After the success of Alan Gilsenan’s documentary on the late Noel Browne, I’d like to suggest another person whose life would make a very fine subject for a screen documentary. Someone who deserves to be remembered in the annals of Irish life, although not now well known among younger generations. I’m thinking of Dr Cyril…
The Department of Foreign Affairs proudly tweeted recently how Ireland was celebrating fifty years of having lifted the “marriage bar” for women working in the public service – with the support of the EU and its march towards equality. Yes, I remember that situation well: women, on marriage, had been required to step down from…
Everywhere I went last weekend I heard the late Sinéad O’Connor spoken about with admiration, and sympathy for the mental health turmoil she had been through during her lifetime. The praise we saw and heard over the media genuinely reflected, it seems to me, the widespread feelings for the troubled star, who was such a…
A multi-coloured banner at Dublin’s Heuston Station – one of a number celebrating ‘Pride’ – urges us to feel “Proud to be Myself”. It prompted me to ask myself if I was ‘proud to be myself’. My answer to myself was that I couldn’t really see why I should take any special credit for being…
Sex and money: two of the major temptations that lure men and women into a fall. Perhaps previous generations might have said – two of the weapons used by the devil to entrap humans into the error of their ways. Interestingly, the phrase ‘struggling with his demons’ is still very much in use. On both…
Stand with Ukraine’ is a slogan which has elicited much support across the political spectrum in all our European countries. We have nearly all backed Ukraine’s case against the Russian invader, admired its people’s resistance, and Volodymyr Zelensky’s courageous leadership. But the supply of cluster bombs to the Ukrainian war effort? Here is a dilemma…
Some people enter a theatre of war and never see battle. I was in Paris last week, at the height of the reported violence, and witnessed nothing amiss. Wherever I went in central Paris, it was untroubled: the Etoile area, the Louvre, the Comedie-Française (playing to full houses), Montparnasse, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Latin Quarter,…
The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown will probably be with us for years: an increase in working from home, the development of more Zoom screen technology, and indeed, the streaming of Mass are among these observed. And now, another outcome is claimed: a record rise in the number of single women freezing their eggs, and…
This is the time of year – the summer solstice – when we usually see various homages to pagan Celtic Ireland, with druidic figures revering the turning of the seasons on the longest day. The remarkable Newgrange tomb – 5,200 years old – in the Boyne Valley becomes a focus for marking the solstice event.…
“I despise the Leaving Cert as an exam,” proclaims Ryan Tubridy. “I think it’s cruel and mean.” He says he despises the way that exams reduce books to bullet-points, while putting so much pressure on pupils and students. “There has to be a kinder way to test people’s knowledge.” Would it surprise Ryan to be…