From the Grand Canal to the Dodder: Illustrious Lives by Beatrice M. Doran The History Press, £20.00/€23.00 With the lifting of restrictions and the prospect of fine summer weather many people will be thinking of getting out and about in Dublin and elsewhere exploring localities and trying to find out about their past history and the…
Ruadhán Jones hears about the successes and hardships of lockdown-life in Irish prisons By international standards, the Irish Prison Service have been very successful in containing Covid. While in the US, infection and death rates in prisons exceeded those of the general population, no deaths were recorded in Irish prisons and few Covid cases. “They…
Famous Irish rock ‘n roll guitarist Rory Gallagher was “a practising Catholic all his life” and attended Mass regularly at Brompton Oratory in London, his biographer said recently. Speaking on the Brendan O’Connor Show June 6, Julian Vignoles – author of Rory Gallagher, The Man Behind the Guitar – said that Gallagher placed great importance on…
The recent arrest of a Vatican-approved bishop, priests and seminarians in north-central China came as a shocking development, as religious persecution has intensified in the communist-led country under President Xi Jingping. Police arrested Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang May 21, a day after authorities detained seven priests and an unspecified number of seminarians. They…
Our population is boosted by young migrants, but we are still aging rapidly and declining sharply, writes David Quinn Last year, almost 4,000 fewer babies were born in Ireland than in 2019. This is partly a Covid-effect. Countries around the world have experienced a bigger than usual fall in their birth rates, presumably because of…
The Irish love of the sun must be tempered with prudence and sun cream, writes Jason Osborne We’re getting to that point in the year when the sun starts to make its all-too-fleeting appearances upon these shores. Emerging from what seems like the rainiest start to a year in recent memory, I’ve lapped up whatever exposure…
The Irish to the Rescue: The Tercentenary of the Polish Princess Clementina’s Escape by Richard K. Maher (Peter Lang, Oxford, €39.95) This is a collection of papers presented to a seminar to commemorate the rescue and escape of the Polish princess, Maria Clementina Sobieska from Innsbruck in August 1719. Maria Clementina was born on July 18,…
A date has been fixed for the pro-life organisation’s challenge to the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021 which empower NI Secretary Brandon Lewis to direct Stormont ministers to implement a “fully-funded abortion service” over the heads of Stormont MLAs. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) announced the challenge, which they are funding,…
St Columba is still a sign of unity and strength for Irish Christians 1,500 years since his birth, Dr Alex O’Hara tells Ruadhán Jones From Durrow to Derry in Ireland, to Iona, Scotland and North England, St Columba’s impact stretches many miles and centuries. Born to Donegal royalty – the Cineál Chonnail clan, relatives of…
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 registered the highest number of land conflict incidents in Brazil since 1985, the Catholic-affiliated Pastoral Land Commission reported. The commission said in a report released May 31 that the country saw an average of more than four conflicts over land daily throughout the year. The report tallied 1,576 conflicts, an…
Peter Costello
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn