Peter O’Neill was born in Coona, Cork, a descendant of the O’Neil clan of Co. Tyrone. He attended a hedge school in Inch, studied classics at Kilworth, and then began ecclesiastical studies at the Irish College in Paris, eventually teaching Celtic language and literature there. An exceedingly popular curate, he was appointed Parish Priest of […]
Studies show authority and love are both crucial In the early 1960s, when America was on the cusp of social upheaval that would challenge authority at all levels, a University of California, Berkeley psychologist named Diana Baumrind began a longitudinal study aimed at answering a still timely question: How does our parenting style—including our practice of authority as […]
A strange contagion of self abasement and penitence has taken hold of the West. American politics and its jargon has invaded the consciousness of the world, even though we don’t share their political history or narratives. To use the terminology of the left, we have been psychologically colonised by American identity politics. Identity politics in […]
Norway is a country that appears to have fared well during the Covid-19 pandemic thus far. However, the country has another worrying problem it must also face: the population is aging fast, meaning tough economic times still lie ahead. Norway is a country that appears to have fared well during the Covid-19 pandemic thus […]
Good news that failed to make the front page in London and New York A truly historic meeting took place last week between two countries that have been at loggerheads with each other for decades. This meeting between the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia was constructive, was aimed at reconciliation and was forward-looking. […]
Last week the Italian parliament passed a bill aimed at boosting the country’s low birth rate by supporting parents. “We have approved the Family Act to support parenting, combat the falling birth rate, encourage the growth of children and young people, and the help parents reconcile of family life with work, especially for women,” Premier Giuseppe Conte […]
Marriage continues to change and decline in Ireland as the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show. Fewer marriages are taking place, fewer are taking place in churches, more are taking place between people who were married before and are now divorced, and couples are older when they marry. Same-sex marriage is now permitted. In 2019, […]
The global soul-searching over the issue of racism, contemporary and historic, that has taken place since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May has not escaped Ireland. It has taken many forms, some instructive, others less so. One of the most commented-on has been an investigation of the ways in which the […]
Many nursing home residents with breathing difficulties were given morphine instead of oxygen Disturbing figures are coming from Sweden about the number of Covid-19 deaths amongst the elderly. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, half of the people who died in Sweden were residents of nursing homes. Sweden’s approach to the […]
Many Western countries looked on with a hint of dread as Chinese authorities clamped down their populations in January in the hopes of containing the spread of Covid-19. But that dread gave way to palpable fear and gnawing anxiety when the novel coronavirus touched down in Europe in March and April of this year. Fear […]
A cartoon was circulated 1887 by John Fergus O’Hea, a highly regard political cartoonist, to mark the occasion of Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebrating the 50th anniversary of her reign. After eighty seven years since the Act of Union, Ireland was said to be “distracted, disloyal and impoverished.” It was published in the Weekly Freeman, July […]
Iran went through a baby boom in the 1980s. This was in the aftermath of the revolution in 1979 and while the country was in the midst of a war that would leave at least a third of a million of its people dead. Families were encouraged to strengthen Iran by producing “soldiers for Islam” […]