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…

Should we moralise – or take a moral view – on the public behaviour of persons thrust into the public limelight? A recent global event has produced a wide range of varying responses to such an occurrence. At a concert in Massachusetts, where the musical group Coldplay was performing, a couple were caught on camera…

So, young people aged 16 and over, in Northern Ireland, will forthwith be entitled to vote, as Keir Starmer’s government lowers the voting age all over the United Kingdom. It’s quite probable that a similar change will be introduced in the Republic, where the voting age currently stands at 18. There’s been much discussion as…

So, do we lament, or celebrate, the fact that a thousand more Irish pubs, all across the country, are predicted to close over the next decade? Or that, already, more than 100 pubs close each year in Ireland – 150 have shut down in the first quarter of this year alone? For those in the…

If there is one person who should be involved, at the highest possible level in Middle East peace talks, it is surely the Leitrim-born mediator Oliver McTernan. Oliver is often heard on RTÉ and on the BBC commenting on the agonising Gaza-Israeli conflict. His balanced, measured, and knowledgeable words are much respected in the broadcast…

The crowds poured out of the trains arriving in Dublin last Saturday, evidently making for the ‘Gay Pride’ march in the capital. The rainbow colours were everywhere, and costumes ranged from the exotic to the unremarkable, and in age from tots to grannies. The atmosphere reminded me that there is a kind of joyfulness in…