There was, understandably, much grumbling about the massive shut-down of Dublin for the EU summit during the past week. Obviously, people were greatly inconvenienced and businesses complained they didn’t have sufficient time to prepare. But in this case, I’m with the Government, which defended the security measures for “the bigger picture.” Thomas Byrne, Minister for…
Teresa Harte has a vivid childhood memory, from the start of the Second World War. She was sitting on the front step of her home in Lincoln Street, Belfast and posed this question: “What is war?” Everyone had been talking about it, at home and on the radio. “War is the beginning of the end,”…
Peter Hitchens is a well-known journalist in Britain and a dyed-in-the-wool social conservative. About 20 years ago he appeared on the BBC with Russell Brand, who has just been sentenced to ten and a half years in prison on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Back in 2006, Brand was the…
The recent political unrest in Poland is centred on control of its Constitutional Tribunal which ensures its laws are compatible with its Constitution. One of the backgrounds is Polish concern about EU encroachment on their national sovereignty, a concern shared by former Communist Bloc countries, who fear absorption into another supra-state. They also fear the…
Last night I had a phone call from my best friend, who happens to be a priest. He told me that his 96-year-old father, Godfrey, had suffered a stroke and was now receiving palliative care. Godfrey is a true gentleman who, at one point in his life, made his home in Mayo with his Irish…
I am a godfather to two children and I often think their parents could have chosen better. I’m not great at remembering birthdays. I try to make up for this at Christmas. Though I have fallen down there too. But I always thought that was the extent of my neglect. Never in my wildest dreams…
There’s one form of education that is in decline in both Ireland and Britain: boarding school. Only 25 schools in Ireland are now of the boarding variety: in the 1960s there were around 125. The announced closure of Glenstal Abbey as a boarding school is perhaps a symbolic moment. In Britain, boarding schools have declined…
Among the ultra-progressive, it is now the done thing not to tell people what the sex is of their newborn child. Declaring to the world that the child is a boy or a girl is considered an unfair imposition of a gender stereotype on the child. The child should be given the freedom to decide…
November is a sombre month. The summer is done. The leaves are falling from the trees. The cycle of life and death is moving on. The dead lists lie at the foot of the altar in the chapel, and people remember and pray for all those who have gone. It can be a time of…
Both the Primate of All Ireland and the Bishop of Limerick have said some parishes are on the brink of closure. What happens when parishes are no longer financially viable or cannot be maintained? During his opening address to the National Synodal Assembly, Archbishop Eamon Martin warned that “many of our parishes and even our…
Mary Kenny
Martina Purdy
David Quinn
Senator Ronan Mullen
Nuala O’Loan