Children’s Corner Quicksand is created when water is trapped in sand or marshy earth, thus creating a soil that is halfway between a solid and a liquid. Although the name quicksand would indicate it is in fact created with sand, it can be any mass of clay or dirt particles that contain trapped water. But…

“No, the Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for your observance.” (Deuteronomy 30:14) I was reading at Mass a couple of weeks ago and that line stayed with me. It was that sense that God’s Word is not something distant or illusive that attracted me. As…

A parent’s perspective I’ve taken a great interest in Blessed John Henry Newman recently and was delighted with the announcement that he is to be canonised in Rome on October 13 this year. By all accounts, he was an amazing man: a great scholar, a friend to many, a great priest and pastor, a musician…

One of my earliest memories is riding a horse through an Arcadian meadow with my father. I recall a deep feeling of happiness and safety in his presence, with his arms either side of me, holding the reins and keeping me safe. The scene was indescribably perfect, infused with a warm, golden light. It was…

We – all six of us – have just come back from a holiday in the beautiful city of Brugge in Belgium. We had met in the airport in Dublin, delighted at the prospect of going away together. That evening, having settled into our AirBnB, we went out for a walk. Along by the canals,…

French campsites remain for me the archetypal holiday destination. It’s hard to describe the utter excitement we felt at arriving in France as children. The first time I left Ireland, in the early 1980s, was aboard a ferry which departed from just near my home in Cork. The ferry port was so close that we…

Children’s Corner   If you have ever wondered, when strolling through a meadow or forest, how is it humanly possible to know what species of plant and animal live in a certain area, while also being able to scientifically estimate the amount of each – it’s not so difficult. Biologists have studied different areas in…

I feel a yearning for the wild. I don’t mean I plan to run off and behave badly, I just mean I have a deep desire to go and sit and be in a wild place, listening, noticing and not ‘doing’ anything else. Life has been rather hectic recently. We have just completed our fourth and…

A Parent’s Perspective   My eldest daughter is doing the Leaving Certificate this year. It’s been a different experience to the time my two sons did it. They were happy to sit back while I poured over the minutiae of the marking system guiding them in the direction of where best to focus their energies.…

To children, the summer holidays are infinite.  Once they begin, their pace of life slows. Mornings no longer involve wolfing down a bowl of cornflakes, followed by frantic searches for hairbrushes and missing parts of school uniforms. Time takes on a looser form, as the normally sharp distinction between weekdays and weekends suddenly disappears.  Soon,…