Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Irish

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • EDUCATION

    Gillard's education pipedream

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 20 December 2012
    16 Comments

    In setting a target of Australia reaching the OECD's top five school systems by 2025 the Prime Minister has made a rod for her own back. It is difficult to see our present way of organising, funding and governing schooling getting us anywhere near that target. But what kind of system might?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    No lowly scapegoats in 'necessary' Royal Commission

    • Moira Rayner
    • 13 November 2012
    58 Comments

    One of the informing moments of my career as a lawyer came from the survivors of a family who disclosed that an authoritarian father had beaten and raped every one of his children — under the very eye of their mother. The Royal Commission isn't about punishing predators. It must find a way to institutionalise the right of every child to be heard.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Sins of the Church and the BBC

    • Michael Mullins
    • 29 October 2012
    8 Comments

    The Jimmy Savile scandal in Britain shows the Catholic Church is not alone among trusted public institutions undermined by their own silence and denial. An Irish clergy abuse victims advocate has written of the hypocrisy of the BBC in its reporting of abuse crimes in the Church.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Mabo 20 years on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 October 2012

    'Though land rights and self-determination provide no utopia for the contemporary indigenous Australian community, they have belatedly put right an ancient wrong. The cost and inconvenience are unavoidable. Terra nullius is no longer an option.' Full text is from Fr Frank Brennan's keynote speech at the Central Queensland Law Association Conference, Mercure Capricorn Resort, Yeppoon, 27 October 2012.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Music rising from the ashes of abuse

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 24 October 2012
    8 Comments

    In their stylish red and blue uniforms, they were a central part of big football games. They played before the game and at half time, led the teams in a formal march, 60 or more kids blowing brass and beating drums. The thousands in the stands were unaware of the harshness that these boys faced every day.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Vatican II then and now

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 September 2012
    10 Comments

    'Looking to the future, I want to focus on the role of the laity in the growing absence of priests. And I want to insist on the need for due process, transparency and respectful dealing within the Church.' Full text of Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation 'Looking Back and Looking Forward Over Church and Life on the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II' at the Spirituality in the Pub Goulburn Valley Annual Dinner, 21 September 2012.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Assange tests British diplomatic principle

    • Tony Kevin
    • 20 August 2012
    21 Comments

    Julian Assange sits securely in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, as Cardinal József Mindszenty did for years inside the US Embassy in Communist-ruled Hungary. This is a benefit of the Vienna Convention. If Britain violated this principle by storming or cutting off utilities to the Embassy, the diplomatic protection of its officials and their families around the world would be weakened immediately.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Aboriginal voices silence Vietnamese war stories

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 August 2012
    2 Comments

    The anti-American rhetoric is direct and effective, the phrase AMERICAN WAR OF AGGRESSION a recurring, pulsating slur. Yet who would deny it, faced with this photographic account of Vietnamese suffering? There are at least two versions of any war, and this is theirs. But there are others.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Why I'm still a Catholic

    • Geraldine Doogue
    • 03 August 2012
    94 Comments

    I've come to believe that the world beyond the institutional Church is kinder, gentler, full of more conscientious ethics, values and care for others; that the secular world in which lay people live is more functional and more ready to conscience-examine than the institutional Church. Why then am I still a Catholic?

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    A new conversation about Church sex abuse

    • Peter Day
    • 23 July 2012
    71 Comments

    The spectre of sexual abuse has become a defining moment for the Church; one that, if not addressed more universally, more openly, and more humbly, poses a serious threat to the Church's life and authority. We are, after all, dealing with something akin to crimes against humanity.

    READ MORE
  • EDUCATION

    50 years since Australia's 'most poisonous debate'

    • John Warhurst
    • 09 July 2012
    10 Comments

    Labor speechwriter Graham Freudenberg observed that ‘the oldest, deepest, most poisonous debate in Australia has been about government aid to church schools’. The most dramatic episode in the history of church state relations in Australia was the Goulburn schools strike, which took place 50 years ago this month.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Crisis of trust in the Vatican

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 July 2012
    34 Comments

    The many bad stories about the Vatican raise questions about how central authority is exercised. Some critics focus on arrogance and misbehaviour there in the way that others see these behaviours in News Limited, the Greens, the Unions, and elsewhere. To address the way people in any organisation behave, you must first understand why they act as they do.

    READ MORE