Catholic Ireland

The 8th Amendment was enshrined in law only months before I was conceived to my 23 year old mother. I often wonder what possessed my young liberal, atheist Irish parents to start a family in that oppressive atmosphere of 1984. In the space…

Almost exactly five years ago, I attended the Commission on the Status of Women, an annual event at the UN in New York dedicated to women’s rights. It’s quite a big deal, attracting government officials, politicians and academics as well as…

Since first hitting the shelves in 1955, J.P Donleavy's cult classic The Ginger Man has sold more than 40 million copies. The hedonistic tale of American student Sebastian Dangerfield in Dublin city during the 1940's, it was described by…

The first thing likely to strike any Irish reader of Emma Donoghue’s new novel The Wonder is the contempt its narrator holds for the Irish. Sure, it may be the obsessively catholic and dismally poor rural Ireland of the 1850s, but it’s hard…