“There goes another one!” We were practising ballads for the GAA Scór competition and we needed help to add harmonies and generally lift the quality of what we had learned from straightforward ballads to something a little special. Brighdín has the most amazing musical ability. All it took was for us to begin singing the…

I spent last Tuesday at work in the rarefied environs of the Supreme Court in London. Just for contrast, I spent the next day knocking down a wall with a sledgehammer. I was working at a rapid pace, as I had to have the rubble cleared in time to pick the kids up from school.…

I think the dog is putting a challenge up to me. I’ve written about Roise before, how she joins in with us when we pray the Angelus. As we respond to the prayers, Roise makes a strange, sing-song baying sound. She’s a pack animal and we are her pack so she wants to join with…

Nicole O’Leary Nicole O’Leary describes how students in Portlaoise benefit from the John Paul II Awards As part of being a CEIST school, 5th and 6th year students from Scoil Chríost Rí, Portlaoise, participate in the John Paul II awards annually. Girls in our school from all walks of faith come together to rejoice and…

When I was a child, both my parents were in the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. Thirty or 40 years ago, almost everyone in Ireland knew about the Pioneers and a fair few were members. I’d guess that if you mentioned the Association to a group of young people today, there’d be a few blank expressions.…

I recently overheard a woman saying she withdew her child from the school choir, in a church school, on the basis that there were “too many churchey songs”. Yet there was no animosity in this slightly eccentric criticism, it was simply that her child preferred musicals. Here in England, faith is a personal matter – to…

At various times over recent years I have worked with young people preparing for the oral Irish exam in their Leaving Certificate. Apart from the challenge of developing a level of fluency in Irish most of the students also face the challenge of developing and expressing their own opinions. Our education system does little to…

Three feast days are approaching next week – all within just a few days of one another! The feast day you are probably most familiar is the feast of St Brigid on February 1. So you will no doubt be gathering bunches of rushes this weekend to make St Brigid’s cross. Traditionally, her crosses are…

Ireland never lets go of an Irish heart. The further we go from our homeland, the stronger it calls us home. French Canadians were never known for singing maudlin ballads lamenting the day they left Paris. English immigrants to Australia were not known to weep out of a heartfelt yearning for Suffolk. Yet we Irish…

There are times in the Sunday liturgy when the priest has the option to read a shorter version of the Gospel. This Sunday is one of those times but I find myself hoping that priests around the country will opt for the longer version. Why? This Sunday we find ourselves in the early chapters of…