During the course of last Thursday’s Dáil session, the word ‘pharmaceutical’ was mentioned just one time. Even that solitary mention was within the context of a speech given by the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, when he spoke of how the internationally traded sectors of our economy, such as those relating to technology, pharmaceuticals and […]
In February 2020, in the middle of the first wave of coronavirus infections in China, Hong Kong’s emeritus bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun visited the United States and spoke with members of Congress. Cardinal Zen, a vocal supporter of Hong Kong’s democratic movement and a passionate defender of the underground Catholic church, painted a […]
In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary. “Who knows,” she wrote, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.” During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669 – […]
At midnight tonight New Zealand’s strict lockdown of 33 days will be slightly eased. As you can imagine, I cannot wait. We will be able to get a few takeout coffees, the children will be able to see their grandparents again and, most importantly, some people can head back to work and some businesses can […]
Last year human relations think tank Reventure (A Future that Works) published a report on how the loneliness “epidemic” is impacting workplaces in Australia. Now, in the middle of another epidemic that is shaking economies and the world of work, feeling isolated in a huge, open plan office seems the least of a worker’s worries. MercatorNet asked Reventure’s managing director, Dr Lindsay McMillian, […]
Given the apparent problem the gardai face of people coming in from the North of Ireland and risking the spread of Covid 19, would you support temporary restrictions on the Irish border? Leave us your comments and VOTE in our Poll below
This is a strange time and a strange situation. The sentiment is indisputably true, but only in some respects. In fact, in the most important respect it is false. Rather than living in an abnormal time we are living in a time where normality has been amplified to the point whereby we cannot easily escape […]
Do you agree with the Government’s plan to hold the leaving cert in August? Leave us your comments and VOTE in our Poll below
Ireland is literally bursting at the teems with rubbish scattered across the country. In a recent walk in a ploughed field, I picked up in the region of 150 pieces of trash in a ten-minute period, everything from plastic bags, plastic bottles, black plastic, drink cans, sweet papers, and pieces of glass. At an estimate […]
Anne McCloskey is a retired GP and is also an Aontú councillor on Derry City and Strabane District Council, highlights her concerns about the current situation. I suppose it was the sight of our Bishop Donal Mc Keown, furtively going at dawn to bless the graves of the faithful departed in Derry’s main cemetery on […]
Had the Easter Rising gone ahead as planned on Sunday 23rd April 1916, it would have taken place on the anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. Separated by 902 years, Cogadh Cluain Tarbh or the Battle of Clontarf took place in Dublin on the 23rd April 1014. At the time, the Irish High King Brian […]
The race is on to produce a COVID-19 vaccine: teams are working hard and fast across the world. We all long to see a vaccine in record time – but must, of course, have an eye to ethics too. Debates on vaccine ethics tend to focus on risks, whether to participants in clinical trials, or […]