There’s a sense in the country, and in the wider world, at the moment, that this is the time for everyone to pull together, and that old divisions don’t really matter in the face of a genuinely existential threat to human life. In so far as possible, therefore, we’ve tried not to dole out any […]
In an interview, Sir David Attenborough says the Corona virus is not the worst danger we face, but the state of the environment: ‘Even the worst outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic are nothing on the scale of what is eventually feared will be the catastrophic implications of climate change’ (Joe Shute, “‘This will be serious, […]
Niamh wrote something of a polemic on this site last week about that god-awful “celebrities singing Imagine by John Lennon” video, declaring that “the level of self-awareness (in the video) is between zero and minus infinity”. Well Niamh, I have some bad news. Just take a look. https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1241768707631841281 Where’s it all going to end? If […]
An Argentine court has upheld the criminal conviction of a gynaecologist who refused to abort the child of a rape victim in 2017. Dr Leandro Rodriguez Lastra was sentenced to a 14-month suspended jail term, plus 28 months of disqualification from holding public office. Dr Rodriguez Lastro will appeal. The victim was a 19-year-old in her fifth […]
There are two ways of looking at these numbers: “There are now about 40,000 people in Ireland waiting for a test for the coronavirus, the HSE has said. At a briefing on Sunday the HSE’s chief operations officer, Anne O’Connor, said the average waiting period for a test was four to five days. However, she […]
In the days following Leo Varadkar’s address to the Nation on St Patrick’s Day, there was a flurry of chatter online as journalists, politicos and those outside the bubble shared their thoughts and reactions. Most of the coverage was undoubtedly positive, much of the public seemingly reassured that the Government and the Taoiseach are making […]
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson garbled his government’s coronavirus strategy. The media reported that the UK (and the Netherlands) were adopting a “herd immunity” approach to combatting the disease. The chief scientific adviser to the government, Patrick Vallance, suggested that the UK would allow millions of Britons to be infected, boosting eventual herd immunity. “Our aim is […]
Over the past couple of years, the world’s media has been agog at Sarco (short for sarcophagus), the elegant suicide pod developed by Dr Philip Nitschke. Just close the lid, turn on the nitrogen, and you will die. The pod can also be used as a coffin, thereby saving relatives of the deceased time and money. For […]
This week marked the centenary of the killing of Tomás MacCurtáin, Mayor of Cork, who was shot dead by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) on March 20th, 1920. MacCurtain had been elected the first Republican Mayor of Cork City, and was assassinated in front of his family in a premeditated attack planned by the RIC with the […]
On Wednesday night, while 90 percent of the world was coming to grips with the impact of the coronavirus on their lives, a majority in the New Zealand Parliament voted into law one of the most extreme abortion regimes on the planet. That’s right. Just when emergency measures are being rolled out by the day to […]
The right to privacy is something that any democratic government should respect and defend, rather than ignore or even destroy, as the government of China appears to be doing.
There is now a total of 769 confirmed cases of Covid-19 north and south of Ireland, and tragically there have been 4 deaths so far. Many of these infections could have been prevented in my view. Many of these people are likely to have contracted the illness when flights were still arriving from northern Italy into […]