We used to call them ‘holy pictures’ back in the long-ago days of my convent education – cheap little copies of paintings by Raphael and Botticelli, on which we schoolgirls would write messages to each other on the obverse side. And now I realise how influential these images were in illuminating the epic events of…

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is the official State body responsible for collecting and publishing statistics about the country. The CSO must count things carefully as it runs the census, produces data on population, employment, health, crime, education and the economy, sets standards for how data is defined and collected, and supplies the data used…

What would you do to protect a child from harm? For most people, the answer is simple: anything, at least anything lawful. It is therefore unsurprising that when asked whether they would support banning under-16s from accessing social media, 76% of respondents in a recent Irish Times survey said yes. The instinct is understandable. However,…

We are simultaneously overfamiliar with Christianity and not familiar with it at all. We look at the ‘strangeness’ of the Christian story, yet we are rarely struck by it as we should be. We are taught that 2,000 years ago God became fully man, while remaining fully God and was born to a woman in…

Before Jesus left for the Mount of Olives to sweat his own blood at Gethsemane, scripture records that the Lord and his disciples sang a hymn – a line easily overlooked in the mysteries of Holy Week. This song, possibly Psalm 118, was something that struck musician and composer Patrick Davey – who was possibly…

Last month, I travelled around Vancouver Island, my island home, which is the size of Ireland. Its population was 864,864 in the latest census; just 96,000 of these are Catholic, fewer than 10%. Twenty priests staff this large mission territory, with two of its 30 parishes served by (lay) pastoral administrators. I was particularly interested…

Few would dispute Micheál Martin’s mastery of the bedside manner or his ability to project calm authority as leader of the country. Whether navigating meetings at the White House with President Trump or managing the daily challenges of politics at home, his instinctive grasp of political craft has served him well during his 15 years…

Christopher Ewart-Biggs was a British ambassador to Ireland who was killed by the Provisional IRA in 1976. His widow endowed a prize in his name which would promote peace and understanding. This year’s Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize has been won just this month by Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride for their joint publication ‘For and Against…

Generation Z was raised in the most technologically advanced era in history and told that religion was dying. Yet it now appears that young people are rediscovering faith at a time when many believed it was something only their grandparents still practised. As Easter approaches, fresh data from Ireland, alongside trends across Europe and the…

This Lent, my husband and I started watching The Chosen streaming series again. We are working through Season Four, although Season Five is already available. The Chosen is the first multi-season series based on the life of Jesus. It is the brainchild of Dallas Jenkins, a conservative Evangelical, who, along with Angel Studios, crowdfunded the…