It is very cheering to hear that during last week’s great snow event so many people acted in a helpful and neighbourly way, and were particularly aware of looking out for the elderly. Yet this can be a delicate question – how to be kind to the elderly – and there is sometimes a fine…
One of the most sensible interventions made in the current impasse of the North’s politics were comments made last week by Baroness Eileen Paisley. Eileen, widow of the late Ian, said that her husband and the late Martin McGuinness would never have got into this current “mess” in the first place. Widows defend the reputations…
How many nostalgic memories are triggered by the news that Walton’s Music Shop in Dublin’s South Great Georges’ Street is closing down! What a fine institution it was, and how valiantly it upheld the cause of Irish music down through the decades, ever since 1922. But Niall Walton, who inherited the business from his father…
Nell McCafferty made an apt point when she participated in a discussion celebrating the centenary of the women’s vote on last weekend’s Sunday with Miriam. There was, Nell pointed out, a connection between pregnancy and housing – between mothers being able to celebrate a pregnancy and welcome a baby because they are in possession of…
Some years ago, I attended a medical conference in London at which Prof. Joel Brind spoke. He has the chair in biology and endocrinology at New York’s Baruch College, and he is the leading exponent of the thesis that there is a link between breast cancer and induced abortion. Prof. Brind spoke as a scientist…
What are we to make of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader who is almost certain to be swept back to power in the Hungarian spring election? He is regarded as an ‘anti-liberal’ and ‘semi-authoritarian’ by the European Union – and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was widely criticised in Ireland just for paying a visit to Mr…
I think, if I were a full-time resident in Ireland these days, I would now be inclined to vote for Fianna Fail. I’m impressed by the way in which party members are emphasising the role of conscience in the debate over repealing the Eighth Amendment. By contrast, it seems deplorable that Fine Gael was so coercive…
There’s an old saying that “the pen is mightier than the sword”, and it is as strikingly true today as it ever has been – if “pen” embraces the use of words in general. People are often judged more by what they say than by what they do. Or even by what other people say…
The Hollywood actresses – sometimes they prefer to be called ‘female actors’ – made a global impact, surely, by dressing in (very chic) black for the Golden Globe awards. As did Oprah Winefrey’s electrifying speech vowing that the sexual harassment and even routine rape which has been part of Hollywood culture since Joan Crawford was…
It is inevitable that in 2018 there will be much public discourse on the subject of Humanae Vitae – it being the fiftieth anniversary, in July this year, of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical (‘Of Human Life’). After two papal commissions, and many committees of experts, Paul VI reaffirmed the Church’s traditional teaching against artificial contraception…