It is a big mistake to take on the Irish granny, but that is precisely what a State-funded video produced by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre did. You have probably seen it by now. A girl who looks about 18 years old visibly grimaces as her grandmother is about to kiss her. Granny should have…
A story broke last week which ought to have received widespread coverage in the Irish media but instead got very little. The details are covered elsewhere in this paper, so I’ll just give you the bare bones of it here. Ireland currently holds the presidency of the European Union and therefore an international conference aimed…
At Vespers starting at 4pm this Sunday in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, the Bishop of Meath, Dr Tom Deenihan, will close off the diocesan stage in the cause for the canonisation of the World War I army chaplain, Fr Willie Doyle. Fr Doyle was killed while trying to save wounded soldiers in…
It is now 17 months since our new pope was chosen. As we know, he picked the name ‘Leo’ to indicate he intended to continue the work of Pope Leo XIII, the 19th-century pontiff most famous for issuing the encyclical Rerum Novarum (‘Of New Things’), which was the Church’s response to the new age of…
Pope steals the hearts of the French Jacques Hébert was one of the most anti-clerical figures of the French Revolution. Hébert and his faction led the anti-Christianisation campaign that reached its peak in Paris in 1793. The campaign closed churches, persecuted priests who would not swear loyalty to the Revolution and converted some churches…
Last week I met a man who was sentenced to death twice and subjected to multiple beatings and torture. He did 18 years hard labour in a mine in brutal, often freezing conditions, and then another ten years clearing sewage from canals. That man was Cardinal Ernest Simoni, an Albanian priest who turns 98 next…
Even if you have never watched Star Trek, you have definitely heard of Captain Kirk and Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer of the Starship Enterprise. Star Trek is now celebrating its 60th anniversary, which is incredible for a show that was cancelled after just three seasons and 79 episodes. The fact that the main characters…
As you are reading this, President Donald Trump might well be at his golf resort in Doonbeg, Co. Clare, where is a guaranteed warm welcome from some of the locals, even if the same can’t be said for the rest of the country. The visit will make for a very uncomfortable couple of days for…
The other night I was watching a disaster movie called Deep Impact, which is about a comet on course to hit Earth and the efforts to stop it. Even though it was made not that long ago – in 1998 to be precise – it still offered an unintended insight into a world quite different…
Earlier this month the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Fianna Fáil’s Norma Foley, launched a new report called the National Strategy for Women and Girls: Action Plan 2026-2028. This was a follow-up to one launched last year called the National Strategy for Women and Girls 2025-2030. What garnered most attention was the part of…