Participating in a feminist conversation in Northern Ireland last weekend (held at the stunning Mount Stewart stately home in Newtownards), I listened to a distinguished Oxford historian express her hopes that the coming Irish referendum on the Eighth Amendment “would give feminism a unified focus”. I very much hope that the abortion referendum will not…
Approached with moderation and admixed with common sense, “mindfulness” seems a harmless enough practice. Deriving from Buddhist thinking, the modern application may help people to “improve their mind by focusing on a positive object”. If you have to give a public speech, for example, and you worry you’ll have a panic attack, it can be…
Bishop Phonsie Cullinan of Waterford and Lismore has made a graceful apology for his remarks criticising the HPV vaccine. His overall points had been that the vaccine against cervical cancer might not be completely safe: and it might also have the effect of encouraging promiscuity among young girls. He has subsequently called his remarks “an…
Should sport be politicised? It’s surely a pity when it is. The spat between President Trump and the American National Football League probably has some merit on both sides: the footballers, mostly young black men, are entitled to demonstrate their antipathy towards the President’s alleged race attitudes, by kneeling on one knee, rather…
As Angela Merkel faces a virtual coronation as sovereign of Europe, the biographies of the lady are coming thick and fast. Five new tomes have been published in recent weeks – two in German, one each in English, French and Dutch. Her background as a Lutheran pastor’s daughter is highlighted in all these Merkel studies.…
I didn’t hear George Hook’s radio comments about rape which have caused such a storm of controversy, so I won’t comment on the specifics of what he said. You have to hear something live, pick up voice tone, register and context, to form a judgement on a sensitive subject. On the general topic, it always…
If proof were needed that all the world loves a baby, the announcement that Kate and William are expecting their third provides full evidence. Globally, the third baby for the Cambridges has been front-page news. And significantly, although Kate is only “a few weeks” pregnant, the media is already treating the royal infant as a…
Considering how important a subject education is, it’s interesting to observe that relatively little national attention was paid to The Sunday Times list of top 100 Irish schools, just published. Could this be because it is glaringly evident that Catholic schools continually emerge as the gold standard in educational attainment? Take the Salerno Jesus and…
It’s crisis-time for students, and it’s especially crisis-time for students seeking accommodation. The situation, particularly in Dublin, is dire. We know it’s dire for homeless families as well, although the needs of students, and of families, are different. The solution for families is for more family homes to be built, pronto. The solution – or…
I wish some bright young writer – or some bright older writer, indeed – would produce a book on the theme of ‘The Strange Death of the SDLP’. The collapse of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland is one of the major electoral events, surely, of 2017. It also seems to be…