Congratulations to England in their history over Germany in EURO 2020 yesterday.
But the booing of the English fans during the German anthem and indeed the booing right throughout the game was unfortunate and cannot be good for the game.
It certainly was most unsportsmanlike.
Not at all impressive.
This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
In the Gospel read in the liturgy yesterday St Mark tells the story of how Jesus heals the little 12-year-old daughter of a synagogue official.
There are 34 million children refugees in the world.
There are 1.6 billion children living in conflict zones.
Approximately 12.3 Irish children leave school after the Junior Cert. That works out at approximately 8,000 children every year, in 10 years that’s 80,000 children.
And all the pious words that will have been spoken yesterday.
Before the arrival of Photoshop
There is an election in Dublin Bay South on Thursday July 8.
The posters are appearing all
Wearing a scarf in July? And then there is the bicycle.
No chain, no brakes. Ivana with a scarf around her neck and no mudguards on the bicycle. And then there’s the basket.
Does Fine Gael’s candidate James Geoghegan look a little too smarmy for the casual voter passing the lamppost?
More anon on what’s adorning our lampposts right now.
UK’s secretary of health Matt Hancock’s dalliance, his not keeping the social distances rules that he asked the rest of the citizenry to keep, his comments of criticism when a UK Covid expert had to resign because of an extra marital affair, saying that it was not just possible in these circumstances to keep his job, tells the story of the current crop of Conservative politicians.
At one stage Hancock asked the citizens of the UK “to keep doing your bit”.
Irony of ironies.
On this day, June 25, 1953 the notorious and cruel Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police was arrested. At the time Nikita Krushchev had replaced Stalin with help from Georgy Zhukov.
After being arrested, he was tried for treason and other offences. He was sentenced to death, and executed on 23 December 1953.
During his trial, and after his death, numerous allegations arose of Beria being a serial sexual predator.
Beria carried out all of Stalin’s requests. He played an important role in the satellite states of the Soviet Union in the years immediately after World War II.
Naomi O’Leary in her European Letter in The Irish Times yesterday writes about the phenomenon of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.
She interviews Hungarian MEP Katalin Cseh, who points out that Orban always has to have one enemy, whether it is during his time in government or in the run up to an election.
“It is usually a group of people in a minority who are weak, who do not have the same opportunities as the majority and they are singled out.
“Before this it was the migrants. Now it appears that the LGBTI community is part of the new enemy group."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German foreign minister Heiko Maas met in Berlin yesterday.
They visited the Holocaust memorial in the centre of the city, where they met a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor.
One of Blinken’s ancestors was a victim of the Hitler terror. Blinken is a Jew.
Blinken's stepfather was the only Holocaust survivor of the 900 children of his school in Poland.
Maas and Blinken enjoying a German beer spoke about the close relationship between their two countries and the German foreign minister, with a smile, admitted that in a phone call with ‘Tony' he had the feeling that this was his first time to talk with a US secretary of state.
Obviously Germany and the US are back doing business as close partners after four difficult years.
According to a Reuters Institute Digital News Report 70 per cent of Irish people are extremely or very interested in news, which is up five per cent on last year.
The EU average is 60 per cent, the UK 51 per cent and in the US the figure is 54 per cent.
Sixteen per cent of Irish people pay for news.
RTÉ is considered by 78 per cent as a trusted news brand with The Irish Times at 77 per cent.
WhatsApp has overtaken Facebook as the most popular social media platform. It is used by 68 per cent of the 2,000 people who responded to the survey.
Seventy five percent of over 65s are concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet, compared with 55 per cent of 18 - 24-year-olds.
When a new DA was appointed in Philadelphia major changes were made in the police.
Someone was overheard saying that a person who has nothing to hide, hides nothing at all.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to offer her condolences on the 80th anniversary of Germany's World War II invasion of Russia.
June 22, 1941 was the first day of Operation Barbarossa when the Wehrmacht crossed the River Bug and entered the territory of the USSR.
Merkel expressed feelings of empathy in connection with "the incalculable misery and suffering brought by the war unleashed by the Nazi regime," the Kremlin said in a statement.
"Both sides stressed the importance of preserving the historical memory of the tragic events of those years. It was stated that overcoming mutual hostility and reconciliation of the Russian and German peoples carried key importance for the fate of postwar Europe. It stressed that even now the security of the common continent is possible only through joint efforts," it said.
Vladimir Putin also spoke to Merkel about his meeting last week with US President Joe Biden in Geneva.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a wreath in Berlin yesterday to commemorate the victims of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Steinmeier laid the wreath at the Soviet War Memorial in Schönholzer Heide in the Berlin district of Pankow. It is estimated the war against the Soviet Union cost roughly 27 million lives, of which 14 million were civilians.
