The war in Ukraine has now been raging for three years with hundreds of thousands dead and injured on both sides. A few weeks after the invasion began, I wrote a piece for this newspaper that I think has aged very well. I said: “Here is one very plausible scenario if peace is not arrived…
There is a fellow by the name of Marc Andreessen you have almost certainly never heard of. I hadn’t until recently. He is one of those tech wizards who are present basically at the founding of the internet when he was only in his twenties. He helped to set up one of the first big…
A major row has broken out between the Trump administration and the Catholic hierarchy in America over the issue of refugees and economic migrants. It is a row that promises to rumble on in the years to come and equally so in Europe, where immigration and asylum-seeking have become possibly the most controversial issue in…
At some point in the next 20 or so years, there will be more deaths than births in Ireland, and from there, things are only going to get much worse. There is one big reason for this; we are no longer having enough babies. We have transformed in very little time from a country famous…
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ (DEI) is one of the great catch-cries of our time, and President Donald Trump now has it firmly in his cross-hairs. DEI policies have become extremely widespread and are to be found in businesses, the public sector, universities, and even the military. To some extent, ‘DEI’ has a Christian impulse behind…
We have a new Government, but will a new leaf be turned in Church/State relations? That is to say, will relations between Church and State begin to thaw, and will there be any kind of formal, structured dialogue between Government representatives and Church leaders, not just Catholic ones? The question is very relevant, because no…
The inauguration of Donald Trump for a second time as US president takes place on Monday. Polling shows that a big majority of Irish people are opposed to him, which is probably a product of a number of factors, one being that, for historical reasons, we lean heavily towards the Democratic party, and the second…
It has not been receiving much coverage here, but over in Britain a major row has been taking place over the refusal by the British Government to order a national inquiry into the rape of thousands of underage girls in towns across Britain by men of mostly Pakistani background. Typing the last few words of…
Christianity is suddenly becoming a respectable intellectual choice again. It will take some time for this news to reach Ireland, maybe even another couple of decades, but next door in England, and in the US and Canada, we are seeing some movement by some leading intellectuals, and other people of influence towards Christianity. Some have…
The night of Jesus’s birth must have been a very mixed experience for Mary and Joseph. Their chid was born and that would have been a happy experience, but they were away from home, they could not find a room for the night and therefore their baby was born in a manger. That was not…