It is now readily acknowledged that China, through a series of unprecedented and restrictive public health and quarantine measures ‘bought the world some time’ in the global fight against Covid-19. Most of those actions would not have been possible in western democracies, relying as they did for their implementation on the authoritarian nature of the […]
In 1880 – 140 years ago – one of the most significant events in the social history took place on the estate of Lord Erne near Lough Mask in Mayo. It involved a campaign of social and economic ostracism – collective actions which have been known ever since by the name of Erne’s land agent […]
After a very sunny week, the weekend is rainy
For most normal people, the coronavirus pandemic is an obvious disaster. It threatens the lives and wellbeing of older people, makes travel more difficult, creates scarcity of resources, and is, at the very least, highly inconvenient, if not outright fatal for businesses and jobs. However, to radical green-types, Extinction Rebellion activists and Greta cultists, this […]
Just when many of us have become virtual prisoners in our own homes to help fight Covid-19, authorities have decided that they might start releasing actual prisoners from actual prisons during the crisis. First those with three and then those with six months left on their sentences would be released, say authorities, and maybe even […]
Some questions that we should ponder calmly when the pandemic has abated So far only about 6,500 people have died in the coronavirus pandemic. According to experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a worst-case scenario for the United States could be 200,000 to 1.7 million deaths. It’s all speculative, but whatever […]
A new study in the journal Clinical Ethics claims that permitting assisted dying would substantially benefit both those seeking assisted suicide and the public. Two Scottish academics, Dr David Shaw of the Universities of Basel and Maastricht, and Professor Alec Morton of the University of Strathclyde, posit three economic arguments: the cost to terminally-ill patients of a poor quality […]
For those old enough or educated enough to remember, humanity still lives very much in the shadow of the bloody 20th century (the most murderous in human history) with its failed political ideologies and the resulting huge loss of life. It was democracy that won out, proving much more effective at protecting human life, based as it was […]
Ireland is progressing. It is moving from a dark, priest-infested isle into the light of modernity. That is what we are told. Day after day, week after week – the Irish media and political establishment assures us that as the hour hand moves forward so too does Ireland. This is a lie. Possibly the greatest […]
In a double decision made public on Thursday 12 March 2020 on the cases of Grimmark and Steén v. Sweden, three judges of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deprived European midwives of the guarantee of their right to conscientious objection to abortion. This decision can apply, by extension, to the entire medical profession. […]
The T.C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland was established by a £20,000 donation from Thomas Charles Beirne, a devout Catholic businessman and Papal Knight who was warden of the University from 1928 to 1941. The vast tract of beautiful riverside land on which the university sits in St Lucia was donated by pioneering doctor […]
Perhaps it is an age thing but one of the most irritating, vacuous songs considered to be a rock classic must surely be Imagine written by John Lennon with the assistance of the deeply weird Yoko Ono. It will be 50 years old next year. Lennon was a key part of the then contemporary zeitgeist […]