Through the station barriers, heading for work and then?

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Every weekday morning at 7.46 I observe people disgorge off a train at Dublin’s Docklands Rail Station. 

Two minutes earlier the station is almost empty, and then just as the doors open throngs of people pour on to the platform. They swipe their cards, the barriers open, and out they go. The noise from the barriers resounds across the small station.

Two, three hundred people, maybe more, on their way to work. Most of them are young, few over 60, usually two or three with bicycles. Maybe some worried about their jobs in the current precarious tech industry. I imagine all going to work, most of them in a quasi hurry. Many with earbuds, they are mostly white but I’ve noticed in recent days some have black earbuds. Wondering is the fashion changing?

Docklands Rail Station is in the heart of the high tech world; I sit there imagining many of them are high tech people. Wondering why Irish Rail now call us customers rather than passengers; I don’t like the change.

Five minutes later I take that same train in the opposite direction.

I’m there with my bicycle, far from being a high tech executive. Watching them all for those three or four minutes forces me back to my ever-asking question, what is it all about?

The old question; do we work to live or do we live to work? Such a question is an insult to those suffering around the world; the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and their immediate families, the people of Gaza, the Iranians, and the close to billion people, who have not enough to eat.

Is it possible to survive in this word without love and job satisfaction? How can anyone stay home all-day-long doing nothing and yet what are we doing running about the place, intermittently thinking we are needed and important?

I’m told that God loves me but what exactly does that mean. Over the years I’ve heard so much talk about God and yes, I believe in God but how does that influence my life? I think I’m glad I’ve chosen the path I’ve chosen, at least some days I am. But I keep scratching my head and wondering. 

For the life of me I can never understand the institutional women and men, who sell their souls to whatever organisation they belong. We use the word apparatchik to demean people who play the party line, the party hack, the yes-people.

I’m back thinking of all those people rushing through the barriers at Docklands Rail Station every weekday morning. What’s going through their heads, what’s the meaning of their lives? What’s the meaning of my life?

Every time I hear those ticket barriers sound I’m thinking are we all simply apparatchiks.

It’s coming near the end of the school year and I’m worried how my students will do in their exams. I wish them well, I’ll miss them, hope they have great futures. I often look back at my former students, thrilled to see them happy and content. Maybe that’s the secret, staring me in the face, happiness and contentment. 

On Tuesday a tram driver reminded me, we come into the world without a worry. Wise words. I should take them on board.

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical - Magnifica Humanitas

At the presentation of his first social encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV appealed for artificial intelligence to be placed firmly at the service of humanity, warning against technologies that foster domination, exclusion and war.

Addressing participants gathered in the Synod Hall on Monday for the presentation of the encyclical, the Pope described the current technological revolution as an “epochal turning point” comparable to the upheaval confronted by Pope Leo XIII during the Industrial Revolution.

“Artificial intelligence already touches many areas of our lives and affects decisions that shape human coexistence, he said, noting that it is also “dramatically changing how war is waged.”

Irish Rail’s lifts can far too easily lower one’s mood

Irish Rail has developed the practice of installing lifts at its stations. Why the rail company did not choose to build underground passages is not clear.

Far too often lifts at stations are out of service. Yes, Irish Rail does give notice at real time signs informing passengers at what stations lifts are not working. But it can be haphazard.

At present the lift at Dublin’s Docklands is not working and has not been working since last Thursday and no mention of this on the company's real time signage boards.

What happens when a passenger with heavy luggage, a pram or a bicycle arrives at a station where the lift is out of service?

When Irish Rail is building lifts why not make them sufficiently big enough to take modern e-bikes?

But underground passageways are a far better option.

The churches have to listen to all the people around them

Yesterday was the great feast of Pentecost, an important day in the Christian calendar.

I was celebrating Mass with a group of people. At the beginning of the Mass I asked did anyone know what the feast was about; not one person at Mass knew what Pentecost was.

The Dominican Order was founded by St Dominick over 800 years ago. Part of the reason for the founding of the Order and its subsequent flourishing was to live and preach the Gospel in a way and in a language that would be understood by the people.

