In a recent blog, the head of Atheist Ireland, Michael Nugent writes: “I believe we should treat every individual person with the same respect and dignity and love.” Well, yes, and an atheist is perfectly entitled to believe this if they want, just as I am perfectly entitled to believe in God, but both beliefs need […]
Portugal has had an exceptional experience with emigration and immigration for several hundred years. As skilled mariners they set sail to open up world markets over 500 years ago. Portuguese settled in all continents from Brazil in the Americas all the way to East Timor in Asia including large parts of Africa in between. In […]
New data on the mental health of American college students shows a sombre trend. Rates of depression, anxiety, low flourishing, suicidal thinking and suicidal attempts have all worsened over the years 2007 to 2018, according to research by Jean Twenge and colleagues, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. And it’s not all down to more reporting. […]
Newspapers report a potato blight has hit Ireland. High rents imposed by absentee landlords meant that most people could only afford to live on small tenant farms with inferior soil that only potatoes could grow on; but the potato crop was prone to disease and the farmers did not have extra land to rotate crops. […]
Pádraig Mac Piarais founded St. Enda’s (Scoil Éanna) in Rathfarnham. St. Enda’s was to have an “Irish standpoint and ‘atmosphere’” and be based on what Pearse saw as the two key characteristics of the ancient Irish system of education: freedom for the individual student and inspirational teaching. He wrote later in his essay on education […]
On Saturday, 17 August last, I came across a Tweet from an Owen James in the UK which referred to a “blatant premeditated attack” by far-right activists, in which Mr. James alleged he was seriously assaulted. I do not know Mr. James so I cannot comment on whether this claim is true or not. However, this Tweet was shared […]
ON THIS DAY: 4TH SEPTEMBER 1607 : THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS After being beaten by the English in 1603 following the nine years war, Aodh Mór Ó Néill, Earl of Tír Eoghan and Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill, Earl of Tír Conaill (both Irish Gaelic Lords), and about ninety followers left Ulster for Europe, seeking to […]
Mandarin-speaking Mainlanders are drowning the city-state’s Cantonese culture
The elderly are an untapped resource – and so are the young.
ON THIS DAY: 3RD SEPTEMBER 1939 The Emergency Powers Act 1939 (EPA) was an Act of the Oireachtas enacted on 3 September 1939, after an official state of emergency had been declared on 2 September 1939 in response to the outbreak of the Second World War. Éamon De Valera was Taoiseach at the time. #gript
The September Massacres were a number of killings in Paris and other cities that occurred from 2–6 September 1792 during the French Revolution. Catholic Bishops, priests, prisoners and peasants were singled out. More than 1,000 prisoners were killed within 20 hours. By 6 September, half the prison population of Paris had been summarily executed: some […]
According to a new report issued this month by property website Daft.ie, the number of properties available for rent in the Republic of Ireland is now at its lowest level ever recorded (in a time series starting in 2006), while average rents in Dublin are now double what they were in 2011. These are just […]