Notebook I am about to misquote Oscar Wilde (or use his sentence structure for my own ends); please bear with me. To get away for four days with all the priests of the diocese for a retreat in the midst of a global pandemic might seem lucky, but to do it again the following month…

For almost two years now, and probably for months to come, our lives have been dominated by the pandemic and the restrictions it has placed on us. It has catapulted doctors, scientists and public health experts generally into positions of pre-eminence where their word can barely be questioned. Such an eventuality was predicted decades ago…

A former Labour MP, in Britain, Ann Keen, certainly achieved a personal and political goal this past year of 2021. She succeeded in getting the Westminster government to announce an inquiry into forced adoptions in Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s. Mrs Keen, former parliamentary secretary to Gordon Brown, has also called for an official…

My father always had a merry soul. He still does. And he also had a remarkably prodigious memory. There wasn’t a traditional or seannós song he didn’t know. It was as if on the first hearing of a song he soaked up and absorbed not just every line, but every nuance, ornamentation, and flourish, of…

The Notebook Every year at this time I find myself returning to a beautiful reflection by Joyce Rupp titled ‘Welcoming the New Year’: “A new year stands on my doorstep ready to enter my life’s journey. Something in me welcomes this visitor: the hope of bountiful blessings the joy of a new beginning the freshness…

Yes, for some people it looks as though it might be an austere, even a lonely and isolating Christmas. I’m not a fan of some of these State-imposed restrictions occasioned by what seems to me an over-interpretation of health measures; but, as realists say nowadays, it is what it is. And you can never beat…

The View When I was a little girl, all the best stories began with “Once upon a time…” It was a magical opening because I always wondered, “Where is this book taking me? When is it happening?” In the days before television (I am very old!) books were the medium through which I was transported…

Letter from Rome: The Pope’s answer on Paris prelate raised more questions than it answered John L. Allen Jr As the wise saying goes, “If you don’t want the answer, then don’t ask the question.” That adage doesn’t cover every situation, however, because there are also times you genuinely do want the answer, and still…