The Táin Bó Cúailgne –sometimes translated as The Cattle Raid of Cooley- is the longest and most significant tale of the Ulster Cycle. It has come down to us in three main recensions, with the earliest extant copies of these being transcribed around the 11th Century. These different recensions overlap in many details and sequences […]
Have you ever heard the phrase “lose the battle but win the war”? The opposite happened to the Roman triumvir Mark Antony on this day in 30BC. Having been defeated at the Battle of Actium, Anthony and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, which was soon besieged by the forces of Octavian. For the whole month of […]
Suppose you went to a party with a group of friends, one of whom is a rather outspoken person we’ll call Ms A. After an hour or so, someone you never met before comes up to you and says, “I couldn’t help noticing that you came here with Ms A. Aren’t you concerned that her […]
The British statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was beheaded on this day in 1540. It was a messy affair – the executioner was drunk (some say, because Cromwell’s enemies spiked his drink to make the execution worse) and it took three swings of the axe to remove Cromwell’s head. It was a spectacular fall from grace: Cromwell […]
By July 29th, 1848, most of Ireland had been truly devastated by the Great starvation. Outside of Ireland, Europe was being convulsed with revolutions. In France, King Louis-Philippe was overthrown, to make way for the second republic. Revolutions seeking the vote, and liberalisation, broke out in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and elsewhere. Inspired by these […]
In his newest book, Charles Camosy, the award-winning author of Resisting Throwaway Culture, provides a timely and thoughtful release on the urgent need to defend human dignity. There is perhaps no more important value than fundamental human equality. And yet, despite large percentages of people affirming the value, the resources available to explain and defend the basis […]
The Wuhan pneumonia, more commonly referred to as COVID-19, has now been raging for more than a year and a half, and even today there are new variants of the virus emerging, including Alpha, initially detected in the United Kingdom, Beta in South Africa, Delta in India, and Gamma in Brazil. And a year and […]
Like many children of the 70s, I came of age watching Olympians like Mary Lou Retton, Greg Louganis, Scott Hamilton, and Carl Lewis. They were like young gods; the world held its breath as they gracefully broke the rules of gravity, time, distance, force and speed. The laws of nature appeared to bow to their […]
No doubt you have heard of “advance directives” – guidelines for your carers, guardians or doctors on what do to in the event that you are not competent to instruct them. Right-to-die associations often promote them as a way of avoiding life with dementia. But what if the people with the power to “pull the plug” refuse? […]
In case you’re wondering, the fourth deadly sin in the classical lists of seven sins is envy. Sociologist Anne Hendershott has written a whole book about it—The Politics of Envy—and the editors of the Spring 2021 issue of The Human Life Review excerpted part of a chapter that shows how social media sites such as Facebook and […]
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Born in 1550, Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O’Neill) came from a line of the and the successors to the Chief’s of the O’Neills. He was the second son of Feardorcha Ó Néill and grandson of Conn O’Neill, the first Earl of Tyrne. At the age of nine he became a ward of Giles Hovenden, […]