Speeches by supporters of assisted suicide always include a big shout-out for people with disabilities. Hey, guys, you’re top on our list of favs; we’re just working out the delicate balance against individual rights. Just hang in there; we love youse all. Which, translated, means that the fears of people with disabilities are going to be […]
It was founded by the ‘Callan Curates’ Father Matt O’Keefe and Father Tom O’Shea from Cappahayden, near Callan.’ Fr Tom O’Shea’s importance is emphasised in Callan County Kilkenny: A Short Guide to its History, Monuments and People (Callan Heritage Society). In this volume, Joseph Kennedy writes: “The Callan Tenant Protection Society which was founded […]
Phelim Roe O’Neill or Féilim Rua Ó Néill – was an Irish leader, from the famous O’Neill family, who led the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in Ulster on 23 October when the Irish rebels attacked Protestant plantation settlements and took garrison towns held by the Irish Army. The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation […]
Parnell’s newspaper, the United Ireland, attacked the Land Act and he was arrested together with his party lieutenants, William O’Brien, John Dillon, Michael Davitt and Willie Redmond. They were imprisoned under a proclaimed Coercion Act in Kilmainham Gaol for “sabotaging the Land Act”, from where the No Rent Manifesto, which Parnell and the others […]
ON THIS DAY: 12 OCTOBER 1645: Archbishop Rinuccini arrives in Ireland to offer assistance to O’Neill and the Irish Confederate Catholics in their war against English Protestant rule He wrote this letter to his brother, describing the Irish he met: “The men are fine-looking and of incredible strength, swift runners, and ready to bear every […]
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the untimely death of Hollywood queen Frances Gumm, better known as Judy Garland. Perhaps most famous for her character Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Garland is less known for the trail of destruction which marked her off-screen life. Judy died from an accidental drug overdose in 1969 […]
How the Church’s newest saint foresaw our irreligious age.
Following a Catholic uprising in 1641, Cromwell and the New Model Army set sail to Ireland to defeat this coalition and reclaim Ireland for parliament. This proved to be a bloody and brutal affair, forever remembered for a series of controversial massacres. The Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland had begun, which included the destruction of Drogheda […]
What to say about Unplanned? Admittedly I went in expecting to like it, but that did not prepare me for the film’s exceptional emotional power, one of a fairly small number of films that have brought tears to my eyes. Yet you may not have heard of it. To say it does not appear to […]
A resolution of the European Parliament recognizes that the two totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were twin in crimes against humanity. Someone needs to tell Beijing.
ON THIS DAY: 8TH OCTOBER 1974: SEÁN MACBRIDE became the first Irish person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize MacBride was born in Paris in 1904 and remained ther until his father’s execution after the Easter Rising of 1916, when he was sent to school at Mount St Benedict’s, Gorey. In 1919, aged 15, […]
Pádraic Ó Conaire was an Irish writer who wrote extensively in the Irish Language and wrote 26 books, 473 stories, 237 essays and 6 plays. His acclaimed novel Deoraíocht has been described by Angela Bourke as ‘the earliest example of modernist fiction in Irish’. Orphaned by the age of eleven, he spent a period living […]