Notes in haste – March 2025

Does loneliness affect your parish? A strange thing happened to me last month: three of the people I used to visit on my First Friday calls all went to the same nursing home, within a few weeks. That meant that my call list in one of my church areas was instantly reduced to zero. The…

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Tragic earthquake hits war-torn Myanmar, with massive death toll and little aid

A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar’s Mandalay-Sagaing region March 28, causing widespread destruction and a rising death toll. As of March 29, at least 1,000 people had died in Myanmar, with hundreds more missing. The death toll may surpass 10,000 according to US Geological Survey’s estimates. In neighbouring Thailand, Bangkok city authorities said so far six…

Survey data shows children bring ‘high levels of happiness’ to everyday activities

A recent analysis of U.S. survey data found that children bring ‘high levels of happiness’ to activities like mealtimes, socialising, and traveling. Ken Burchfiel of the Institute for Family Studies analysed American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, showing that everyday activities are more enjoyable when children are present. He noted that a 2013 Time article…

Take me up to Monto

Fr John Harris Growing up we often sang the song ‘Take me up to Monto’, never thinking it was a real place. But a very real place it was. For over a hundred years it was said to be the largest red-light district in Europe. It is said that there was anything up to 1,600…

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A great poet’s view of Irish life over eight decades 

Paul Durcan at 80edited by Niall McMonagle, with an introduction by Colm Tóibín (Harvill Secker, £16.99 / 19.99hb)                                                                                                  Thomas McCarthy Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944 into a legal family with Co. Mayo connections. Educated at Gonzaga and UCC, he has become the leading poet of his generation, a former Ireland Professor of…

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What is a jubilee year?

Fr James Goodwin   2025 has been declared by Pope Francis as a jubilee year. But what does that mean? What is a jubilee? How do we celebrate it? The roots of a jubilee year are found in Scripture. As described in Leviticus 25, every 50th year was to be celebrated as a jubilee year…

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