Should religious symbols be shown in buildings owned by the State? This is the question the European Court of Human Rights will examine in due course. It has been brought by the Union of Atheists in Greece, who object to religious symbols appearing on the walls of Greek courts. While the case might seem remote…
Once upon a time it was entirely realistic to expect that one day you would marry and have children. I was born in the 1960s, for instance, and about 85% of my age group eventually married. Hitting this kind of milestone was completely normal and more or less taken for granted. But it can no…
After the recent seizure of Venezuelan president Nicolas Muduro and his wife, Cilia, by US Special Forces from their supposedly secure hiding place, Donald Trump spoke in his own typically idiosyncratic way about international law. The bottom line? He doesn’t really believe in it. As soon as the capture happened, experts and political leaders rightly…
Steve Bannon was one of the key people who helped get Donald Trump elected in 2016. He is one of the inventors of the ‘Make America Great Again’ (‘MAGA’) agenda, which lasts to this day. Bannon and Trump had a falling out early on in Trump’s first turn as president. Trump is in the habit…
Ireland will hold the presidency of the EU from the middle of this year until the end. The presidency is held by EU member-states on a rotating basis for six months at a time each. When the EU was smaller, we got to hold the presidency much more regularly. But with 27 members, we only…
Anti-Semitism is on the rise. It is hard to believe that within living memory of the Holocaust this should be happening, but it is. The latest and most extreme example in a Western country in the last few years took place on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, shortly before Christmas, when 15 Jewish people were…
Why do people leave religion? What happens to them afterwards? Why do people switch from one religion to another, and what happens after that? These are the main questions posed by a major new survey in Britain that polled almost 3,000 people who have either left religion or joined a new one in their lifetime.…
When I was growing up, there was nothing I wanted each Christmas more than a toy robot. Those were the days of TV shows like Lost in Space in which ‘Robby the Robot’ featured. Every little boy wanted a robot of his own. In would go the batteries, the thing would make some noise, walk…
Shortly after the recent presidential election, Tánaiste Simon Harris said something a bit surprising. He told reporters: “Immigration is too high”. His statement was not surprising because he said immigration is high, it is and that’s a fact. What was surprising was that he said it at all. Immediately and predictably he was compared with…
And so the long-running saga that is called ‘Donald Trump’ continues, but this time with three big defeats in elections that took place in America last week. These were for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey and the mayoralty of New York City. In Virginia, a Republican governor was defeated, while in New Jersey…