Occasional Scribbles

Swiss theologian Karl Barth advised theologians to "take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both" The sale of hard copy ...

The story of Otto John is worth a read; it tells something of the complexity of the human being. Click on    Otto John . On this day, July 2...

What would or could one take away from today's  Gospel (Matthew 13: 24 -43). It would be interesting to know what Jesus would have to sa...

Aer Lingus announced on Thursday they were shedding 500 of their 6,500 workforce. That figure includes 140 cabin crew, 70 pilots and 290 off...

There has been media coverage of the Argentinian team chanting about the Falklands, or the Malvinas, as the Argentinians prefer to call them...

On this day, July 16, 1990 the parliament of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic declared sovereignty over the Ukrainian SSR. It was the...

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper. Michael Commane It’s against my religion to take a taxi. I don’t consider myself mean, I l...

In the midst of so much religious jargon, these words from Thomas Merton are bound to ring loud with many. "The more we struggle to be ...

It's easy to criticise, complain Mini cycle lane near Dundrum. and grumble. Much work has been done to facilitate cycling in Ireland, es...

In her current newsletter, Dún Laoghaire county councillor Anna Grainger writes that Ms Gemma Rowley founded Ally. She writes: "Congrat...

Would Oscar Wilde  ( 1854 – 1900)  still say this today? Doubtful. Then again, Wilde could never have imagined what we would do to the envir...

In recent days there have been reports across the print media of bishops pointing out that there is a shortage of priests in Ireland. Consci...

At the Nato conference in Ankara the president of the United States used the word 'scum' when referring to Iran. At that same meetin...

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper. Michael Commane Imagine if we were told that train drivers at Irish Rail were responsible ...

The Irish Times journalist Keith Duggan reports on the Fourth of July celebrations in the US, including some of the antics that went on. Bel...

"Delusions are endless. I vow to cut them down." One of the four great vows recited daily in Zen Buddhism. Jerry Brown, a two-time...

  For many years young women and men, neatly dressed with American accents, badges in their lapels have gone from house-to-house talking abo...

 “It’s the undeserving poor for whom society needs to care.” Words spoken by the late High Court judge Sean O’Leary (1941 - 2006) Sean’s bro...

An extract from Justine McCarthy’s column in The Irish Times yesterday. The old joke goes that soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hoolig...

When England won the World Cup in 1966 it was said that it gave a great fillip to Harold Wilson and his Labour government, which had won a l...

 “Irish train driver steals €50 million from Irish Rail”. Imagine if that were the main story across all media platforms today? The country ...

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper. Michael Commane  A large crowd got off the train in Killarney. I was in the front of the trai...

 Pat  Rabbitte, former leader of the Labour Party expressed in an interview fears growing economic inequality in society would threaten “the...

The piece below is an interesting obituary of the Phoenix magazine, written by Pay Leahy. It appears in the Weekend supplement of the weeken...