Colm Fitzpatrick explores the power of 
home care   The benefits of getting older are manifold and range from having more space for leisure to spending more time with family, but like any process, ageing is often accompanied with some crucial and difficult problems. One of the most common complications about getting older is an…

Personal Profile Davis Clark speaks with a Loreto nun breaking all barriers   Visual impairment is certainly a challenge, but for someone like Sr Bríd Smith, challenges are simply opportunities for growth. “That’s one thing visual impairment has taught me: the goodness in people”, she says. Even with her failing eyesight, she truly feels that…

Matthew Carlson writes about the fight against tobacco companies   Tobacco companies are known to target children and young people to create new waves of smoking addicts, but new laws being implemented this September aim to fight back against these callous forms of advertising. Plain packaging legislation will come into force this autumn, under the…

WMOF 2018   In an exciting new development An Post will release two brand new stamps to commemorate the Pope visiting Ireland in August. One of the stamps shows Pope Francis with a dove and the other depicts a family walking together on a beach. The stamps cost €1 and €1.50 respectively. They are featured…

Personal Profile Matthew Carlson speaks with a lay catechist   Although many people may think that their grandparent is the most religious grandparent out there, Colette Furlong may be able to take that award home. Colette, who is the Catechist for the cluster of parishes in Sligo recalls that as a child, her ‘nanna’ was…

Loneliness is rife in modern Ireland, writes Davis Clark   It is perhaps the greatest contradiction of our modern age that even as avenues of communication have multiplied, allowing us spend more and more time in contact with others, we seem to feel increasingly isolated and alienated from those around us. A tidal wave of…

Personal Profile Matthew Carlson speaks with environmental activist Orla Farrell   Most people on the street don’t think much when they pass a tree. They walk past it without any thought or regard to it. Orla Farrell is not one of those people. In fact, she is one of the directors for an organisation called…

Colm Fitzpatrick asks whether phones should be banned in schools   If you had said 40 years ago that someday children will be walking around with small portable electronic devices whereby they could communicate with their peers, create their own personal profiles, and find the answer to any question with just the tap of a…

WMOF 2018   Jane Mellet   On Wednesday June 20, in the Loyola Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, many representatives from ecological groups in Ireland attended a presentation to hear about the World Meeting of Families 2018 ‘Our Common Home’ project. This presentation, which I delivered with Dr Lorna Gold of Trócaire, offered an opportunity for those…

Personal Profile Matthew Carlson speaks with a Holocaust survivor   Tomi Reichental has lived quite a life, even by normal standards. He is an author, public speaker, world traveller and to top it off, is one of the last survivors of one of humanities darkest time, the Holocaust. Born in Slovakia in 1935, Tomi has…