There are dangers we anticipate ahead of our children in their journey in life. Roadblocks like illness, or bullying, diversions like getting in with the wrong crowd. Behavioural issues, problems at school, and when they’re a bit older, inadvisable experimenting with drink and drugs. Many of these dangers are amplified by the internet, with cyber-bullying, grooming [...]
Ann is in the kitchen helping Mammy make the dinner. Barry is in the garden helping Daddy mow the lawn. Nobody knows what Mammy and Daddy talk about if they ever meet in some strange in between place, but it’s definitely not the equal division of labour or gender fluidity. And they aren’t alone. Despite [...]
Twenty years ago this week, something magical happened. With the publication of one book about a seemingly unremarkable bespectacled boy, reading suddenly mattered again. For a generation - two, by now - Harry Potter was the boy who lived, in our hearts and in our minds. His creator, Joanne Rowling (known as JK, because it was [...]
It feels like not a week goes by without another GUBU moment in Irish public life. At this relatively early point in 2017, most of us already have news fatigue from what feels like a constant round of scandals, revelations and condemnations. For most of the past year I’ve been safely swaddled in the comfort blanket [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPnUrREbRg It’s one of those emails that fills you with dread… are you ready for your ten year college reunion? Am I heck. I was a joiner in college. I was the best gosh darn joiner you ever met. I was on the students’ union, joined about 40 clubs and societies, and generally made a [...]
Another day, another survey driving a wedge between the sexes, and today it’s about the truth. Touchy subject, the truth. So touchy, in fact, that apparently a third of us avoid it at least once a day. A new survey by UK company Privilege has found that four out of five women tell lies on a [...]
[polldaddy poll=8623303] The latest utterances of Pope Francis have rather ruined the reputation he was beginning to get among liberals; suggesting that Catholic women do not have to "breed like rabbits" while continuing to forbid the use of contraception confirms that yes, the Pope is a Catholic. The Bishop of Limerick, Brendan Leahy, has made the [...]
Ooh er, is that an ankle I see? Farewell to Carly from Leicester and her views on David Cameron. Farewell, finally, to the mortification of women everywhere who have mistakenly picked up the Sun only to be greeted by a perky pair, when all they wanted to know was what went on [...]
Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones No woman is an island, and judging another diminishes us all. OK, so it’s not quite what John Donne said (he was mainly focussed on men, and, well, death). Sex always sells, but in the last year or so, it seems as if feminism sells as well. Beyoncé has [...]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFD6EFVsTg] There’s a song in the puppet musical Avenue Q, which recently toured Ireland, called ‘The internet is for porn’. They should’ve adapted it for Ireland, because it seems our national obsession - no, not drink - has returned with a vengeance, in the vanguard of ‘The Recovery’™. The internet is for property porn. It’s back. [...]
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