Steinmeier said: "Nobody during this war mourned more victims than the people of the former Soviet Union. And yet these millions are not as deeply etched in our collective memory as their suffering, and our responsibility, demand.”
He added that the German war against the Soviets was carried out with "murderous barbarity.”
More than 13,000 Red Army officers and soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin in 1945 are buried at the Schönholzer Heide memorial, which is one of three large Soviet memorials in the German capital, along with those in Treptow and Tiergarten.
This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Lateral thinker Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono, who died on June 9, tells a joke:
An old man dies and goes to hell. When he gets there, he sees his friend, a 90-year-old man, with a beautiful woman sitting on his knee.
He says to his friend. This can’t be hell. You’re not being punished, you’e having fun!’ To which his friend replies, ‘This is punishment - for her!’ "
Today is World Refugee Day. The number of vulnerable people forcibly displaced globally stands at almost 82.4 million, which is the highest figure on record.
The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.
A Word in Edgeways, aired on RTE Radio 1 yesterday, Thursday, June 17 at 06.15.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/share/radio1/21969322
The link is to RTE Radio 1’s 'A Word in Edgeways’ aired on the June Bank Holiday Money.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/share/radio1/21963614
This notice is outside a bistro in Rathgar.
And on Bloomsday too.
One is reminded of Jimmy O’Dea singing ’Thank Heavens we are living in Rathgar’
Most likely they spell accommodate correctly in Heaven.
“There are quite decent suburbs, I am sure,
O Rathmines is not so bad, or Terenure,
O we’ve heard of spots like Inchicore,
But really don’t know where they are;
For, thank heavens, we are living in Rathgar.”
— From ‘Thank Heavens We Are Living In Rathgar’, written by Harry O’Donovan and sung by Jimmy O’Dea,
This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Irish Dominican priest
Kevin was born on January 31, 1932 in Glenroe, County Limerick near Ballylanders and not far from Mitchelstown.
He was christened Liam and took the name Kevin when he joined the Dominicans.
Kevin won a scholarship to Newbridge College, where he spent his five years of secondary school. He joined the Irish Province of the Dominican Order on September 14, 1949, spending his noviciate year at St Mary’s Priory, Pope’s Quay, Cork, before moving to Tallaght, where he studied philosophy and theology. Kevin was ordained a priest in July 1956. He spent the following year in Rome and readily admits the highlight of his time in the Eternal City was not studying but rather playing rugby with San Gabriele in Frascati.
Kevin, new to Italy, had never drunk wine before. On one occasion after a rugby game in great heat he was extremely thirsty. In innocence, immediately after the game, he imbibed far too much wine, taking it simply to quench his thirst. Very quickly he realised what he had done.
On his return from Rome he spent a pastoral year back at his alma mater in Newbridge, where he taught a young Dermot Weld. Many years later in Australia he met up again with Dermot, who by that time was a world-famous horse trainer. It turned out a profitable meeting.
The late Dominican, Gerard O’Keeffe was a first cousin of Kevin’s, and he was a nephew of Terence O’Donoghue, who played a major role in his joining the Dominicans.
As a newly ordained priest Kevin was sub-master of novices in Cork in 1958.
During his time in Pope’s Quay in Cork he played for Sunday’s Well Rugby Club. While playing for the Cork rugby club he played against many Irish internationals.
The story goes that on Saturdays he would always rush back from rugby to hear confessions in Pope’s Quay at 4pm.
Kevin went to Australia in November 1960 and travelled under the assisted passage scheme. It meant the fare to the sub-continent cost the princely sum of £5.00. It was Fr Antonius Costello who suggested that he go to Australia.
In 1974 there were 23 Irish Dominicans working in Australia, five of whom had transfiliated to the Australian province.
Unlike the Welsh man, who got so home sick on arrival in Australia that he airmailed himself in 1965 in a box back to Wales, Kevin stayed and spent the rest of his life working in different Australian cities.
He was prior in a number of Dominican communities, including in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. He spent many years working as a parish priest in Dominican-run parishes.
As a young priest in Adelaide he carried out a census of the parish, which lasted a year. He visited over 4,000 homes and in that time he received only two rebuffs. He tells the story of one man telling him that he had left the church because he had a row with the local priest. “I told him there were bastards in every walk of life.” One thing led to another, with the man eventually returning to the church and indeed becoming a stalwart member.
It fell on Kevin to raise funds for the building of the house of studies in Canberra, where he was later superior.
He attended a renewal course at Berkeley University in the academic year 1978/’79 and saw it as a wonderful experience.
The Second Vatican Council gave the Limerick man a new lease of life and he was quick out of the traps to develop parish councils even in spite of the difficulties he experienced from fellow priests and parishioners.
Kevin was parish priest in Perth from 1983 to 1989. At the chapter of 1989 he was asked to go to Camberwell to be parish priest, where he spent a number of years.
Beginning in 2000 he worked for a number of years in various parishes across the Archdiocese of Sydney.
