The Epstein story adds to the feeling of fear and worry

It's difficult to get one’s head around the Jeffrey Epstein story.

How many world leaders have been caught up with Epstein? What did he have? 

From day one of his working life there was mystery about him. He was employed to teach maths without having the necessary qualifications; on being fired from there he went into banking, a short time later started his own company.

How can one man attract such a group of people?

He procured over 1,000 underage girls, who were trafficked, used and raped by his friends.

And his friends are no hoi polloi; they are the rich and famous.

The documents that have recently been released tell an incredible story. But we are not getting the full story; large sections have been redacted

It’s manna from heaven for the far right agenda whistlers; it’s also ammunition for the growing anti-Semitism that is gaining momentum by the day.

Might there be truth to those stories about the alleged carry-on of Trump in his Moscow hotel? What really is the relationship between Trump and Putin?

And to think of the soldiers on the front and what they are experiencing every day and night, the people across Ukraine. As per always, cannon fodder for the great and powerful. How many Russian lives are being lost every day?

The story of Peter Mandelson is probably the tip of the iceberg.

After all of what we now know how can anyone believe that Epstein took his life by suicide.

The soldiers on the front, the women who were raped, abused, trafficked, who really cares about them.

Are we all pawns in the hands of a few powerful crooks?

And the oxygen that gives life to all this is secrecy, a contortion of what honest confidentiality means.

The late Dominican priest, Paul Hynes believed that the banks had power over us, not because they have our money but they know what we do with our money; they have knowledge about us.

And in the world of control and power that knowledge seems to go one way and always in the favour of the rich and powerful.  

Leaders are expected to lead, set a standard.

The world is becoming a more dangerous place every day; people feel alienated and angry. Leaders like Trump, Farage and company are using that anger for their own ends, while also adding to the flames.

Yesterday in Germany a train host died as a result of being assaulted by a passenger who did not have a valid ticket.

The everyday violence, the palpable anger is seething, it seems as if something has to give.

Rachel O’Shea - a beacon to the people of West Kerry

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

In the heyday of the newspaper trade death notices and obituaries appeared on the front page.

In most newspapers the deaths are now recorded on the back pages and even there they are getting sparser and sparser. It’s not that people have stopped dying but like everything else in our lives even the dead have gone digital.

Scrolling down through RIP.ie last week it dawned on me that my name too will appear there someday. 

The finality of death is mind-boggling. In recent days a young man, whom I knew, took his life by suicide; it has shocked me. I feel powerless and remorseful. 

What if I had I chatted with him? He was far too young to die. Let’s remember him in our prayers/thoughts. 

And that brings me to another side of death. Rachel O’Shea died last week in a nursing home in Kilcummin, she was 94 years of age.

Rachel lived and worked in the Castlegregory Post Office all my life and longer. She worked there with her late sister Mary Egan, who was the post mistress. 

Mary was married to Sean Egan. The Egan family and Rachel lived their lives over the post office. As in so many towns and villages across the country the post office was an institution.

Castlegregory was synonymous with the post office and inside that post office Mary Egan and Rachel O’Shea plied their trade.

The post office was a homely welcoming place, where people felt secure and at home. Rachel listened to people while never betraying anyone. A villager recalled how he loved going into the PO, where he got the scent of mail and mailbags and at the same time was made aware that food was being prepared in the kitchen.

The post office is now situated in the Spar shop across the road, where it offers a professional service.

Over the years and especially in these last years I grew extremely fond of Rachel. I never once went in the door without she giving me a smile and saying an uplifting word. 

Rachel thought everyone was great. She was a wise woman, who respected every customer, who came into that post office. Every child who called to the post office left with sweets. A mother told me her daughter never came home from the post office without telling her Rachel had given her sweets.

Rachel was a woman of deep faith, which expressed itself in her genuine concern and interest in those who stepped inside that door. She went well beyond the call of duty, and everyone appreciated that. She was gentle and generous.

We keep talking about how advanced we have become, the marvels of technology. Yes, it has its advantages but I much prefer chatting with people than conducting all my business by pressing buttons.

We’ve become slaves to our phones and tablets and aliens to our neighbour.

I’m reminded of TS Eliot’s lines: ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ 

No technology, no AI, not the fastest hard drive on the planet could possibly replace Rachel’s smile and kindness.

I know Rachel would want us to remember her in our prayer.

Tesco worker awarded €12k over missing €20 note

This is an incredible story. How

Tesco have allowed this case to go so far. Putting this decent employee through the wringer for a €20 note? What are Tesco’s profits.  MoRe proof of the great work the WRC does.

This report is from the weekend edition of The Irish Times.

---

STEPHEN BOURKE

Tesco bosses made a “fatal” error by failing to search bins for a missing €20 note in an investigation that led to the sacking of a veteran 61-year-old worker, a tribunal has found.

