The institutions that were a very common feature of Irish life for such a long time, and in which many abuses took place, are indelibly associated in the public mind with the Catholic Church. This is understandable to a certain degree because they ran so many of them, chiefly the industrial schools, the mother and…

In a few days, Taoiseach Micheal Martin is due to meet President Donald Trump in the White House. It will almost certainly take place on St Patrick’s Day itself, although last year that was not the case. Maybe the current global tumult will derail things. I managed to get into the White House myself years…

As Ireland becomes some kind of strange hybrid Catholic/post-Catholic/secular/New Age society which none of us fully understands, the Church finds itself affected in all sorts of ways, not least what happens at big events like baptisms, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, weddings, and funerals. It is at these events that lots of post-Catholics, cultural Catholics, ‘bouncy…

Ireland’s long-held policy of neutrality is under huge pressure. The Government pretends it is maintaining our neutrality, but this simply isn’t true. Instead, it is subjecting it to the death of a thousand cuts, although a very big cut is on its way that could effectively finish it off, namely the abolition of the Triple…

Movies, documentaries and books can leave an indelible impression on the mind. When they deal with historical subjects, and especially when they deliberately play on the emotions of their audiences, they can give people a highly distorted view of the subject under examination. For example, if you went along to see the movie Small Things…

We hear an awful lot these days about ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and so on. Media and politicians like to turn their guns on social media, and X (previously Twitter) most of all. The average person is now probably conditioned to assume that X, which is owned by Elon Musk, is a total hellscape where anyone foolish…

Many Catholics will assume that the biggest, most publicly witnessed Marian event of the 20th century, if not ever, took place in 1917 when 70,000 people gathered at Fatima to witness what has come to be known as ‘The Miracle of the Sun’. They had come there after the Fatima visionaries said that Our Lady…

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…