Here I am, Lord: Memories and Musings of a Wandering Dominican, is a short memoir written and published by Kevin in Melbourne in 2000.
In 2008 he was appointed chaplain in Nazareth House at Ballarat in Victoria. But due to ill-health he had to retire. He duly recovered and was told by his consultant that it was God and golf that were responsible for his recovery.
During all his years in Australia he kept in touch with the Irish province. He was a regular visitor to Ireland and was always interested in what was happening in the home province. His most popular homes from home were the priories in Limerick and Sligo.
Any time he was home on holidays he would tell the pp in Mitchelstown to take off on holidays and he and his brother, Fr Sean Condon, a priest of the Limerick diocese, would celebrate Mass for him.
On one occasion a woman said to him there must have been a third Fr Condon because she had been at Mass one day and the priest saying Mass was very handsome.
Kevin was an accomplished golfer and had a lifelong interest in sports.
During the Rugby World Cup in Australia in 1987 Kevin was feverishly looking for a ticket for the Ireland Australia quarter-final game in Sydney and was having no luck. After many phone calls back to Ireland two tickets for the game arrived for him on June 5 in the Concord Oval in Sydney just in time before the kick off on June 7.
He was also a regular visitor to the world-famous horse racing spectacular, the Melbourne Cup.
Kevin had a great sense of humour and related well with people.
He was greatly saddened when the Irish Dominicans closed shop in Glentworth Street, Limerick. He felt the Dominicans had abandoned the city, a city with which his family had a long association. It also meant he would no longer be able to avail of the hospitality of the Limerick priory, something he had grown to cherish and appreciate for over 45 years.
His brother, Seámus died on May 6 in the family home in Glenroe. He was 92.
May Kevin and his brother Seámus rest in peace.
Maurice Cunningham died
Sean Cunningham, born in 1931, was given the name Maurice when he joined the Dominicans in St Mary’s Priory, Pope’s Quay, Cork in September 1954.
He studied philosophy and theology in the Dominican studium in Tallaght and was ordained a priest in July 1960.
Seán was born into a farming family outside Omagh. He had 12 siblings, one of whom died in childhood.
His father, Patrick Cunningham was an abstentionist MP representing the Nationalist Party for the constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone, being elected to the House of Commons in 1935.
Two of Seán’s brothers were Holy Ghost/Spiritan priests. One brother, Tom died of Covid in January and another brother, Colum was president of Rockwell College. A third brother was a priest in the US.
Seán was 23 when he joined the Dominicans and in those days he would have been considered ‘a late vocation’.
Before joining the Order Seán had obtained an LLB in Queens University, Belfast and a BA in history and English in UCC.
After his priestly ordination he did post graduate studies in theology at La Sarte in Belgium and at the University of St Thomas in Rome.
He was one of a group of Irish Dominicans, who went to Nagpur in India, to establish the Order on the sub-continent.
On one occasion, while giving a retreat in northern India he was shot by bandits. Fortunately, the wounds were superficial and he suffered no longterm ill-effects.
Seán was a pleasant and gentle man who was extremely good in community. Once a decision was made he gave it his complete support.
Because of his strong republican views, which he was not slow to express, he was moved in the early 1970s from the priory in Newry to Tralee.
He was engaged in pastoral work in the Kerry capital, where he was appreciated and respected and made a number of lasting friendships. From Tralee he moved to Waterford.
A Dominican who lived with Seán in Waterford said of him: “He was a zealous, apostolic and prayerful man and easy to get on with.”
Seán was conservative in his theological and social views. On one occasion he caused controversy on RTE Radio 1’s Marian Finucane Show because of strongly-held views he expressed on issues surrounding marriage.
He was a dedicated pastoral man, who made it his business to be available to those who attended Dominican churches.
Seán gave much of his energy to the pro-life movement and had a lifelong devotion to Our Lady.
On arrival in Dundalk he expressed a wish that he would see Tyrone footballers win a Senior All-Ireland Championship and that Antrim would win a Senior All-Ireland Hurling Championship.
His hopes for Antrim were never realised but the Tyrone footballers won three All-Irelands.
A week before the 1995 Tyrone Dublin final Seán was asked to bless the Tyrone team, which he duly did.
The following Sunday Dublin beat Tyrone by one point. The final score was Dublin 1 -10, Tyrone 0 - 12.
It was the source of good fun in the community as the late Andrew Kane, who was a staunch Dublin supporter, was regularly teased for never having been asked to bless the Dublin team.
Seán was a mild-mannered man, who spoke in a most gentle manner. He was also a hospitable person, who always received visitors with open arms and made them feel most welcome. He was gentle but brave.
May he rest in peace.
Requiem Mass will be on Wednesday, June 16 at 2.30pm in Holy Cross Priory, Sligo.