A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator found there was no dishonesty on the part of the worker, Declan Kavanagh, whom she said had misplaced the money.

She awarded him €12,000 on foot of a complaint challenging his January 2024 sacking.

Mr Kavanagh was suspended on October 31st, 2023 pending a formal investigation after he said at a meeting that he was “unsure” what happened to the banknote, a sitting of the tribunal at Castlebar Courthouse was told last year.

Aisling McDevitt, for Tesco, argued it was “clear that the complainant had placed the €20 note in his pocket”. Mr Kavanagh said this allegation was contradicted by CCTV footage that he only saw played for the first time when his case was heard.

Primary finding

Mr Kavanagh told the tribunal he had accepted that he “misplaced” the banknote and had offered to pay it back “on that first day and ever since”.

He said things were busy, he had receipts in his hand at the time along with the banknote, and had been engaged talking to a customer.

A store manager who acted as disciplinary officer said in his evidence that video footage “showed the complainant taking the €20 out, holding on to it, and putting it in his pocket and removing his hand”.

However, under cross-examination, the manager accepted that five minutes passed on the CCTV footage between the money being in the machine and Mr Kavanagh’s hand going into his pocket.

In her decision, adjudication officer Gráinne Quinn wrote that the company had made a reasonable “primary finding” that Mr Kavanagh “did not place the money where he should have” – based on the worker’s own “voluntary” admission.

“During the investigation, the bins where the money may have gone [were] never searched,” Ms Quinn wrote, awarding Mr Kavanagh €12,000 for unfair dismissal.

German politician Rita Süssmuth RIP (1937 -2026)

Rita Süssmuth died in Neuss yesterday.

Rita Süssmuth

She was born in Wuppertal in 1937.

She held many ministerial positions in German CDU governments. Rita Süssmuth was a great woman, spent her life advising and recommending people not to be afraid to swim against the tide.

She was 10 years president of the Bundestag (ceann comhairle of the Dáil) She was a strong advocate for a united Europe, for democracy and was active in returning Nazi loot to its legitimate owners.

Süssmuth is to receive a State funeral.

Does IT editor know there’s no Sunday edition of the paper?

The piece below appeared in The Irish Times on Saturday. Why upper case ‘editor’? It is written by the newspaper’s editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic.

Interesting to know if the editorial staff spotted the grammatical error mentioned on this blog on Saturday’s post.

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

It’s the way we say it: a note from the Editor

Why does The Irish Times insist on saying the first World War, that firstbeing lower case? Why do we refer to Muammar Gadafy, not Qaddafi, or the Belfast (not Good Friday) Agreement? Why do we write Dart, Cab and Nato but also RTÉ, EU and BBC?

There is a long answer to each of these questions, but the short answer is: because The Irish Times Stylebook says we must.

At any point in the day, hundreds of stories are moving through our publishing systems, covering a wide range of topics, each one written on deadline by a different author.

Our stylebook – an in-house bible that codifies our style, spelling and grammar conventions – is what we use to ensure clarity and consistency, especially where there is no one correct way of expressing something.

Some entries are long and detailed. Others, such as the rules on exclamation marks (“Don’t use”) or going forward (“Please don’t”) are to the point. A few, as our readers enjoy telling us, are decidedly eccentric.

The stylebook is regularly updated to take account of the news agenda; a style note was circulated this week telling us how to abbreviate US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice, not ICE).

Settling on language for other changes can take months of work led by our Editing & Publishing team – the eagle-eyed copy-editors who correct our mistakes and finesse our prose.

It’s a living document, reflecting changes in how people communicate.

From tomorrow morning, a series of changes to the stylebook will take effect. The most significant is the elimination of honorifics in our news sections.

The Irish Times stopped using Mr, Ms, Mrs and other courtesy titles in most sections, including arts, features, obituaries and sport, decades ago. We would never say “Mr Kelleher launched the ball towards Mr Scales, who headed it down for Mr Parrott to score.”

Honorifics never appear in opinion columns or editorials. Only in rare instances do journalists, authors, entertainers or sportspeople take theirs. The more exceptions we made, the more confusing it became for our readers.

From tomorrow, honorifics will appear only in quoted speech, sketches or titles of books, plays, films and songs. Mrs Dalloway and Fantastic Mr Fox will still get through the editing process.

The new guidance, which runs to 1,500 words, suggests workarounds for cases where multiple people have the same surname; where professional titles are relevant to the story; or where the subject matter is particularly sensitive.

The change has been debated on and off for years. Honorifics were used as a marker of civility, or to show respect for people notable enough to make news. Today, we concluded, they sound like a vestige of a more formal past and no longer reflect how people speak or write. Their repetition – Mr, Ms, Dr, Prof, Sgt and so on – interrupts the flow of a story. Most news publishers go without.

