Everyday Philosophy You hear a lot in apologetics about how if the materialist image of the world favoured by the likes of Richard Dawkins was true, there would be no room in reality for human free will. But why exactly is this? What’s the nature of the tension between free will and scientific materialism, and…
We are in the midst of the Easter Season and I for one am glad that it is a season and not simply a day. I need time for Easter to grow gradually. I have struggled with stones and tombs this year and have needed a slow gentle dawning rather than exuberant exclamations of joy.…
Whatever energy we don’t transform, we will transmit. That’s a phrase I first heard from Richard Rohr and it names a central challenge for all mature adults. Here’s its Christian expression. Central to our understanding of how we are saved by Jesus is a truth expressed by the phrase: Jesus is the Lamb of God…
Warning over ‘eye-watering’ levels of youth unemployment The National Youth Council of Ireland has described the level of youth unemployment in Ireland as “eye-watering” and warned of a major social and economic crisis if young people continue to be unable to get onto the jobs ladder. Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Deputy director of the…
Now may be the perfect time to get our legal affairs in order writes solicitor Elaine Byrne The pandemic may have been a time when many of us have reflected on and considered our legal affairs. In this article I would like to look at various matters which may be on our minds and also…
My two-year-old has now spent most of her life under coronavirus restrictions. Of course, she doesn’t understand the bigger picture, but she does know that, at times, the Government stops the older children from going to school and her from going to her beloved childminder. She knows that sometimes we are not allowed go to…
Medical Matters Memory decline is common in older age and indeed about 20% of adults over 65 have some degree of clinically significant cognitive impairment. Notably, the incidence of dementia also doubles every 5 years from the age of 65 reaching a prevalence of about 20% by the time one achieves octogenarian status! Despite the…
Personal Profile Dr Jessie Rogers made history recently, becoming the first lay person and the first woman to be dean of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. To her, it seemed as natural as anything – but she recognises the privilege and responsibility that comes from the appointment. “From my own internal experience of Maynooth, it didn’t…
Living Laudato Si’ Jane Mellett Last month we saw one of the world’s biggest cargo ships, the Ever Given, get stuck in the Suez Canal. While this event provided much needed light relief in the form of many memes floating around social media, it also highlighted some pretty startling statistics. The ship had 20,000 forty-foot…
The world will be saved by beauty! Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that, Dorothy Day quoted it, and centuries before Jesus, Confucius made it central to his pedagogy. They were on to something. Beauty is a special language that cuts through and sidelines all the things that divide us – history, race, language, creed, ideology, politics, economic…
Ben Conroy
Bairbre Cahill
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Ruadhán Jones