The grandchildren are getting all ready for Hallowe’en with their witches and warlocks and wizards’ costumes. Let’s not rain on their parade, I ponder. The turning of the seasons has to be marked by some ritual and if it’s a pagan one – which has endured and even been re-invigorated – then that’s the way…
The Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith & Reason hosted a splendid evening of music and poetry to a large and delighted crowd this past Sunday evening. Traditional Irish music on harp and uilleann pipes was provided by two renowned performers, harpist Anne-Marie O’Farrell and piper Mark Redmond, and poems of John Montague and Séamus Heaney…
A new stained glass window will be unveiled in St John’s Church in Kerry this week in a joint endeavour between Catholic and Church of Ireland communities in Tralee. “The project has been more than five years in planning and was conceived as a Tralee 800 project for the town’s octocentenary celebrations and Year of…
Claims that a major British abortion provider offered bonuses to staff who encouraged women to have abortions show that such businesses are more interested in profits than helping women, the Pro Life Campaign has said. Calling for the public to made aware of such practices before even considering a referendum on repealing Ireland’s constitutional protections…
Renua has vowed to replace and reform the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), saying that they have “lost credibility” after their submission to the Oireacthas Committee on the 8th Amendment. The party said their recommendations would result in light-touch regulation and the withdrawal of the right to life of the most vulnerable in…
The number of Catholics in the world is continuing to rise, according to the latest set of annual statistics published by FIDES, the Church’s missionary news agency. In 2015 there were 1,284,810,000 Catholics worldwide, up by 12.5 million on the previous year. Baptised Catholics now make up 17.72% of the global population, with most Catholics…
The modern world was born with the publication of Luther’s 95 theses, writes Fintan Lyons The year beginning October 13, 2016 was chosen to mark the fifth centenary of the Protestant Reformation because of Martin Luther’s posting of his theses against indulgences on that date in 1517, putting him squarely at the heart of…
There was a common belief that the Reformation would blow over, writes Rory Rapple Western Europe may be post-Christian, but the effects of its sectarian divide are everywhere to be seen. Ask almost any Bavarian what makes her different from a Saxon, or any Swede what marks him off from a Spaniard and each…
The foreign nature of Ireland’s Reformation was key to its failure, writes John McCafferty All over the world 2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. What happened here in Ireland? Why did this island remain overwhelmingly Catholic even though its rulers were Protestant? How did religious changes get sucked into the…
Martyrdom was a central – and complex – part of the Irish Reformation experience, writes Alan Ford It’s hard to escape the tradition of political martyrdom in Ireland. The litany of names, from Wolfe Tone to Patrick Pearse to Bobby Sands, is commemorated annually at Bodenstown and on the gable ends of houses in…
Mary Kenny