For such a small island, Ireland certainly punches well above its weight in many fields. And one of those fields just so happens to be innovative, world-changing inventions. Here are just ten. Sudocrem Sudocrem is a remarkably popular product around the world, with almost 35 million pots sold each year. Part of its popularity is […]
For my wife’s birthday several years ago, I tracked down a copy of Harper’s Weekly from May 16, 1857. It was filled with gossip from the royal houses of Europe; news from various mission fields and Bible societies (including an update on The Reverend Mr. Spurgeon and the state of the Metropolitan Bible Tabernacle), a few long […]
The ‘religion of antiracism’
The real caped crusader.
It is 70 years since Whitaker Chambers’ Cold War classic, ‘Witness’ was first released a few years after the famous trial in the United States where Alger Hiss was accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Described as part literary effort, part philosophical treatise, the autobiography of a former […]
On this Day: 8th May 1916, Éamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Seán Heuston and Cornelius Colbert were executed. On Sunday, 7th May, 1916, Éamonn Ceannt was informed at 4 p.m. that he was to be shot at 3:45 a.m. the following morning. Upon receiving this news Ceannt requested writing materials, and wrote his last words to […]
In her biography of the 1916 proclamation signatory, Joseph Plunkett, Honor O Brolchain tells a fascinating story. A Dublin jeweller on the afternoon of May 3rd 1916 was attending to a young lady who was purchasing wedding bands. She bought two rings but seemed very upset. When he asked her what the matter was she […]
Spring and Fall bookend the season of flourishing and withering, and so it is the title of Gerard Manley Hopkins address to a young girl, who laments the passing of the multitudes of leaves in autumn. In this poem the author questions a child, Margaret, over the cause of her grief. She grieves over the […]
We are privileged to watch her, and to call her one of our own.
It is said that a civilisation turns through cycles; through four ages, finishing in decay and rebirth. The great Arabic historian of the 14th Century, Ibin Khaldun, framed this as a culture’s will to live, and the vitality of this he termed the “asabiyyah”. The cycle of culture echoes the seasons of a human life which […]
The newest release for Pathfinder Second Edition seems to be afraid of itself.
On April 28 1916, as the fierce fighting of Easter Week began to abate, one of the most notorious events of the rising took place. 15 civilians were killed in houses and business premises on North King Street by British soldiers. The street had been the scene of some of the stoutest resistance by the […]