The majority of Irish people have been educated in Christian run schools.

St Dominick obviously looked outwards. Might it be true today that religious congregations and diocesan priests are involved in far too much navel gazing? 

Meetings here, there and everywhere, people in leadership roles flying around the world to speak and listen to their own clan; academics, theologians, christian philosophers giving erudite papers from Dublin to Denver from Bantry to Berlin.

New groups being formed to speak to likeminded  people. And certainly there is a growth in preaching a message that speaks a language that identifies with a conservative/nationalist trend that is worrying.

It’s generally accepted that the Russian Orthodox Church is hand-in-glove with President Putin; President Trump too speaks a language that attracts a similar group.

Is a similar phenomenon happening across Europe in the Christian churches.

How many people in Ireland who celebrated with their priest the feast of Pentecost know what the feast is about.

In my case it was no one, zilch. 

Newly appointed Director General of the BBC, Matt Brittin has in the last days spoken to the press, where he gave a detailed account of his vision of the future of the corporation. He stressed how the world is in such flux at every level.

I’d recommend every bishop every provincial to listen to Brittin’s wise words. 

Check him out.

Pentecost is the Spirit bursting into the world to heal division

German theologian Jürgen Moltmann saw Pentecost as the dawn of the New Creation—the moment when the Holy Spirit bursts forth to heal a divided world, defeat the history of sin, and affirm the ultimate dignity of all creation.

Moltmann was born in Hamburg in 1926, died 2024. His schooling was interrupted when he was called up to fight. It was while a prisoner of war in the UK that he discovered the Bible.

He worked closely with Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews in an attempt to reach a greater understanding of Christian theology, which he believed should be developed ecumenically.

His book Theology of Hope, published in 1965, enquires into the ground of the hope of Christian faith and into the responsible exercise of this hope in thought an action in the world today.

In his preface to his book Moltmann thanks all those who stimulated him and all who opposed him.

What graciousness.

US Scott Hahn talks in Dublin on solid Catholic teaching

Scripture expert and convert to Catholicism, Dr Scott Hahn, accompanied by his wife Kimberley, is talking at the Ignite conference this evening at the Dublin Convention Centre.

One of the blurbs for the conference goes: "At a time when many are praying for renewal in the Church and a deeper rediscovery of the faith in Ireland, Ignite is an opportunity to gather together for prayer, solid Catholic teaching, encouragement, and hope.”

What is 'solid Catholic teaching’? In my many years listening to people talk about faith, belief, religion I have on occasion heard the word 'solid’ being used; it’s a word that has often concerned me.

A solid party man, a solid citizen. Interesting the adjective is seldom, if ever, used to say something about a woman.

Along with the word describing an apparatchik, it is also often used to describe a boring person.

Then there’s the solid marxist, the solid communist, and what’s a solid priest? And worse again, the solid sermon. We’ve heard a lot of them.

Words tell stories.

It'll be the mothers of soldiers who’ll put a stop to Putin’s war

On this day, May 22, 1972 over 400 women in Derry attacked the offices of Sinn Féin following the shooting dead by the IRA of a young British soldier at home on leave.

It will be the women of Russia who will play a major role in ending Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

When the mothers of dead and wounded soldiers begin to come out on the streets in the major cities and towns across Mother Russia will Putin begin to realise what he has done and is doing to the great people of Russia.

She had went to a most unique place without any grammar

 A BBC journalist reporting yesterday on the station’s flagship morning news programme, while talking about the Bayeux Tapestry, which is on display at the British Museum, said : “.... it was the most unique.....”

Two weeks ago  RTÉ's US correspondent, talking about US President Donal Trump, said: ‘... he had went...”

Maybe that’s what you call a living language.

This blog is now close to 100,000 hits a day

In one 24-hour period this week, this blog had 98,500 hits.

And that circulation on a €0.00 budget.

On a personal; note it makes one wonder about the monies spent by religious organisations on publicity campaigns. 

And then the content of those publications leaves so much to be desired.

Just two tiny thoughts; nothing more.

