I’m writing this on the evening of day six of our four week “lockdown” (as if we were in prison) in New Zealand. So far we have survived pretty well, something I put down to having jobs which have so far not been too disrupted by the shutting down of the entire country, and good […]
A Burmese Cardinal has called on the Chinese Communist Party to apologise and pay compensation, especially to poorer countries, for causing the coronavirus pandemic “through its criminal negligence and repression”. Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon in Myanmar and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, said “international voices are being raised against […]
FEATURED CD for Easter 2020 is the chart-topping album from Celi Dé, starting with this gorgeous piece written and performed for Palm Sunday by Trian Ó Riordan and Colm Mannion. www.celide.ie
Florence Nightingale, who was born 200 years ago, is rightly famed for revolutionising nursing. Her approach to caring for wounded soldiers and training nurses in the 19th century saved and improved countless lives. And her ideas on how to stay healthy still resonate today – as politicians give official guidance on how best to battle coronavirus. For […]
My reading suggestion for these difficult times is probably not very original, undoubtedly challenging, but also certainly fully worth trying. It’s Dante’s La Divina Commedia. The quarantine we are experiencing or will be experiencing soon gives us much more time than we usually have; it forces us to stay inside, and it leads us to ponder […]
If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then that seems to be most true of the recent TCD and NUI senate elections, where all six incumbents were comfortably re-elected, even though some interesting characters ran them close. Ruth Coppinger, the former Solidarity-PBP TD, was one such character, who missed out by a head on NUI’s […]
The health situation in Italy is dire. Tragically, over 11,600 people have died and over 101,000 people have caught coronavirus, giving it some of the highest numbers of cases outside of China. The question is, what caused this to be the case? While the reasons are clearly complex and multi-faceted, the well-meaning—but ultimately misguided—advice from […]
Our family were at a wedding a few months ago and a friend pointed out how loving and inclusive our children were with each other, and how they were so protective of their brother, Fiach. Although I brushed off the compliment it made me brim up with pride. She was right, my kids are fantastic […]
Twenty years ago, the Catholic bioethicists of Australia came together to write the first ever Code of Ethical Standards for Catholic Health and Aged Care Services in Australia. Two years of robust discussion, informed by wide consultation, followed by even more robust discussion resulted in a set of guidelines which have stood the test of time. […]
Spoiler: Today’s blogpost has nothing to do with the Wuhan Flu. Sorry to disappoint… Almost a year ago I wrote a piece about the demographic problems that Hungary was facing. (Doesn’t time fly! I can remember writing this piece in our lounge after the kids had gone to bed – I was probably worried about some work […]
Although the corona virus will run for months yet, its social, economic and political ramifications over the longer term are already apparent. Wall St’s winners will be those fit bucks who gobble up their debt-hobbled opponents in the recession that awaits us all. Major oil companies will merge to cut costs, most European and American […]
It’s the not knowing which is the worst part. Like a B-rated sci-fi movie, our world is being ravaged by a killer virus which will kill tens of thousands, maybe millions. No-one knows. The experts disagree. And there is no prospect of a superhero with special powers and a shiny suit to sort it all […]