A recent report in The Irish Catholic described a study by the Universities of Vienna and Sussex on spiritual boredom. When lead author, Thomas Gotz, and his team decided to investigate spiritual boredom, they discovered that there was a surprising lack of previous research. They chose five spiritual practices – yoga, meditation, pilgrimage, silent retreats…
Lent kind of crept up on me this year. I had barely adjusted to writing 2025 instead of 2024 and yet it was already Ash Wednesday. I was relieved when my nephew, Jason Conroy, asked if I wanted to be part of a WhatsApp group that would follow along with Cardinal Pell’s prison journals for…
In early February, newly appointed Minister for Education, Helen McEntee, announced the final phase of the free textbook scheme. The scheme now extends from primary schools to all post-primary students except those attending fee-charging institutions at a cost so far of €191 million. The Department of Social Protection has instituted free hot school lunches for…
Anger seems to drive our world. People were understandably and rightly angry when they were left without power or water for weeks after recent storms. However, much more toxic anger is weaponised to generate profit for cynical operators. It has been known for a long time that engagement with online content and therefore online advertising…
Jen Hogan writes a regular feature for The Irish Times, in which people in the public eye are asked the same series of questions. They range from “How agreeable are you?” to the much more serious “What do you expect to happen when you die?” I have been trying to figure out why the majority…
Recently, I was sent a video of Donald Trump tenderly cutting Kamala Harris’ hair. It was obviously a fake but good enough to cause a quick giggle. Reading last August that a private school in London had instituted the first fully AI classroom was not quite so funny. David Game College charges 20 young people…
I love the time after Christmas Day. The preparations that take up most of December are over. It’s a time to relax with family and a good book or six. The quieter days of the Christmas season lend themselves to reflection. For our family, it has been a momentous year. In August, our elder daughter,…
Sometimes, political spouses change history. Annabel Malinauskas, wife of the premier of the small state of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, finished reading Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. She then turned to her husband and said, ‘You had better effing do something about…
It’s the time of the Feast of Christ the King, which marks my annual one-woman Advent restoration campaign. In CS Lewis’ book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe the reign of the White Witch in Narnia means that it is always winter and never Christmas. In our culture, we suffer from a similar problem, except…
I have lovely neighbours of whom I am very fond. However, I am not fond of their Hallowe’en display, which consists of two ugly witch-like figures sitting somewhat incongruously on deck chairs. A motion-activated sensor sets off vicious cackling and screaming while the figures bob up and down as though possessed, including in the middle…