I think it was Vincent Browne who wrote about the importance of writing. Grand plans emerge when people hear about new ideas, but these ideas have to be crystalised into print first: hence the importance of giving time and attention to writing. Writing precedes the making of plans: good writing helps get ideas off the…
Since the founding of the state in 1922 the question of a sort of Order of Merit, a Legion d’Honneur, or even a Presidential Medal of Freedom (a successor to the Presidential Medal of Honour) in the USA, has been much debated. The Constitution does not allow the awarding of any title of nobility, and…
Jean-Claude Juncker’s 70th birthday last month went largely unnoticed. If not quite a forgotten figure now, Juncker has largely faded from international view having for many years been the leading politician in his home country of Luxembourg, and a key player in EU affairs, especially in regard to crafting the Maastricht Treaty, later crowning his…
The sudden decision of the government of Israel to close its embassy in Ballsbridge because of, so the government in Jerusalem claimed, the outright “anti-Semitism” of the Irish government brings archive files relating to Robert Briscoe (dating from 1944 and 1955) in the latest release into focus, which suggest that the Netanyahu government’s grasp…
The poet and Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats died on 28 January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap Martin, on the French Riviera. In ill health for some years he had been staying there to enjoy the mild warm winter weather for several years. He had said to his family that if he died he might…
After reports confirmed that the Franciscan Friary in Clonmel was due to be closed on the first day of the year, Independent TD for Tipperary Mattie McGrath has decried the closure of a “fabulous institution” and said that he has written to the head of the friary to see if the decision can be reversed.…
A commentary by Jon Rosebank Practised with humility,” write the bishops in their final document from the 2024 Assembly (47), “the synodal style enables the Church to be a prophetic voice in today’s world.” We live, they write, “in an age marked by ever-increasing inequalities” and by “disenchantment with the functioning of democracy.” Students of…
I have never acquired a GPS gadget to guide me on car journeys – yet another piece of technology one has to fuss over, it would seem. I know people who can’t set out on the simplest journey without one (I recall being a passenger in a trip from Dublin’s Stillorgan to Carrickmines, which is…
Peter Costello
Brandon Scott
Mary Kenny