Memories of being stopped at loyalist blockades haunted my mind as I watched scenes of fuel protests across Ireland. I remember quite well being stopped at Belfast’s Ormeau Bridge, which was blocked off by loyalist women and wee children, standing defiantly. I beckoned the police officer who was standing on the bridge, redirecting traffic. I…
Between Christmas and Easter, I attended a humanist funeral. It was not by design. I had assumed the deceased was of another Christian denomination, and there would at least be a religious element to the service at the crematorium. “Oh my God,” I thought as the humanist ‘minister’ rose to speak about John (not his…
Before Jesus left for the Mount of Olives to sweat his own blood at Gethsemane, scripture records that the Lord and his disciples sang a hymn – a line easily overlooked in the mysteries of Holy Week. This song, possibly Psalm 118, was something that struck musician and composer Patrick Davey – who was possibly…
A leaflet dropped through my door the other day. The Belfast councillor Donal Lyons was promoting a new scheme to recycle glass bottles. Commendable. Except Cllr Lyons represents the SDLP which has proved a major disappointment. I would like to vote for Donal Lyons. Originally from Dublin, he seems like a decent, gentle person. But…
I was baptised in a converted aeroplane hangar – and I’m always ready for take-off, though sometimes I have crash-landed and messed up my baptismal gown! I was clothed in Christ at St Agnes’ Church, which was built in Belfast after the Second World War. I almost missed my take-off. “You’re too late,” the priest…
Around 500 people poured out of St Patrick’s Church, Dungiven, Co. Derry, last Friday to commemorate the first flame lit by Ireland’s apostle on the Hill of Slane in 433AD. The parish priest, Fr Gerry Sweeney, lit a symbolic fire of faith, hope and love outside the church as hundreds gathered after a week-long Lenten retreat…
It was the summer of 1986 when the teenage Gerry Sweeney drifted away from the sacraments. “I had been missing Mass and I knew something wasn’t right and I thought I better do something about it,” he recalls. He had been covering his tracks by getting other pals to pick up the parish bulletin. His…
It was a parish priest who gave award-winning Irish filmmaker Campbell Miller the break he so badly needed. Without the encouragement of Fr Colin Crossey, from Newcastle, Co. Down, Miller might not have pursued his talent which is about to be showcased in the United States. His latest docudrama, St Patrick – The Hidden Years,…
Few lessons from my days at primary school stand out, but I do remember one class very clearly. A grammar lesson that was really about inclusive language and equality. Our teacher told us that the word “chairman” was wrong. It should be chairperson, and “his” should be “his or hers”. This appealed to my sense…
Experience, wrote CS Lewis, is a brutal teacher. And former politician Peter Mandelson, who has been disgraced over his ties to notorious sex offender and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, once taught me a lesson. We were both attending one of those awful receptions for “the great and the good”. I was there as a BBC…