About thirty years ago, there was an informal secret society in the city of Cork. Perhaps a loose net of those with a shared interest might be more accurate. This group passed the names of certain...
Thursday was the first anniversary of the publication of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse. Commonly called the Ryan Report, its publication cumulated in the realisation of the extent of the...
For a number of years now, the so-called “War on Christmas” has been a favorite meme of the Christian Right in the United States. As the title of Fox commentator John Gibson's book goes,we should...
It is commonly said that the best defence is a good offence, but just because it works in football does not mean that it should be a universal strategy. Someone should mention this to Tarcisio...
Cardinal Seán Brady celebrated mass on Easter Sunday with some pretty words about rebirth, apologies and child sexual abuse. He did not mention that in the previous week he was asked by survivors of...
Cardinal Seán Brady, majordomo of the Catholic church in Ireland, is in the dock of the court of public opinion following revelations that he was, as a priest in 1975, involved in silencing two...
Years ago, Father Seán Brady interviewed two survivors of the child rapist (Father) Brendan Smyth and then swore them to secrecy. This was standard operating procedure for the Catholic Church, as...
After the Ryan and Murphy reports, were published, shock and anger reverberated throughout Ireland and the world. Questions of how the people of Ireland have failed children so grievously were raised...
Catholic morals were deeply embedded in Irish society by the theocracy from which Ireland is only now beginning to shake itself loose. Since the middle of the nineteeth century, the Catholic Church...
2009 was a watershed year for Irish sexual politics – but not in the sense that we usually understand the term. What we have seen is the intense politicisation of sex. Ireland has never had a...