Honestly like it’s driving me like crazy like

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

The Bertie Ahern doorstep stumble while canvassing in the Dublin Central constituency made the headlines. In true Bertie style he was making sure to agree with the woman with whom he was talking. In the times that are in it everything we say and do is easily caught on audio or video; it’s a nasty trick and Bertie was caught redhanded.

I’ve read much of the commentariat analysing what he said, which led to further discussion on Bertie’s penchant for the sorts of words he uses. 

During his time as taoiseach, out canvassing one evening, a constituent asked him about a public issue that was upsetting him; Bertie agreed with him and said it was awful. The man was confused, rightly thinking; ‘but Bertie is taoiseach, surely he can fix it'.

After the recent kerfuffle Fianna Fáil MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú called on the former taoiseach to issue an apology. She went on to say: ‘Words matter and it is important that his words are clarified’.

Bertie has spent his life playing with words, it’s his talent. But words do matter. 

I went back teaching full-time last November. It’s been an amazing experience. I have always been struck with how dealing with young people you are thrown into their words, their language and how they use words. 

It has me laughing, indeed, mesmerised. Every day in school since November the word ‘like’ has been thrown in my face a zillion times. Honestly, it seems that the students cannot put one clause together without saying ‘like’ at least three times. 

And those students, whose English is not their first language, have in some miraculous way learned  all about ‘like’. It seems to be the first English word they learn.

Because of my hatred of the misuse of the word, I think one of my nicknames is ‘Like’.

The stupid/silly use of the word has grown legs right across all society. It has no socio-economic class boundaries. You hear the posh, the not-so-posh, the smart, not-so-smart, urban and rural class using it non-stop. On Saturday morning a Kerry sheep farmer on RTE Radio 1 laced every sentence with at least three ‘likes’. It is maddening. Or is it?

In a 2022 article in the magazine section of the Observer newspaper, columnist Sam Wolfson wrote on the use of the word ‘like’. He has a different opinion than I. 

He wrote: ‘In 2014, a mother wrote to the advice columnist in this magazine with a dilemma. ‘My adult daughter is clever, pretty and confident. 

'However, she cannot stop saying ‘like’ about six times in every sentence… I know it is not the end of the world, but it makes her sound stupid and uneducated, which she most definitely is not, and when she wants to return to the real world I worry this will be held against her.’ ’

Wolfson explained that the best linguistic studies today suggest people who say ‘like’ may actually be more intelligent than those who don’t. 

Whatever about the experts, it’s driving me crazy and I have a sneaky suspicion we’re, once again, copying the Americans.

Cynthia Ní Mhurchú is correct, words do matter. If a word has no meaning why use it. Maybe I should ask Bertie. 

Weed right at the centre of the fabulous Chelsea flowers

This certainly is hilarious. Mr Keith Weed played a leading role in the opening of the Royal Horticultural Society in Chelsea.

Mr Weed met President of Ireland, Ms Catherine Connolly today, who attended the Chelsea show.

Maybe he plans doing some re-wilding at the world famous show. 

The Irish Times editor comments on 'Thinking Anew’ column

The Currency is an online publisher offering insightful, dynamic and brave stories, commentary and investigations.

It focuses on business, finance, economics and public policy, it is online only and subscription only. 

Alan English in The Currency sits down and interviews Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, the editor of The Irish Times.

This blog agrees with Mr Mac Cormaic what he says in the interview about how the paper stopped the Thinking Anew column, and would add, those who wrote the column could have been treated in a more professional and honest manner.

C'est la vie

Below is an extract from the interview:

Alan English: Have you made any mistakes that you’d put your hand up to?

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic: No doubt. There were some things we discontinued and that I feel I should have explained more. We discontinued a religious column called Thinking Anew. It had a very small readership but a very committed readership and we just stopped it. And in hindsight I should have explained why we were doing it.

AE: You got a lot of complaints then?

RMC: Many people did get in touch about it. You do have to be very careful not to lose sight of how your readers will react to something that you might think is marginal. They might strike most people as really small, insignificant things. But to many of our readers they’re really important. But the problem – or the issue – here is that the legacy and the history of The Irish Times is one of its greatest strengths. But if that stifles creativity, if it breeds complacency, that is also a problem. What worked in the print era doesn’t automatically work in the digital age. 