From tomorrow, so will we. Just don’t mention the (first World) War.

Eighty three years ago today the 

Marshal Georgy Zhukov

battle at Stalingrad came to an end. On February 2, 1943 the last of the organised German troops surrendered. 

The previous autumn Hitler sent German troops to take Stalingrad. It was expected that the city on the Volga would be captured in two weeks.

German General Friedrich Paulus was in charge of the Sixth Army.

The Red Army under the command of Marshal General George Zhukov outgunned the Germans.

Stalingrad was the first major battle in which the Germans were beaten.

Hitler made Paulus a field marshal hoping he would take his life rather than surrender; Paulus was the first German field marshal to suffer defeat. He later went on to advise the NVA, the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic.

After Stalingrad the Red Army raced to Berlin, en route they tore open the gates at German death camp, Auschwitz occupied Poland.

In the Berlin suburb of Karls Horst on May 8, 1945 Field Marshal Zhukov accepted the surrender on behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the final instrument of unconditional surrender on behalf of Germany.

Zhukov went on to take up many high positions in the Soviet Union but Stalin was always nervous of him, afraid of his popularity; he was jealous of the great man. He was defence minister between 1955 and 1957 in the Khruschev era.

He died in Moscow on June 18, 1974 at the age of 77.

Maybe if the West had better appreciated what the Soviet Union did in World War II, they lost 27 million people, the Russian Bear might be showing a different aspect to its character.

The current slaughter taking place in Ukraine is a shame on the world and sullying the name of the men on the Volga in 1942/’43.

Trump’s dealings with Putin are scandalous; Trump the draft dodger and billionaire and Putin the dictator and billionaire.

Do the troops on the front know the wealth of Putin and Trump? Of course they don’t.

How Lidl stores are celebrating the feast of St Brigid

How Lidl celebrates the feast of

St Brigid. Anyone who uses the Lidl Plus app will well know by now most of the ‘freebies' they give are from their middle shelves, all items soaked in sugar, salt and everything that’s bad for us.

Every weekday from 05.30 to 05.59 BBC Radio 4 airs a programme on farming. In recent days they have been highlighting the damage that processed food is causing us and how there is not a whimper about it. 

English as used by Donald Trump and The Irish Times

US President Donald Trump is not known for his expertise in the English language but in recent days he even outdid himself. 

Blathering on about himself, telling lies and talking nonsense he said somewhere in the middle of his verbiage; something was ‘very very unique’. 

The adjective unique cannot be modified in the same way pregnant can’t be modified.

And then in the digital version of  The Irish Times today this appears: 

"A barge that had being moored in Graiguenamanagh has broken free from it moorings, Sarah Slater reports."

Dominican condemns killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis

Below is a link to stirring words spoken by American Dominican priest Brendan Curran concerning the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by ICE.

This surely is genuine and real Dominican ministry:

https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/chicago-vigil-for-alex-pretti/672355

Fr Curran is Dominican regional promoter of justice and peace for North America.

He is a member of  the Dominican Province of St Albert the Great, in the USA.

Brendan was born in 1970, studied political science at Providence College, Rhode Island before entering the Dominican Order. 

Along with promoting justice and peace, he is the special assistant to the president of the Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois.

RTÉ’s George Lee points the finger at Wexford Council

On RTÉ’s  News at Six last evening environment correspondent George Lee in the wake of Storm Chandra made strong criticisms against Wexford County Council for not playing a more active role in protecting properties.

He went on to explain that the council had ample information beforehand, which had it been made public before the flooding, could easily have ameliorated the damage that the storm caused. They were surprisingly strong criticisms for  an RTÉ journalist to express.

On the same programme a Wexford County Council engineer was interviewed; her performance would not have given much hope or confidence to those whose properties have been inundated, or indeed, to those whose properties are at risk of being flooded over the next 48 hours.

All worthwhile jobs are special and important

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Two weeks ago I wrote about a Luas passenger who had no ticket and abused the checker who behaved in an inspiring manner.

Would you believe it, on Monday morning the same checker but a different passenger without a ticket. This time the passenger behaved correctly and graciously accepted her penalty.

I changed jobs in November; it means a 90-minute journey with public transport every morning plus two short cycle rides.

I’ve a 20-minute wait, where tram links with rail, and over the weeks I’ve got friendly with a bus driver. He is at his terminus where he has a five- minute wait. In early December I started chatting with him asking him childlike questions about the type of bus he drives and what is his favourite, what does he think of the new electric and hybrid vehicles.

Our conversations have moved on from buses, though even on Monday he did tell me his favourite bus to drive is the old AX series, which is one of the buses he is driving this week. They are in service for over 18 years. 

