Mindful Living Thinking hinders the coming into awareness of the unconscious, including our awareness that the spirit of God dwells in us. It is through contemplative prayer that we are able to experience, albeit to a very different degree, the kind of experience Jesus had in prayer with his father. Christian dogma and doctrine, important…

Sweet Treats September is here, and for me that can only mean one thing – blackberry season has begun! They are excellent in anything from a brandy to a crumble, and here I suggest another way to use the humble berry. If you are feeling up to the challenge, source the blackberries from hedges or…

Amateur archaeologist unearths pre-Viking treasure in Denmark An amateur archaeologist has found 22 gold objects with sixth century symbols that could yield new details about pre-Viking peoples in Denmark, the museum that will house the treasure has said. Some of the objects have runic motifs and inscriptions which may refer to the rulers of the…

Population of Republic above 5 million for first time since 1851 The country’s population was estimated to stand at 5.01 million in April, the latest statistics from the CSO revealed last week. This is the first time the population has risen above five million since the 1851 census, when the population stood at 5.11 million.…

Everyday Philosophy There’s a standard bit of ethical terminology that gets thrown around a lot in Catholic circles: the difference between moral questions that involve ‘intrinsic evils’ and moral questions that involve ‘matters of prudential judgment’. This comes up a lot in politics: support for certain things like abortion and euthanasia are supposed to be…

We are married three years and in the last year or so my husband has been going out with his friends or work colleagues much more than before. He goes out every Saturday night and usually comes home drunk, really affecting our Sundays as a family because he is hungover and in a bad mood.…

Study suggests vaccine protection wanes after 6 months The protection provided by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines starts to wane within six months, new research suggests. A reasonable worst-case scenario could see protection fall to below 50% for the elderly and healthcare workers by winter, an expert has said. The…

Medical Matters Reducing alcohol consumption in Ireland has become an important public health policy that has received much recent attention. A report conducted by the Health Research Board in 2013 showed that more than half (54.3%) of drinkers aged 18-75 in Ireland were classified as harmful drinkers, with approximately two fifths (37.3%) practising binge drinking…

Living Laudato Si’ The recent UN report on Climate Change (IPCC) left many people feeling overwhelmed as the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, described it as a “code red for humanity”. The report was released during a week which saw wildfires continue to rage across the world and countries such as Madagascar bracing themselves for…

Young woman takes off on round-the-world record bid Pilot Zara Rutherford, 19, has taken off at the start of a three-month bid to become the youngest woman to fly solo round the world. She departed from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in western Belgium in her Shark ultralight, the world’s fastest microlight aircraft. “Growing up, I loved aviation…