Over 1,000 young Catholics from across the island of Ireland came together in the Cistercian College, Roscrea at the weekend – not to study – but to celebrate their faith at the annual Youth 2000 Summer Festival. Youth 2000 is a Catholic youth organisation that organises lively faith festivals, retreats, prayer groups and other events…

This Sunday sees the seminary at Maynooth open up for another academic year. When the men who have been chosen to discern a vocation in the seminary take up residence on the historic campus this weekend it will be after a turbulent period. “I wasn’t happy with Maynooth,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said last summer, explaining…

An invitation earlier this year to address Australia’s royal commission on institutional child abuse shows how highly regarded Ireland’s National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church has become, according to the board’s CEO Teresa Devlin. “It was probably the big event of the year so far in terms of the honour…

Patrick Kenny “A certain Roman Catholic chaplain…lies in a soldier’s grave in that sinister plain beyond Ypres. He went forward and back over the battle field with bullets whining about him, seeking out the dying and kneeling in the mud beside them to give them absolution, walking with death with a smile on his face,…

Raphoe’s Bishop Alan McGuckian first spent time in what would eventually become his diocese almost 50 years ago, when his love for the Irish language brought him to Rann na Feirste as a 15-year-old. Although he’s been a regular visitor to Donegal’s Gaeltacht since his teenage years, he only moved to the diocese on Wednesday…

More than a year on from the Brexit referendum, we’re still in unchartable waters, according to Down and Connor’s Bishop Noel Treanor, who hopes that the crash-course in global and European realities Britain has been receiving since the vote is not coming too late. Across the rest of Europe, though, “the mood seems to have…

Have you ever seen the largest choir-chapel in the world or the oldest native tree in Ireland? Are you interested in mysterious deaths and haunting ghosts? You can hear about all these and more on a tour through the Georgian, Victorian and Gothic Revival buildings of St Patrick’s College in the picturesque and bustling university…

Over 20,000 people braved the harsh weather to climb to the summit of Croagh Patrick last Sunday, with pilgrims of all ages, abilities and disabilities approaching the mountain with rain coats, backpacks, walking sticks, and climbing boots – or in some cases without, with a few hardier souls braving the rough terrain barefoot. Tuam’s Archbishop…

Fr Ciaran Dougherty OP At the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle said “all men desire to know.” And he was right. But he wasn’t just talking about the acquisition of random knowledge, he had a very specific thing in mind. He wanted to know what was what. This day after your ordination, it may seem that…

Niamh Uí Bhriain By any standards, Karen Gaffney is an extraordinary person. A long-distance swimmer who relay swam the English Channel, she is an impressive and witty public speaker whose TED talk on inclusion for people with disabilities has captured global attention. She is also the first living person with Down Syndrome to receive an…