If Dame Sarah Mullally, the newly-appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, has an Irish surname, it’s because she is married to an Irishman, architect Eamonn Mullally (they have two children, Liam and Grace.) Her appointment as the first woman to lead the Anglican Communion world-wide has been greeted as historic; yet the reaction has been ambivalent, sometimes…
I reported, over a month ago, on the ubiquity of the Union Jack and St George flags now so popularly flown across England. And since travelling between England and Ireland, I’ve noticed the Irish tricolour has been increasingly displayed in parts of Dublin, fluttering from private homes and from street furniture. And now, it seems,…
Self-help manuals are big business today (a book called Let Them continues to be a leading best-seller). One of the most interesting self-help philosophies, I’ve found, is Stoicism. Deriving from the classical world of Greece and Rome, the counsel of Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius encourage us to accept what we cannot change and focus…
It was hardly a great advertisement for Ireland when Pope Leo, as Bishop Robert Prevost, reported that when visiting this country he had been physically attacked in the street. This had occurred probably in 2007 (he came to Ireland twice, once in 2005 and then again two years later). “Never in my life have I…
Conversation overheard: “Are you going to see the new Downton Abbey film, when it opens this week?” “Oh yes! We’re booked for Sunday.” “Complete tosh!” “I’m sure it will be absolute nonsense! But the gorgeous costumes and posh interiors are just the kind of fluffy entertainment that helps us escape the dreadful realities of the…
What exactly is this ‘woke’ business?” asked an old friend, puzzled by the word’s ubiquitous use and the lack of exact definition. So, I thought I’d compile a simplified guide to an idea and a movement which wields power and influence in directing our values today. ‘Woke’ means replacing words like ‘mother’ and ‘father,’ with…
Pregnancy was once considered such a private process that novels referred to ladies “in a certain condition.” Until relatively recently, maternity clothes were designed to discreetly conceal an expectant mother’s shape. There’s a famous picture of Jacqueline Kennedy with a lineup of the Kennedy clan before JFK’s election, and she is seated in such a…
Over this whole period of concern about the war in – and occupation of – Ukraine, I have frequently thought about the Anglo-Irish situation in 1921. Vladimir Putin regards Ukraine as part of Russian culture and history – the Russian Orthodox Church’s very roots are in Kyiv. And Winston Churchill, who held the British government’s…
Now, let us praise the humble potato. It’s been long associated with Ireland – and negatively, too, because of the terrible failure of the crop prompting the Great Famine. Irish potato consumption has been falling in the past decades, and the Irish appetite for the spud has been overtaken by consumers in Belarus, Poland, Ukraine…
Last week, I asked whether people should moralise about the personal conduct of those in high places. The Christian view warns against being judgemental, lest we ourselves be judged. On such grounds, I have previously been somewhat sorry for Prince Andrew, once second-in-line to the British throne. Andrew was disgraced for bad behaviour, poor judgement…