It is possible that your image of the Dublin Central constituency still goes back to the days of socialist TD, Tony Gregory, who used his political leverage with Charlie Haughey to extract public monies for a very working-class part of the city when money in general was scarce and unemployment was high. Back in those…
At Pentecost, Archbishop Dermot Farrell published a striking Pastoral Letter to all the people and priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin: ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Fill Our Hearts with the Fire of Your Love’. Archbishop Farrell asks that, like Mary and the Apostles “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:1), we allow ourselves to be encouraged…
The title of the upcoming Catholic retreat in Co. Antrim made me smile. ‘The Music of Leonard Cohen: A Window to the Divine’. When I was a teenager in Toronto, my pals did not share my love of Leonard Cohen’s work. They called it: ‘‘Let’s all jump out the window music’”. But even then, I…
One of the dangers – and privileges – of writing a column is that, over time, it reveals rather more about your identity than you intended. Anyone who has endured my words over the past few months will know that I am a mother, a musician, a Catholic educator and somebody who probably romanticises the…
The role of the President of Ireland is supposed to be gloriously vague. Catherine Connolly should cut ribbons, plant trees and release bland statements that offend nobody. The whole point of the office is that it hovers serenely above the daily madness of Irish political life like a constitutional swan. Which is precisely why it…
“We are an Easter people.” So began a remarkable day of reflection at St John of God Sisters’ Retreat Centre in Ballyvaloo, Co. Wexford recently. The theme was both simple and challenging: ‘Celebrating the Radical Easter Message of Liberation for Women’. The facilitator was Gráinne Doherty, from Donegal, a woman who brings rare gifts of…
Working Groups prepare to wrap up discussions Conservative Catholic voices have told this paper that recent episcopal oversight of the Irish Synodal Pathway proceedings– what they describe as a “reigning in”-has transformed what they perceived as a potentially open-ended discernment exercise into a more practical and more “Catholic” structure for the National Irish Synod in…
The AI option on my smartphone, where I go to check things fairly often these days, tells me that Nokia is still in the business of making “brick” mobile phones or “flip phones” — the phones you use if you don’t want to bother with the internet, WhatsApp, photos and lots of other apps. If…
It was 1949 when Michael McErlain first set out for Knock. In those days, the journey from Belfast could take up to eleven hours involving a train to Dublin, a transfer at Claremorris, followed by a bone-shaker bus to the pilgrimage site. “I don’t remember much about it,” said Michael, “Other than the train –…
It’s funny how times change. The early 2000s were dominated by the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Sam Harris wrote two books, The End of Faith (2004) and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), and the others wrote one each, celebrating the end of religion…
David Quinn
Martina Purdy
Senator Ronan Mullen
Breda O'Brien