As I am writing this column, the final ballots in the US election are yet to be cast. The result appears to be hanging in the balance, with polls suggesting that those favouring one candidate over the other are almost evenly divided. Like many observers, I have watched with interest the somewhat tumultuous nature of…

Claire Brennan is a Catholic mother of four who was arrested in October last year while praying inside a so-called “safe-access zone” at Causeway Hospital in Derry. Brennan (52), of Doneysheil Road, Rasharkin, has a court date on December 2 and faces a fine up to £2,500 if convicted. In legal terms, the charge is that…

It’s a bit of a risk writing a column for a newspaper that comes out on a Thursday and assuming the General Election will have been called by the time you read it. But all the predictions are that Ireland will have its General Election on Friday, November 29, and Taoiseach Simon Harris will have…

Like many of you reading this, I remember Halloween nights of my childhood with ‘Trick or Treating’, songs, games, apples and monkey-nuts. It all seemed innocent fun. But things have changed. Today, celebrations of Halloween have taken a darker turn that ranges from exaggerated decorations and costumes in schools to clear evidence of the rise…

I was surprised to see a French supermarket – in the Bordeaux region – dedicate a whole section of its space to Hallowe’en costumes and assorted such decorations, from witches’ hats to spooky skeleton costumes. Marking Hallowe’en had never, previously, been a French custom: but it has become one now, thanks to American merchandising tactics.…

I have lovely neighbours of whom I am very fond. However, I am not fond of their Hallowe’en display, which consists of two ugly witch-like figures sitting somewhat incongruously on deck chairs. A motion-activated sensor sets off vicious cackling and screaming while the figures bob up and down as though possessed, including in the middle…

The phrase “Ireland’s dark past” has well and truly entered the national consciousness. We come across it in articles, hear it on the radio, in TV documentaries, in movies and in general conversation. Our “dark past” used to refer mainly to the period from the foundation of the Irish State in 1922 until maybe the…

It was a summer’s day in Mayo, and the heavens were weeping, when I first heard the story of John’s conversion. He had been raised in a family who lived without faith, a family with a father who drank too much. John grew up hating his father, but like him, developed a thirst for that…