Claims that Ireland was repressed in the 1980s are absurd, writes David Quinn âWhy were we so hateful?â, the editorial in the Irish Examiner asked of Irish people living in the 1980s. A feature last weekend in the Irish Independent described the same decade as âtraumatisingâ for women. The 1980s is in the spotlight…
Talk is cheap when it comes to environmental piety, writes David Quinn Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl who has risen to prominence lately by warning us of an impending environmental apocalypse if we do not immediately make drastic changes to the way we live. Thunberg was the initiator of the first school…
The deconstruction of marriage continues apace, writes David Quinn. The divorce referendum has passed by a margin of 82% to 18%. To put it another way, more than 1.3 million people voted in favour of it and about 300,000 voted against. The turnout was 50%. What exactly did people vote for? In their own…
Lack of past practice suggests Pope wonât make profound change, writes David Quinn Pope Francis appears to have poured cold water for the time being on the idea of women deacons, or at least of something equivalent to the male deaconate. The Pope had established a commission in 2016 to examine the issue. It…
An obsession with autonomy is driving up Ireland’s abortion rate, writes David Quinn It was a classic case of ‘burying the lede’, that is to say, the real lead was not what the report highlighted. Instead the headline on the RTÉ website read: “Concerns raised about implementing new abortion laws.” The story was about…
One minority is consistently ignored in today’s Ireland, writes David Quinn Minorities today often receive preferential status. This is to compensate in many cases for a past in which minorities were often discriminated against or rendered invisible. The compensation takes many forms. One is protection from criticism, hence politically correct policing of the things…
Mothers and fathers are different and we shouldnât be afraid to say so, writes David Quinn This is a very strange and contradictory Government. On the one hand it is preparing a new law that will allow a couple not to record themselves on a birth certificate as the mother and father of their…
The latest Tuam interim report invites a host of questions, writes David Quinn The latest interim report by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was issued last week. This new report is concerned mainly with finding out what happened to the dead infants and children in the various institutions under investigation.…
RTÃ documentary came from a strange place, writes David Quinn It is hard to know what the point of Rome v Republic was. The programme aired last week on RTÃ and was presented by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell. It repeated talking points about the Church and its relationship to Irish society and the…
A former Government minister’s take on Humanae Vitae is too simple, writes David Quinn Pope Benedict XVI once memorably spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism”. Just prior to becoming Pope in 2005 he said: “Today, having a clear Faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that…