoken, by such a small girl, would melt the hardest heart. Her follow-on phrase, however, led me to better understand the proximate cause of this profound outburst of affection, “I also really love your chocolate,” she said, in a pointed reference to the piece of chocolate I’d…