Every August, Knock beckons and my friends and I hit the road for County Mayo and the annual Novena to Our Lady of Knock. The forecast was for sun – a treat as I often joke that even Our Blessed Mother went to Knock in rain. Family day at Knock was a scorcher. When it…
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has raised a very important issue, namely, should the Catholic Church sever its links with the insurance company, Allianz, because of business and investment links the company has with Israel? Allianz is a giant German company that took over Church & General Insurance in the 1990s. It is one…
Pregnancy was once considered such a private process that novels referred to ladies “in a certain condition.” Until relatively recently, maternity clothes were designed to discreetly conceal an expectant mother’s shape. There’s a famous picture of Jacqueline Kennedy with a lineup of the Kennedy clan before JFK’s election, and she is seated in such a…
The news in the Philippines these days is focused on impeachment, changing the Constitution, and other mundane political matters. The public, Congress and government agencies are far from addressing the needs of children who are sexually and physically abused by relatives, human traffickers and online predators, and the seeming social acceptance that allows the abuse…
“I’m packing for Poland,” Sr Briege McKenna tells me down the phone, pronouncing on prayer, priesthood and Pope Leo. The globe-trotting nun, with a gift for healing and evangelisation, recently returned to Ireland for the fiftieth anniversary of Intercession for Priests, a mission founded in Dublin by the late Fr Kevin Scallon to heal and restore…
By the time you read this, Heather Humphries or Sean Kelly MEP might well be the Fine Gael candidate for the presidency, but so far it has been a very strange presidential race, such as it has been one at all. There is only one candidate at the time of writing who actually has the…
Harvey’s death shows urgent need for health system accountability, says Peadar Tóibín TD I want to convey my deepest sympathies to the family of Harvey Morrison Sherratt. It’s a disaster for any parent to lose their child. Harvey’s death is particularly heartbreaking given the suffering that he endured in his short life and the lack…
Over this whole period of concern about the war in – and occupation of – Ukraine, I have frequently thought about the Anglo-Irish situation in 1921. Vladimir Putin regards Ukraine as part of Russian culture and history – the Russian Orthodox Church’s very roots are in Kyiv. And Winston Churchill, who held the British government’s…
Now, let us praise the humble potato. It’s been long associated with Ireland – and negatively, too, because of the terrible failure of the crop prompting the Great Famine. Irish potato consumption has been falling in the past decades, and the Irish appetite for the spud has been overtaken by consumers in Belarus, Poland, Ukraine…
Before Mike Nesbitt entered politics, he was an accomplished journalist, respected for his forensic skills on live radio. “He was a rottweiler,” recalled one former colleague. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be interrogated by him.” Now it is Nesbitt, the Health Minister, who must come up with the answers.And it would appear he is more…
Martina Purdy
David Quinn
Mary Kenny