There are not 800 bodies in a septic tank in the grounds of the old children’s home at Tuam. The nuns did not kill the babies or deliberately neglect them to death. In fact, the nuns ran the home about as well as they could under very difficult circumstances given the poverty of the time…
Then Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a Catholic lawyer, it had a very specific and narrow purpose, and that was to identify and champion prisoners of conscience who were being kept behind bars for their political or other beliefs, almost always by authoritarian regimes. The danger was that these prisoners would…
America has just celebrated its 250th birthday so it seems fitting to ask whether America, in net terms, has done more harm than good, or vice versa, over those years? For the average Irish person, the question will seem ridiculous. By the average Irish person, I mean those who don’t think primarily ideologically. These ‘normies’…
Do you remember the glorious summer of 1976 when we could hardly believe our luck as the sun shone in the sky for day after day? This was back when few of us went abroad on holidays and sunny weather was something that happened in Spain, not here. Well, for that summer, we enjoyed a…
Official Ireland has its heroes and villains. The heroes and villains of the first few decades after independence in 1922 are easily categorised. The heroes are the ones who propelled Ireland forward into the modern age. They are people like Noel Browne, Sean Lemass, TK Whitaker and Gay Bryne. The villains are the ones who…
For obvious historical reasons, the vast majority of primary schools in Ireland are Catholic. The same applies to about half of secondary schools. The national school system arose out of the parochial schools. The vast majority of Irish people prior to independence in 1922 did not want to send their children to State schools because…
Pope Leo’s first encyclical was published last week. It is called Magnifica Humanitas, and the best English translation of that is probably ‘The Grandeur of Humanity’. The main topic of the encyclical is Artificial Intelligence (AI), although the lengthy document deals with a lot of other subjects as well, including, briefly, just war theory (is…
It is possible that your image of the Dublin Central constituency still goes back to the days of socialist TD, Tony Gregory, who used his political leverage with Charlie Haughey to extract public monies for a very working-class part of the city when money in general was scarce and unemployment was high. Back in those…
A video has been doing the rounds online of an Italian priest at a funeral Mass here in Ireland interrupting a eulogy. It is not clear how long the man in question had been speaking for, but the priest suddenly announces: “That’s enough”. He said a boy near-by was sick and presumably the priest was…
Justice Minister, and possible future Fianna Fáil leader, Jim O’Callaghan made an interesting comment a few days ago when he said that our high rates of income tax are “imprudent, demoralising and contrary to the public good.” His reference to the public good was particularly interesting because he might as well have said the “common…