Atheists outnumber Catholics who support Leo on Iran war

Yesterday’s blogpost is a powerful example of the importance of checking the veracity of one’s sources.

The following poll is sourced from The Irish Times.

American atheists support Pope Leo’s stance on the Iran war at almost twice the rate of American Catholics.

Not surprising when one considers the number of Catholics who support Donald Trump and his policies.

Many of the Irish people who emigrated to the United States in the last century, today they, their children and grandchildren are Trump supporters.

Clinton's nailing of JD Vance’s plans is fake news

[Note: In an earlier posting this morning an incorrect link was posted. The correct link is now at the end of this post, apologies.]

[Note number two; it now appears Bill Clinton gave no speech in Bangor and the link below is fake.]

The link is still here. 

A reader did comment they thought it was fake because it sounded like a young Bill Clinton.

The importance of valued journalism, reliable newspapers and television.

https://youtu.be/HnaHYy12NBA?si=EZwWf3579wqyAJ-a

Pope Leo tells students to be artisans of true peace

Pope Leo visited the Sapienza University of Rome, urging young people to reject resignation, become “artisans of true peace,” and warning against rising military spending and the dangers of artificial intelligence in war.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-xiv-addresses-rome-s-sapienza-university.html

What exactly is the mission of Irish Catholic Church

On a recent Sunday I attended Mass in a Dublin church. The priest spoke for between 10 and 15 minutes; I did not understand one word the man said.

Over the last number of days I  attempted to call the presbytery/community, never an answer. On my way home from work on Tuesday I tried in vain to call to the door; everything locked up.

On the Sunday of the Mass I did go into the sacristy, where I met a priest; I explained how I felt and he was most friendly and kind. I hesitated in going into the sacristy but it was worth it, having spoken with the priest.

I’m not criticising, but I am asking where exactly is the Irish Catholic Church at present. What’s the point in going to Mass and not understanding what the priest is saying in his words after the Gospel? And then my subsequent experience of closed doors and non-answering calls.

Is our church being honest and real in asking what exactly we are doing today and with whom are we speaking? What exactly are we at?

I stress, this is not a criticism, rather an honest expression of an experience I had in recent weeks. I imagine it could be replicated right across the country.

Every weekday morning cycling to work between 07.15 and 07.50 the doors of every church I pass are closed.

The church where I attended Mass was not a Dominican church.

The life story of Hugo Grin from Beregszász-Berehovo

When the late Rabbi Hugo Gryn was asked where he was from, he replied: 

“I was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, educated in Czechoslovakia, started working in Hungary, did a stint in Nazi Germany, and then lived, worked and raised my fmaily in the Soviet Union.”

The interviewer was impressed and commented on how much he must have travelled in his life.

Hugo replied: “Not at all. I never left Berehovo”

Today Beregszász-Berehovo is in Ukraine.

If our dreams die life is a broken-winged bird

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Langston Hughes was an American poet, playwright, novelist. He was involved in supporting the poor and downtrodden.

He was born in Joplin Missouri 1901 and died 1967.

I never heard of him until last week when I came across him while talking to a group of young people who have recently come to Ireland. They have good English and interested in poetry.

Langston’s poem 'Dreams’ is short  and simple:  Hold fast to dreams/For if dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird/That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams/For when dreams go/Life is a barren field/Frozen with snow.

There is a lot of talk in the public place these days     about the age of retirement. I suppose it is all  caught up with economics and how much the State can get out of us before they have to start paying out our pensions, which we have in fact paid into.

Retirement from what? It might be that our day job is part of our dream but for many it’s simply the means of earning money to live.

You hear people in their mid-to-late 50s saying with delight in their eyes they only have another X number of years and ‘I’m out of here’.

But, to do what?

We all need to keep that dream alive in us. Hughes is spot on when he says the day we no longer have a dream is the day we are like a broken winged bird that cannot fly.

