Irish missionaries are renowned and respected across Africa, but not many have lived the eclectic life of one man in particular. This Limerick native taught at Catholic schools, worked as an ambulance driver and in hospital administration, survived malaria, and now serves as the Chancellor of a diocese the same size as the island of…

“The Pope is Catholic.” It might seem a strange way for one of the Church’s most eminent cardinals to begin a lecture, but these are strange times: just one day after Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn spoke in Limerick about how to read Pope Francis’s exhortation on love and the family, Catholic websites, news outlets and…

If Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College last week managed an impressive prelude to next year’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin through hosting two lectures and an academic seminar with the prelate the Pope has tapped as the key interpreter of his document on marriage and the family, Cork didn’t let the side down. Saturday saw…

When there is tragedy anywhere in the world, it is usually children who suffer the most. Although the Catholic Church and Trócaire are helping to keep children in Kenya from disease, starvation and abuse, it is a problem that has deteriorated due to severe drought. The Diocese of Lodwar was established in Turkana County, Northern…

In a land where Irish missionaries have delivered life-saving services and education, there is profound gratitude towards Ireland, but now conditions in Kenya have become utterly dire. A woman breastfeeds her child despite being severely malnourished, and still smiles after walking 30km in blistering heat from her village to a health centre. Helen Eipa, who…

If there was criticism of Pope Francis’ decision to bring a dozen Syrian refugees to Rome in April 2016 – followed by a further nine that September – it took the form of claims that this was a token move, a mere drop in the ocean that is the migrant crisis on Europe’s doorstep. For…

Ireland is home to few pictures more iconic than Vermeer’s Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid. A masterpiece of composition, colour, and light, this jewel of the National Gallery is easily passed over as a simple scene of a woman focusing calmly on the letter she’s writing, while her maid gazes out the window,…

Pope Francis is a well-known soccer fan. His favourite team is San Lorenzo de Almagro, one of the most important teams in Argentina, and the Pontiff still keeps his membership card for the team. However, thanks to the efforts of an Irish priest, Pope Francis may find a new love for the GAA, with the…

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…