They say that paper never refuses ink. As I sit to put ink to this page, I am saddened by many of the events happening in the world today. We hear of atrocities in the name of war, of murders in our homes and on our streets and of the heartbreak endured by far too…

So, do we lament, or celebrate, the fact that a thousand more Irish pubs, all across the country, are predicted to close over the next decade? Or that, already, more than 100 pubs close each year in Ireland – 150 have shut down in the first quarter of this year alone? For those in the…

Almost in the dead of night, the Government published the latest abortion figures late last week. There was no press release. Nothing was done to draw attention to the grim new total. It is as if the Government doesn’t want the figure discussed at all. Instead, the annual abortion figures were simply published on the…

I have learned a new word in time for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, the leader of Catholic emancipation: eleutherophilia. It means a passion for liberty; but the term can also refer to a mental disorder: a manic or mad irresistible craving for freedom. This mania – a dangerous belief that…

Pope Leo, Pope Francis never took holidays. It became a pet peeve of mine. I felt that he was giving bad example and reinforcing the kind of culture where people could never truly relax. He did reduce his number of work commitments and make time for meeting and corresponding with friends in the summer. However,…

If there is one person who should be involved, at the highest possible level in Middle East peace talks, it is surely the Leitrim-born mediator Oliver McTernan. Oliver is often heard on RTÉ and on the BBC commenting on the agonising Gaza-Israeli conflict. His balanced, measured, and knowledgeable words are much respected in the broadcast…

It was once known as Vinegar Hill, or Little Dublin, a colonial outpost settled by Irish immigrants, fleeing the famine. Having carried their faith and their culture to what is now the village of Markham, Ontario, Canada, these Irish men and women built a little Catholic church in 1862 on Rouge Street. They named it…

A comment from the great Italian writer, Umberto Eco, has always stayed with me. Eco is most famous as the author of The Name of the Rose, a sort of intellectual murder-mystery set in a monastery during the Middle Ages and made into a movie starring Sean Connery as a sort of monk-detective. I don’t…

My friend’s son worked for a while as a tour guide in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast. Two Americans got off the bus in the dockland area and were quite perplexed: “But where is the Titanic?” they wanted to know. They were genuinely shocked to hear it had sunk. The Titanic looms large in Belfast,…