As I approached his bus one morning I was planning to ask him what he would do if he won the Lotto but I decided not to ask, instead I asked him if he liked his job. Without a moment’s hesitation he said: ‘I love my job’. 

It was a wet miserable dark morning when I asked him that question and those four words cheered me up. Isn’t it a wonderful experience to meet someone who genuinely loves their job.

And I could see from how he greets his passengers how deadly serious he was with his answer.

I’m forever asking what’s it all about, what’s the purpose of our lives? When I hear people say; thank God it’s Friday or counting down the weeks to holidays I’m forever asking is it a matter of wishing away our lives. Surely there has to be more than lurching from one distraction to the next.

Karl Marx said that in a capitalist system workers are forced to work to survive. He’s saying something but it’s more complicated and nuanced than that.

Are we not sufficiently enlightened to see to it that no matter what the job is we can get satisfaction from it?

The majority of people want to do a day’s work and make it meaningful for them. They want to be told they have done a good job; affirmation goes a long way in getting people out of their armchairs. 

How often do we praise people for the work they do? When last did you compliment a street sweeper for keeping our roads and paths clean?

I’ve never been happy how the churches have hijacked the word vocation. As a Christian I believe we have all been called by God on our life journey.

I’m tired of all the pious words attributed to God. Maybe the god many have abandoned had nothing to do with God.

English poet Philip Larkin, who was an agnostic, asks: ‘And what remains when disbelief has gone?’ Maybe the time of disbelief is running out and it’s time to remember God.

I’ve no doubt my bus driver friend has God’s favour.

The day the world recalls the evils of the German people

Today is International Holocaust Day, the day the world remembers the atrocities of the Germans in the Hitler years.

It was  on this day in 1945 that the Soviet 322nd Rifle Division threw open the gates at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. The Soviet Army was racing to Berlin.

And on the same date the previous year the 872-day Leningrad siege was lifted, a significant day in World War II in defeating the marauding Germans.

Interesting words from a former Irish Dominican priest

The text below is a comment on the post on this blog of Friday, January 23. It is anonymous. It may not be intentional of the writer to remain anonymous, in which case, please contact this blog so that your name can be published. The text also appears as a comment under the relevant post.

It’s published here because it may be missed by some readers. It’s worth a read. And to the writer, thank you.

"Observing commuters rushing to and from work on a daily basis one is tempted to ask where do priests, sisters and brothers encounter people in their daily lives.

"Mixing and engaging with people exclusively when talking about God and the Gospels can be a rarified experience.

"When one thinks about it when exactly are priests engaged with the public? Do they meet them in the workplace as equals, do they travel with them on crowded trams, trains and buses, do they meet them cycling on cycle lanes."

Your words eloquently sum up my life since I first signed in, in January 1972, as a Male Night Telephonist (MNT). Remember, in the Posts and Telecommunications (P&T) telephone exchanges then, men worked the night shifts and women the days. I was beginning my requested leave of absence from the Order modelling the "failed" worker priest lifestyle so to speak. After two years I received a positive response to my requested laicisation and departed for Canada, where I have lived and worked in three provinces over fifty years in a variety of jobs; the longest being for twenty-five of those years as a workplace counsellor for injured and marginalised workers. 

There are wonderful rewards for "being reduced to the lay state" i.e. laicisation! You have blessed me, and many more, by your reflective commentary. Thank you. 

                                            January 25, 2026

Mark Carney's speech at World Economic Forum in Davos

In the midst of pending great darkness a man appears on stage, the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney.

https://youtu.be/btqHDhO4h10?si=_0yZurmfld-nkjWz

This is his speech at Davos. And an Irishman to boot.

There is another person on the world stage, who is also worth listening to; Pope Leo XIV.

Below is the full speech given by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at Davos.

The world might well be fortunate today to have  Carney and Merz. Merz reminds us of what raw power inflicted on his homeland.

https://youtu.be/7HplCqi2JY8?si=iYAGTN9bK9qJPT-_

A little gift tells the real story of how the environment is seen

The Irish Times offers an

excellent early morning home delivery service.

Instead of delivering the paper in a plastic covering they give the household a pouch, which they leave outside their door and the paper is popped into the pouch. It’s a clever idea and good for the environment.

The Irish Times regularly writes about the environment and it’s clear to see the newspaper is on the side of the environment and with those who are environmentally friendly.

On Friday the newspaper placed a complimentary chocolate in everyone’s pouch. 

Just look at the size of the chocolate and the bag it is in and on top of that, chocolate; none of it environmentally friendly. 

When it comes to advertising, money, branding, who really ever cares or thinks about the environment?

Of course it is a paid for advert by Lindt but could The Irish Times not have done a better deal with Lindt before that waste of paper? But written on the tin is: ‘A Gift from The Irish Times'.