The idea that the Covid 19 virus could be eliminated is as daft as the notion that Covid vaccines are useless/harmful/a plot to control the world. Yet the seemingly respectable and knowledgeable people who espouse the former idea appear regularly on TV and in the media, whereas those that believe the latter are shunned. The […]
It never ceases to amaze me that despite all the wealth, experience and tradition of American cinema, it seldom matches the depth and humanity of the best Iranian films. Asghar Farhadi’s family drama A Separation, for instance, won an Oscar in 2012. I can’t think of many films which combine so successfully deep moral issues, intricate […]
The so-called Enlightenment placed man at the center of the universe, edging aside the “God-centered” worldview once prevalent among Western elites. Then came the Industrial Revolution, spawning the age of “Economic Man.” Matters of consequence came to be viewed primarily through the prism of economic impact. That is something that both Karl Marx and the robber barons […]
Back in 2017, Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute sued President Donald Trump for blocking seven of his followers. Apparently they had criticised him, and the thin-skinned owner of the @realDonaldTrump account retaliated by blocking them. This made it impossible for the seven followers to read Trump’s tweets or to respond to them. “Now I […]
Dr. Martin Feeley served as Clinical Director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group until September 2020, when he resigned after the HSE said his criticisms of lockdown made his position “untenable”. In this piece, he sets out the reasons why, after 15 months, a comparison between the experiences of Ireland and Sweden have served only […]
Responding adequately to the sad news of the Kambala sexual assault petition — the latest spotlight on the sexual assault epidemic — is a sobering challenge for us all. Leading educators in our secondary schools, depressed by the recent revelations and struggling to find solutions, are themselves revisiting calls for better “consent training” for students. But, as others have argued, “consent […]
Since the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising the men and the words that inspired the eventual founding of the Irish Republic are thankfully being given a prominence by at least some people in the public arena – in places such as the voluntarily restored monument of Kilmainham Gaol. There are two facets to Kilmainham […]
Much as some engineers would like to ignore politics, it’s irresponsible to do so. I’m not saying you have to be a political junkie, but an awareness of the ultimate purposes and effects of the organisation you work for is part of being a responsible engineer. Writing in the Human Life Review, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith […]
A review of the 2018 Irish abortion legislation is scheduled for 2021. In a sane society, evidence for such a review would be routinely collected from the medics providing the abortion. In other countries, that is indeed what happens. There is some variation among these countries in the amount of data collected. But information about […]
Of all the writing where Pearse elucidates his revolutionary conscience, his poem ‘The Rebel’ is clearest. There is a searing sense of righteous pain in its lines, arising from the sense of a denial of destiny -a betrayal of the dignity of humanity formed in God’s image. It harkens back to Robert Emmet’s speech from […]
Organised by a seven-man Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days. These illustrations were by Brian O’Higgins, also known as Brian na Banban, who was an Irish writer, poet, soldier and politician. He was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers […]
Dublin’s O’Connell Street locked down on Easter Sunday Photo credit: Krzysztof M