The taxpayer funded state broadcaster RTÉ has apologised after receiving 600 complaints over a supposedly humourous sketch that was aired during its New Year’s Eve countdown show. There was an outpouring of criticism of the clip and Archbishop Eamon Martin called for it to be removed from the station’s player because it accused God of […]
St. Colmán is referenced and presented in many different sources such as the Irish Annals, geneologies and martyrologies. Born around 530 AD, he is associated through Irish genealogy, with the leading ruling dynasty of Munster of the time, with the Éoganachta, centred in Cashel from the 6th – 10th centuries. Colmán is remembered as the […]
Mickey Harte is one of those larger than life characters who will go down in GAA folklore alongside the likes of Mick O’Dywer, Sean Boylan and Brian Cody – men who lived for those All-Ireland Sundays in the summer. Clones, Croker, Thurles, or even just an empty field, was where these master tacticians and leaders […]
In the face of massive protests, the government of Poland has delayed indefinitely the implementation of a law banning abortions of children with birth defects. The country’s supreme court ruled last month that this was unconstitutional, sparking huge demonstrations every day across the country. The government, led by the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS), […]
The Traditional Story Tested Against the Evidence. “The Gunpowder Plot” of 1605 – known at the time as the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason -was billed as a failed assassination plot against Protestant King James I of England by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The official story was that […]
Horrific news via the Catholic Herald and Aid to the Church in Need today. They report that “the Sindh High Court in Karachi, Pakistan, has validated the marriage of a 13-year-old Catholic girl to a Muslim man who abducted her.” Thirteen year old Arzoo Raja had been kidnapped from outside her home on October 13th. […]
The Legion of Mary, which remains the largest lay organisation in the Roman Catholic Church, was founded in Dublin on this day, September 7th, 1921, by Frank Duff, and celebrates 99 years in existence today. Almost a century after it was founded in a small room on Francis Street, Dublin, the Legion of Mary has […]
Tom Mitchell who died on July 22 just short of his 89th birthday was twice elected as a Westminster MP while a republican prisoner, which I believe is a unique distinction. Mitchell was born in Dublin in 1931 and joined the Dublin Brigade of the IRA in the early 1950s. He took part in a […]
At least two statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been attacked in recent days in the U.S., while churches have also come under attack, with one being set alight while parishioners prepared for Mass. The Catholic News Agency reported that last Saturday morning, the Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, was set aflame […]
There are times when I have to pinch myself, when I read the concerns of journalists as expressed in our mainstream media, about the interaction between religion and politics in Ireland – and contrast it with the actual relationship between religion and politics in this country, as evidenced by social surveys. A recent survey, carried […]
Yesterday morning the former Minister for Justice Alan Shatter sent out a tweet calling on several political parties and organisations, including the Irish Catholic Bishops development agency, Trócaire, to publicly comment on what he has termed “a despicable attack by Hamas thugs on an 85-year-old woman in Gaza.” Part of the reason Mr Shatter specifically […]
Two babies who had been abandoned at a New Jersey recycling center in February have been buried with dignity by the Catholic Diocese of Metuchen. Last Friday, a graveside committal service laid the bodies of the two infants to rest in St. Peter’s Catholic Cemetery in New Brunswick. Because of covid-19 restrictions, the small number of mourners […]