It’s awful to see a bird not being able to fly. It is a far bigger tragedy when our dreams have been extinguished. Hope over despair, always.

The older we get the more vulnerable we are to all sorts of injuries, ailments and ‘the blows and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that come our way. That’s life and so often there is little we can do about it.

But there is an insane ‘law’ out there telling us that we have to act our age and that at a certain age it’s time for the scrap yard. There is no human scrap yard.

One of the great qualities of a good teacher is to inspire her or his pupils to dream big, to believe in themselves, to realise that they can do it.

Yes, part of teaching is passing on information but an essential ingredient to the job is filling young people with ideas and hopes; giving them belief in themselves so that they can chase their dreams.

How often do we hear at half time the words of inspiration a manager speaks to the team. The team is goaded on to live the dream and win.

Why should we ever stop dreaming? It is profoundly sad to see people no longer living in hope and looking forward for new goals to achieve. 

No matter what the dream is, no matter how silly it may seem to others, the dream is the fire in our soul and we must make it our life’s ambition to hold on to it until that day when the curtain falls on our lives. We all have so much to give. And age should have nothing to do with it.

‘Hold fast to the dreams.’

On further research Mencken’s words have been removed

There was a quote on this blog for today’s post from HL Mencken (1880 - 1956) writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun on Sunday, 26 July, 1920, where he said that one day the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

On further research it turns out this man made objectionable comments on many issues; he was clearly an anti-semite, hence the post has been removed.

Russia ‘has no good scenario for the future’. Ukraine has

Below is Lara Marlowe’s column in the weekend edition of The Irish Times.

It’s an excellent piece, a great read and tells the lie of Putin’s doctoring of Russian Ukrainian history. 

Like most of his compatriots, Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak has been on an emotional rollercoaster since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“At times you feel everything is lost. You are heading into the abyss, and then suddenly victory seems very close. We go up and down with the news, especially since [Donald] Trump came to power, because Trump sows chaos.”

Hrytsak teaches history at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and is one of the most prominent historians still working in Ukraine. Stoicism and cynical optimism are the best attitudes to help one carry on, he says. “Just imagine. Next month this war will have lasted as long as the first World War.”

Paradoxically, Hrytsak says, the empathy and solidarity of the early days of the war made it a high point. “This feeling has died out, because the war has gone on so long.”

Hrytsak learned last December that his godson Arsan (33) had been killed in Pokrovsk on the eastern front. “He saved three cats from the war zone. He managed to send them to Lviv and on to Germany. The cats survived; he did not. The last time I saw him, he joked that he was married to a lady with a scythe, to death.”

Hrytsak calls Vladimir Putin “the embodiment of the Russkiy Mir” (Russian World), a woolly concept of transnational Russian identity which defends traditional values against a degenerate West.

“With this war, Ukraine is in the process of leaving a dangerous world, the famous Russkiy Mir that Putin talks about in his speeches,” Hrytsak says. Cradle-to-grave violence is the hallmark of this Russian sphere.

Absurd

The Russian president’s idol, Peter the Great, began the colonisation of Ukraine in the 18th century. Peter renamed Muscovy as Russia, after the medieval Kyivan Rus’ dynasty which was extinguished by the Mongol horde in 1240. Hrytsak says the historical dispute over the legacy of the Kyivan Rus’ is as absurd as modern-day France and Germany arguing over which country is the legitimate heir of Charlemagne.

“If Putin committed no other crimes, he deserves to be punished for his crude, over-simplified exploitation of history,” Hrytsak says. “He uses history to legitimise his aggression. Putin’s claim that Russia has a 1,000-year history is a nonsense. The main story of this region is the lack of continuity.”

Hrytsak contrasts the trauma of Ukrainian historical memory with Putin’s belief that the Kyivan Rus’, the Russian and Soviet empires were a golden era. “Fortunately, Ukraine has no golden age, so Ukraine has nowhere to return to. Ukraine’s golden age is in the future. Ukrainians not only want to leave the Russkiy Mir, they want to leave the past behind.”

