For people who enjoy Christmas, this is a magical time of year. For those who remember or who are having a sad or painful time, this is not the most wonderful time of the year. Yet, because there are festive decorations and messages all around us, there is a pressure to be ready and to…

The kids wanted to know what Christmas was like in “the olden days”, that is, when I was a boy. “Come on!” I said indignantly, “the 1980s is not the olden days!” But they insisted that it was.  Time is relative, I suppose. The end of the 1980s happened over 24 years ago – over…

Green Fingers

Mary O’Donnell meets theSyro-Malabar community in Derry

Have you ever been in a room where the buzz of conversation grows louder and stronger and you can feel the energy in the room rise? In my work as a facilitator that is something I regularly get to be a part of. The Irish word for a facilitator is éascaitheoir – one who makes…

An Offaly student shares her experience of completing the Pope John Paul II Gold Award

TY students Darragh Price, Conor Kehoe and Ciara Moore explain their role in the Christmas Shoebox Appeal

Emilia’s big blue eyes shone above her joyful toothy grin as she trundled forward clumsily – walking, for the very first time. Her hands were held up in an “I surrender” posture as she merrily stumbled back and forth between her mother and I, to shrieks of delight and applause from her older siblings. She…

A Parent’s Perspective

Our daughter Deirbhile started university in Dublin this year and was home last week for a few days during her Reading Week. She lives out near DCU but takes the bus into the city now and again. Over the weekend she said to me: “In Dublin, it’s great, almost every single person getting off the…