In today’s sex-soaked media, it was gratifying to see a leading champion of unrestricted sexual freedom, the New York Times, going bonkers about the wickedness of pornography. The headline summarises its graphic, scrupulously researched and highly disturbing article: “The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong?” The figures it cites are […]
The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to Instanbul; It was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL). It’s routes changed many times with several routes in the past concurrently used the Orient Express name, or slight variations. Although the original Orient Express […]
This Bloomberg piece about Japan’s rural depopulation is very interesting. And since it is not only interesting but also about demography, it seems perfect to share with you, the readers of the Demography is Destiny blog. As we have often said before, Japan is the canary in the demographic coalmine, the country that the rest of the world is […]
Ten IRA and INLA hunger-strikers die between 5 May and 12 August; all but one of the men were in their twenties, the youngest, Thomas McElwee, being 23 years of age. The hunger strike had started on March 1st 1981 after years of the prisoners being on the blanket (blanket protest) and the failure of […]
“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” These were the spirited words of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg in her address last week to the United Nations. Miss Thunberg’s claim that we are “in the beginning […]
Chronic loneliness is an increasing concern, and apparently not just among the elderly and social-media crazed millennials. A recently released YouGov survey finds that almost one in five men in the UK say that they have no close friends. The findings also show that men generally lead more solitary lives than women, who appear to be better at […]
The Whiteboys (na Buachaillí Bána) were a secret Irish agrarian organisation which defended tenant farmer land rights for subsistence farming. They sought to address rack-rents, tithe collection, excessive dues, evictions and other oppressive acts. As a result they targeted landlords and tithe collectors. Their operations were chiefly in the counties of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and […]
One of Daniel O’Connell’s so-called Monster Meetings took place in Mullaghmast in Kildare, calling for a repeal of the Act of Union. It was the latest in a series of meetings that took place through out the country in places such as M0naghan, Loughrea and Lismore. Such was the support and excitement surrounding the event, […]
The Irish Medical Council has produced an updated version of the Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners. The most relevant changes follow the Ireland’s new abortion law. Let’s consider them in detail. Section 48 of the Guide was titled “Abortion” in the previous editions while now the euphemism “termination of pregnancy” is […]
Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled this week that assisted suicide is legal if a person is experiencing “intolerable physical and psychological suffering”. Anyone who “facilitates the suicidal intention… of a patient kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology” should not be punished, the court ruled. The patient’s condition must be “causing physical […]
Serious concerns have been raised about the implementation of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation after a 61-year-old depressed but otherwise healthy man was euthanised in the province of British Columbia. Alan Nichols, a former school janitor who lived alone and struggled with depression, was admitted to Chilliwack General Hospital, BC, in June after he was […]
Pope John Paul II visited Ireland from Saturday, 29 September to Monday, 1 October 1979, the first trip to Ireland by a pope. Over 2.5 million people attended events in Dublin, Drogheda, Clonmacnoise, Galway, Knock, Limerick, and Maynooth. It was one of John Paul’s first foreign visits as Pope, who had been elected in […]