Occasional Scribbles

There was a serious accident on the M50 yesterday morning in which a motorcyclist lost his life. That is catastrophic for the man and his fa...

A tip for sea swimmers. Irish waters are significantly warmer this May than usual.  From Culdaff on the Inishowen Peninsula to Castlegregory...

Maybe it is that it is beyond my intellectual pay grade but this has to sound beyond crazy. What is the bishop talking about, indeed what to...

On this day, May 15, 1988 the Soviet Army began to withdraw its 115, 000 troops from Afghanistan. The military adventure was a seismic disas...

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column. Michael Commane Over the last few months there has been non-stop media coverage ask...

  “It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ―  Rainer Maria Rilke

An obituary in The Irish Times yesterday. It makes for a lovely read. His comment on John Hume is worth noting. Stephen Grimason, who has di...

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today. The final two paragraphs do not appear in the printed or digital versions of today’s news...

"The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him. ” - Oscar `Wilde

This is getting very serious and dangerous. At the same time the far right AfD in Germany is growing in power and status with the passing on...

The link below is to a talk given by Fr Stephen Cummins in the Dominican Priory church in Galway last week. It was part of a series of talks...

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column. Michael Commane It’s a long time since I have been in the centre of Dublin at morni...

On this day, May 6, 1998 Steve Jobs unveiled the first iMac. Jobs, who was born in San Francisco in 1955, was adopted shortly after his birt...

Bill Clinton’s eulogy at the funeral Mass of Martin McGu inness. Whether or not you like either man’s politics, Bill Clinton’s art of speech...

Justine McCarthy in The Irish Times yesterday. Lionel Shriver writes novels. She called one of them We Need to Talk about Kevin. It was scar...

We are now into the May Bank Holiday weekend. There has been much publicity on the media asking people to be more careful on our roads. Is i...

  Michael McDowell in The Irish Times yesterday. There has been some degree of public controversy in recent times concerning the role of sch...