Putin will go down in history “in the same box with Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and other dictators who failed dramatically and provoked huge losses among their own populations and their neighbours”, Hrytsak says. “You can destroy a lot with violence, but you cannot build anything lasting on it.” Russia, he says, “has no good scenario for the future” whereas Ukraine has several.

“The worst-case scenario is a Ukraine destroyed by the war, lacking in reforms and in stagnation. Most people would try to leave because they would see no future. The country would move from the Second World to the Third World. The best-case scenario is that Ukraine succeeds in preserving most of its territory, carries out reforms, enters the EU and eventually becomes a very dynamic economy, a central European tiger.” The real outcome will probably be somewhere between, Hrytsak says.

The jury is still out on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “I believe he will be one of the few people from eastern Europe who will be remembered for a very long time,” Hrytsak says. “He consciously emulated Churchill, but when asked recently he said – with the sense of humour I like – ‘I’m more like Charlie Chaplin’. It depends not just on the results of the war, but on whether he is able to bring Ukraine into the European space, whether he will be remembered as a person who fought against corruption or as a person who enabled corruption. This is not clear yet.”

Putin developed a plan to invade Ukraine in 2008, right after the Russian invasion of Georgia, Hrytsak says. That plan was an open secret, and Putin seized on the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in 2014 to enact it.

Putin “wants to ‘make Russia great again’”, Hrytsak says. “He wants Russia to be a superpower. Without Ukraine, he cannot do it. With Ukraine, Russia is like the US. Without Ukraine, it’s like Canada.”

Hrytsak believes that Putin wants to annex only the Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine, which he sees as part of the Russkiy Mir, leaving a Ukrainian rump state that would be ruled from Kyiv by a pro-Russian puppet, similar to the president of neighbouring Belarus.

“The tragedy of our territory is that we are borderlands both for Russia and for the West,” Hrytsak says. “Unfortunately, we are at the centre of a titanic struggle. We want to have a different kind of life. We want to have a boring life.”

Mary Lou McDonald ’s comment is GUBU at its very best

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald’s comment about what Gerard Hutch said about illegal immigrants is remarkable.

Canvassing in the upcoming Dublin Central bye election she said:  “We can’t, comment on other people’s comments.”

Of course she can. Doesn’t Mary Lou comment on the comments of other people every day in and outside Dáil Éireann.

It is GUBU at its very best.

Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, and Unprecedented was the comment made by Conor Cruise O’Brein in criticism of then taoiseach Charles J Haughey in 1982.

It’s only fair to pay your fare, indeed, you might be caught

People who use public transport in Ireland will be aware that on trains and trams company personnel make random checks to ensure passengers have a valid ticket. On urban and rural buses a different system is in use.

It seems to be the case that checkers are more often seen on early morning trams. It’s interesting watching them carrying out their job and how professional they are when they discover a passenger does not have a valid ticket.

In 2025 Luas fare evaders, who were caught in the act numbered 19,574.

The first driver-only buses were introduced in Dublin 1965; it was the mid-1990s before the last conductors were retired.

A story does the rounds that one of the last conductors when finished his job collecting fares continued going to work every day, arrived at his depot, did nothing all day, and the company paid him until he reached retirement age. 

The veracity of this story cannot be verified but it is a story that has done the rounds with CIE/Dublin Bus staff for many years. 

An interesting link between Pope Leo and Karlshorst

On this day, May 8, 2025 Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected the first American pope.

From day one Pope Leo has stressed the importance of peace and social justice in the world.

Today is also the anniversary of theGerman Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst on May 8, 1945.

Karlshorst is well worth a visit if and when in Berlin.

Until the unification of Germany it was in East Berlin, the capital city of the German Democratic Republic. Troops of the National People’s Army of the GDR kept a ceremonial guard of honour outside the building.

Inside the seating has been kept exactly as it was on the day of the surrender.

Among those who signed the document were Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command of the German Armed Forces and Marshal Georgy Georgy Zhukov of the Soviet High Command, the Soviet soldier who played a significant role in defeating Germany.

It’s interesting that Pope Leo was elected pope on May 8, an anniversary that brought peace to Europe.