Dominican priest, Sean Cunningham died this morning in Sligo.
Funeral arrangements to follow.
An obituary will appear on this blog over the next few days.
May he rest in peace.
Freelance journalist Eoin Butler writes a wonderful piece in The Irish Times Weekend Review.
It’s a personal account of his working as a Covid vaccine volunteer at the Citywest Hotel.
It’s funny, it’s real, it’s a great read. But most of all it highlights the inherent goodness of human beings.
Even the ransomware attack did not dampen spirits.
“We had so many people working that day, of different ages, genders, sexual orientations, from different professional and cultural backgrounds.
"There were so many stress points where the system could have fractured. Someone could have snapped. Someone could have lost their temper. Someone could have been rude to one of our colleagues. But it never happened.”
And then there’d this: "After a whole day of processing thousands of 52-year-olds, you become so attuned that if a 51-year-old dared sneak in, you’d spot him across the car park before he even got out of his car."
Brilliant.
The top 10 companies in Ireland in 2020 were Apple Ireland, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, CRH, Medtronic Johnson Controls, DCC, Eaton Corp and Abbvie.
Last year Apple Ireland made a profit of €29,029 million and CRH profits were €1,355 million.Apple Ireland employs 6,000 people and CRH 76,600.
CRH’s Albert Manifold earned €11.2 million last year.
The boss of Kerry Group, 17th largest company in Ireland, Edmond Scanlon earned €2.32 million. The company employs 26,000 people.
Oliver Callan during his programme this morning on RTE Radio 1 talking about non-alcoholic drink said:
“...... you have drank in the past...”
RTE needs to run a course on English grammar for all presenters.
This error with the past participle is happening all too often.
The grammar gaffe was at approximately 09.14.
This appeared in The Irish Examiner. As relevant today as it was back in 2012. Maybe even more so.
Fr Michael Commane, a long-serving member of the Dominican Order, said it was his opinion that priests in Ireland managed to run “their own little fiefdoms” and, after ordination, it was quite likely that they would never be asked to attend a retraining course.
He revealed that in almost 40 years in the priesthood, not once had a superior or a bishop asked him what he might think about central issues of his faith.
Commentating on the fallout from the recent controversy surrounding Cardinal Seán Brady, the Kerry-based priest and author said, while he could understand people saying it was time the Catholic Church was closed down, he also understood those who maintained that the latest dispute was yet another attack on the Church.
“My head is in a tumble. Turmoil reigns,” he said.
Fr Commane, writing in The Kerryman, said there seemed to be an element of paranoia with Church officialdom and bureaucracy concerning authority and it always seems linked to matters of sexuality.
Referring directly to the latest clerical child abuse scandal, he asked how a priest could interview a 14-year-old boy, asking him “the most outrageous questions”, while the boy’s father was left outside the door.
“Who allowed these questions to be asked? Who compiled the questions? Any organisation that would allow such questions to be asked to a minor would not seem fit for purpose.”
He said the Church seemed to have an unhealthy attitude to all matters dealing with human sexuality and said that had a woman been in that room the day the boy was questioned, “terrible questions” would not have been asked.
US president Joe Biden left Washington yesterday for a week-long visit to Europe.
Next Wednesday he will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Geneva. His secretary of state Antony Blinken will be among the top officials who will accompany the president on his visit to his Russian counterpart.
Will his officials have reminded him of what Churchill said of the Soviet Union in a 1940 radio broadcast.
He described Russia as ‘a riddle, wrapped in mystery, inside an enigma’.
Jennifer O’Connell writing in The Irish Times on Saturday on the Boris Johnson wedding in Westminster Cathedral:
"But double standards in either the Catholic Church or the life of Boris Johnson surely can’t come as a surprise to anyone.
"There have always been two tiers within the Catholic Church; one for a powerful, male, privileged elite, another for everyone else.”
Elsewhere in the article she writes:
"Hypocrisy is a subject close to Pope Francis’s heart, and one he has frequently railed against. But while he is undoubtedly sincere and I admire his determination to change the tone of the church’s communications, the head of the Catholic Church lecturing the world on double standards is like Jeff Bezos holding forth on the evils of consumerism.”
It doesn’t make for good reading. Is it accurate?
This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column
A big win for the CDU in yesterday’s election in the eastern German state of Saxony Anhalt. More bad results for the SPD and The Left Party
But the great news of yesterday is that the far right AFD under performed. Polls were suggesting that they could come out the strongest party but fortunately this did not happen.
It means current premier Reiner Haseloff will remain in office and most likely form a government with the SPD and the FDP.
The Greens improved their vote and are in with a chance of joining the new coalition in Saxony Anhalt.
Yesterday’s elections were the last polls before the general election in September and give a fillip to CDU’s Armin Laschet chances of being Germany’s next chancellor.
But what can restore the fortunes of the SPD?
