During the pre-paration of 2013’s McAleese Report, Maynooth historian Dr Jacinta Prunty met with a panel where one of the men involved asked about shaving the girls’ heads, one of the actions most commonly linked in the popular mind with Ireland’s Magdalen Asylums. “All I could think was that they were constantly buying combs every…

“A hunger strike to death is a form of violence to one’s self and violence leads to violence,” wrote the then Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume, to Derry’s Archbishop Edward Daly in April 1981, prompting a heated debate in these islands’ Catholic newspapers. After Bobby Sands died the following month, Dr Daly observed that…

When Fr Ciarán O’Callaghan CSsR gets up every morning and looks out from his bedroom window in Clonard Monastery he sees, just metres away, the tall and forbidding so-called peace wall that separates Catholics and Protestants in west Belfast. The wall, one of more than 40 such structures in Belfast and of well over 100…

“Everybody’s got a hungry heart,” says Christopher West, quoting Bruce Springsteen and observing in an echo of St Augustine’s opening observation from the start of his Confessions that “we all have a deep ache and hunger in our hearts for something”. All set for a speaking tour of Ireland early next month, West, the best-known…

What does the end of the world look like? Matthew, Luke, Timothy and the Book of Revelations all address this question in the Bible. Hollywood answers it with movies like World War Z, Deep Impact and I am Legend. Novelists portray this era in The Road, Z for Zachariah and Children of Men. For me the closest I have ever seen to…

Nostalgia is a false path to the future, former New Zealand PM Jim Bolger tells Greg Daly Courage, for former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger, is crucial if people of faith want to bring their distinct outlooks and gifts to politics. Currently Chancellor of the University of Waikato just outside Auckland on New Zealand’s…

For more than 50 generations, families have carried forward the faith of their families who made their way to Lough Derg Lough Derg offers families a unique connection with their ancestoral family whose spiritual footsteps down the generations awaits them in this sacred island. The Lough Derg Pilgrimage season connects us with the flame of…

People dread the thought of being without their iPad or smartphone for even a few minutes, and with constant stimulation it’s rare anyone takes time to reflect. Or so one nun thinks, as she takes action to stop people becoming “overcrowded and overwhelmed” by offering a place where Facebook and Twitter are not allowed. Sr…

While St John Paul II’s devotion to Fatima may be proverbial, and while Pope Francis’ visit to the shrine may be filling the headlines, it is always worth remembering that their devotion to Fatima is one shared by countless Catholics – and even, as described below, Muslims! Some four million people visit the Portuguese shrine…

Philip Kosloski As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, one aspect that could easily go unnoticed is the subtle connection with Islam. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the three shepherd children near the village of Fatima, Portugal, a place named after both a Muslim princess and the…