Sometimes I find it really amazing to think that St Patrick’s Day is celebrated the world over. The name of our national saint is known far and wide across the globe. Of course, it has to be acknowledged that what was primarily a religious feast day has become widely secularized. This year because we are… Read More
Tag: Irish
Remembering New York’s Saddest Day
Sometimes, when I am watching a film or TV series based in New York, I am saddened when the Twin Towers appear in the background. Not only does it date the program as pre-2001, but it is also a reminder of a time when what happened on 11 September nineteen years ago, was unimaginable. On… Read More
John Hume – Blessed be the Peacemakers
The main topic in the news this week and the only one to topple Covid-19, albeit temporarily, was the death of John Hume, the man without whom peace would never been attained in Northern Ireland. Those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s here in the south were used to the daily… Read More
Respecting Our Elders?
This week saw the lifting of the government’s restrictive ban on people aged over seventy. There has been a lot of talk about it in the media, and it was greeted with delight by those in this age bracket. I listened to an interview with former government minister, Mary O’Rourke, speaking about how excited she… Read More
Little Women and Wise Men
On January 6th we celebrate both Little Women and Wise Men and by that I mean Nollaig na mBan and the coming of the Magi to Bethlehem. The latter, of course, is a well-known event in the Christian story of Christmas, but the former is a particular Irish tradition. I must confess that it did… Read More