Blog

The Great Skua                     Word on the Week                          8th June 2019. While on a bird-watching expedition last Wednesday to Loop Head in Co Clare a solitary Great Skua flew past heading for Blasket Island.    It was undisturbed by the presence of another big bird which had landed at Doonbeg some 6 miles away and with whom […]

Getting into the Swing                    Word on the Week              1st June 2019. I invariably find it difficult to select a topic for the weekly blog.   It’s not the shortage of material that is the problem but the volume!   So much happens in a week and, believe it or not, the Bible always has a view which […]

“What are you like”             Word on the Week                          25th May 2019 The phrase can have either an exclamation or a question mark.   An exclamation at something you have done or a question of where you come from.    The Bible says: – Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens anover the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creep on the earth.”    So God created man in his own image, the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis Chapter 1 verses 26/7). It […]

Thy Kingdom Come                         Word on the Week                   18th May 2019. It is the first time Jesus was asked by his followers to teach prayer so what he asked for should be of primary importance.    Like others they got it wrong.   They thought ‘kingdom equals territory’ – and much of our debate is slanted […]

The Saviour died, and rose again triumphant o’er the grave; and pleads our cause at God’s right hand, omnipotent to save. This verse takes the reader through ‘dead man’s cross and live man’s tomb’ and onwards and upwards to Christ’s heavenly session and present redeeming work. The first two lines, ‘The Saviour died, and rose […]

It is many years since the peace loving Basking Shark came to mind but there in today’s newspaper the species gets two whole columns to itself.   What prompted the article was not their presence but their relative absence from our waters. In the middle of the 20th century they were to be seen off the […]

The March 29th deadline for the UK leaving the EU has passed.   Eight separate votes were taken in the UK parliament this week, each motion exploring an alternative to the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal.   All failed.  Then the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was voted on for the third time and it also failed, by 58 […]

Lent is the period of 40 days, beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending at Easter. It has traditionally been seen as a time of repentance and a more frugal lifestyle. The Ash is a reminder of “from dust you have come and to dust you will return” (Genesis Chapter 3 verse 19). Ash depicts our […]

Ireland is reputed to have 40 shades of green in its fields and forests. On the patron Saint Patrick’s day, the 17th March, this transforms into the greening of 450 landmarks around the world. Not a bad showing for a relatively obscure figure who lived around 390/461AD. History has not always been kind to the […]