The recent Western People article by Brendan Hoban (May 12, 2026) calling for a “flexible approach” to school divestment reflects a debate Ireland has now been having for so long that many parents have simply stopped believing meaningful change is ...

Despite what you might think of Donald Trump and the people who elected him, America is a great country. It just is and there is no way of getting away from the fact. Now, of course I was in California and the state is not America.

All across the region, like swallows, our young people have returned for the summer. Going away is a tale as old as time in our part of the world. Each generation experiences it a little differently, but the basic elements don’t change.

There are times when I think back to when I was a moody teenager during a family holiday in a damp Bundoran resort. On one of the least wet days, we were packed into the Nissan Vanette and headed off to a remote Glencolmcille.

There was a funeral I recall from a few years back - a handyman, a good man, the kind who'd give you a day's work for nothing and never mention it again.

Once bishops could be seen but not heard, apart from the regular interventions of the famous bishop of Cork, Connie Lucey, an outspoken and combative character whose main platform was the Confirmation circuit.

There’s a particular kind of morning - and if you’re anywhere near sixty, you’ll know the one - when you wake up, and the light through the window curtains is doing something theatrical, the coffee smells like it actually means it, and somewhere ...

Having too much money is a strange difficulty. We are unusual among the countries of the world in that we have a huge and growing budget surplus. In an era of cutbacks and strained budgets, it is an Irish peculiarity to have plenty.

Immediately following my experience of Sinners, the Oscar-winning, Gothic horror film by Ryan Coogler, I emerged into the Los Angeles summer’s evening with my heart thumping and eyes wide (and not just because of cost of the cinema ticket).

For Roman Catholics, it’s particularly gratifying that the first official visit of the newly enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, was to Rome, when on Monday, April 27 last she visited Pope Leo as they met for the first time and ...