Really, I was only ever superficially aware of the disaster of Chernobyl. Yes, I remember when it happened in April 1986, and that it was awful, and indicative that the Soviet Union was hopelessly badly organised – something I had seen in visits to Russia and the USSR anyway. And I admired the work that…
There’s a Latin axiom which argues that there’s no accounting for taste, de gustibus non est disputandum. I reference it as a preamble to my annual list of the 10 books I most enjoyed this past year because, admittedly, taste is somewhat subjective. I chose these particular books because they’re the ones that spoke most…
Notebook The New Year brings with it a barrage of holiday offers. Travel agents and airlines know that the depths of winter create in us a desire for the delights of summer, and they know how to capitalise on that desire: leave behind the clouds, the rain, the gloom and head for the sunshine!…
One of the most uplifting Christmas presents I received was an old cassette tape – remember those listening tapes once played on a cassette machine? Well, I still have, and use, a cassette machine. Back in the 1990s, my late nephew gave me a tape of some Dublin schoolchildren re-telling their versions of Bible stories…
The View Apart from communal worship and family festivities, the Christmas season provides a moment of peace, rest and reflection. There is more opportunity to read a book. Prior to Christmas, the publishing industry brings out many new books suitable for gifts, some celebrating effort and achievement individual and collective. One such book is The…
Maynooth’s Professor of Homiletics lives on through the preaching of his students, writes Fr Paul Clayton-Lea “I hope you’re not going to bore the socks off another generation of Irish Catholics” was the unlikely opening remark of the Professor of Homiletics Fr Ronan Drury to my class of seminarians in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth…
You cannot keep pretending that the individual is the basic unit of society to the detriment of the family or communities, writes David Quinn Power always defeats itself in the end. This, to me, is almost a law of nature. Look through history and you see this ‘law’ play itself out again and again…
In virtually all of his novels, Milan Kundera, manifests a strong impatience with every kind of ideology, hype, or fad that makes for group-think or crowd-hysteria. He is suspicious of slogans, demonstrations, and marches of all kinds, no matter the cause. He calls all these the great march and, to his mind, they invariably lead…
Notebook It was St Stephen’s morning and I was in the sacristy for morning Mass. As I got ready, I asked one of the altar servers if he had an enjoyable Christmas Day. I had follow-up questions as well: “What did you get from Santa?” Is that what you wanted?” Even more questions, if needed,…
As a new party, Aontú did well in the Derry constituency of Foyle for the UK General Election: Anne McCloskey got over 2,000 votes and saw an increase in support for her party. Yet, in terms of the overall political picture, it’s surely also a welcome development that the SDLP, which had been wiped off…
Mary Kenny
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
David Quinn