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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 […]

It has been a bad week for the billionaire, Dennis O’Brien. Two court cases went against him. Both cases had involved the revealing in public what he considered his private affairs. One was to do with his money the other his reputation. The courts thought otherwise. The problem of being rich and famous is that […]

It has been called my pet aversion. It disfigured the wooded landscape as far as eye can see. It wraps itself around the tree covering up its beautiful bark. It grows so profusely that it could be a candidate for the National emblem! After all it is much easier to find than shamrock but perhaps […]

In a week that has seen turmoil in places as distant as Venezuela and as near as the House of Commons in London it was a relief to see the orderly assembly of Cardinals and Bishops in Rome. All seemed to be under control. The chain of authority is understood. In Venezuela there is a […]

Perhaps the most common question asked among those of a certain age is “How’s the health?” With the older half of the population on blood thinners, stents and pace-makers the conversation flows into what the author Maeve Binchy described with delightful ambiguity as an “Organ Recital”! The fact is, as the Psalmist puts it, we […]

In previous blogs we have looked at the connections Dublin has with St Valentine but now as we anticipate the anonymous Valentine card with its ‘guess who’ in disguised handwriting let’s have a closer look at this thing called love. Some call it chemistry that attracts one to another and certainly that could account for […]