Pope Emeritus Benedict has met with some criticism and mockery on social media for writing, in a Bavarian journal, that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was one of the causes of the clerical abuse scandals – ushering in a general ‘collapse’ in morality. I lived through this period of the 1960s – in the…

Ireland joined the French Commonwealth – the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie – at the end of last year and its presence is now being more widely noted. The OIF gathers together the 88 countries in the world (including 27 ‘observer’ nations) which are French-speaking and Ireland has been welcomed as one of the observer…

I have a cousin, whose judgement I respect, who regards Dr Michael Mosley as an infallible ‘health guru’. Dr Mosley has made television programmes for the BBC on diet and health, and is well known for his successful ‘fast diet’. The ‘fast diet’ recommends eating very little on two days a week – fasting – which…

We are all aware of the phrase ‘climate change denier’ – Mary Robinson said this week it was “evil” to deny the reality of climate change. We know, too, about ‘Holocaust deniers’ – ignoramuses, or worse, who claim that the crimes of the Third Reich did not occur, or that the numbers murdered were exaggerated.…

Every generation likes to embrace a cause, and almost every generation thinks its elders are responsible for messing up the world. So it is unsurprising that some of the young activists on the ‘climate change’ school strikes blame oldsters for causing global warming by greed and careless living. Did we? Maybe so. Still, it might…

Revolutions don’t always happen with riots in the streets, or even ordered declarations of a new national order. Revolutions sometimes take place quietly, when nobody is paying attention, or by slow, gradual, incremental change. Back in 1989, a revolution began which none of us even knew about. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British engineer and computer…

Many educationalists are very much opposed to the decision to drop history and geography from the junior curriculum. On history, many a wise philosopher has said that we cannot know where we are going until we know where we came from. “Those who do not learn from the past,” said George Santayana, “are doomed to…

Everything must be experienced – and understood – in context. And the context in which I remember the Birmingham bombings – when 21 mostly young people died in two Birmingham pubs targeted by the Provisional IRA in 1974 – is personal. I had just had a baby who wasn’t, in the first weeks, very well…

I was sorry to learn of the death of Limerick’s Nora Bennis on February 11, aged 78. Nora had been a defender of a woman’s right to be a homemaker, founding the Irish Mothers Working at Home Association  as well as leading the Solidarity Movement which supported family and Faith values. She stood for election to…

St Patrick’s Day, as we all know, has in recent years become an occasion for “marketing” Ireland in various corners of the globe. The shiny new liberal Ireland is merchandised in such a way that it will attract many more investors, customers and traders. I’m all for investment, trade and opportunities for jobs – who…