Keywords: Northern Ireland
-
INTERNATIONAL
My uncle, Michael Lennon, fought with Eamon DeValera in Boland's Mill in Dublin during the 1916 Rising. Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, sees himself as Michael's successor. But 98 years after the Rising, Adams was last week arrested for questioning about the 1972 murder of Jean McConville. Republicans allege that the timing of the arrest was politically motivated. At the root of all this lies the problem of the past: how do we deal with it?
READ MORE 
-
AUSTRALIA
- Duncan MacLaren
- 16 April 2013
9 Comments
We seem to think it is okay to publish pictures of Kim Jong-un with Mickey Mouse ears or refer to his late father Kim Jong-il as a 'pygmy'. Insulting a proud people, no matter how weird we think the regime is, does not win friends. The west would do well to remember this if it is to engage the regime in meaningful dialogue.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- 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
-
RELIGION
Church structures are riddled with patriarchy, clericalism and deference, and these were at the centre of the abuse problem. Repentance, then, means changing these. Lay people in particular, who are less subject to Vatican strictures, need to bring to the table their skills and knowledge to drive this change.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Justin Glyn
- 17 January 2012
11 Comments
The prospect of a referendum on Scottish independence from the UK evokes one of the more interesting tensions in modern international law, between the right to self-determination on the one hand and the territorial integrity of states on the other.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank O'Shea
- 20 September 2011
5 Comments
When it comes to leopards changing spots or terrorists turning into statesmen, former IRA chief-of-staff Martin McGuinnes is up there with Mandela and Mugabe. His entry into Ireland's presidential race on the weekend is significant, as the rest of the field is desolately dull.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
In the tiny church built of ecumenical brick, with barely any aesthetic pleasure to distract from the humility of the message, Patrick and his cohort in both the earlier football match and in the communion to come, sat quietly, though with the telltale legs of novices swinging restlessly under the front pew.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 11 November 2010
12 Comments
Nine prime ministers have been observant Christians. Two have been conventional Christians. Ten have been nominal Christians. Five have been articulate atheists or agnostics. One was a nominal atheist or agnostic.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Frank O'Shea
- 31 August 2010
7 Comments
Throughout more than 30 years of killing and maiming in Northern
Ireland, the media and governments maintained that the unrest was a political conflict. Though virtually everyone on one side was Catholic and those on the other were
Protestant, nobody dared call it a religious war.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 11 August 2010
1 Comment
For all our modern sophistication, refinement and technology, we remain in imaginative thrall to one of the most venerable and terrifying of folk figures. The vampire combines two of human kind's profoundly obsessive preoccupations: mortality and sex.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 17 June 2010
5 Comments
Lord Saville's report this week into a seminal moment of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland included the admission that the killing of 14 demonstrators by the British Army was 'unjustified and unjustifiable'. True reconciliation can only ever take place with a true recounting of
memory.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 29 October 2009
1 Comment
Three of the most prolific guitarists of the past four decades gather in a warehouse. Three more diverse
musicians you could not hope to find. Most important are the moments that simmer celebrity and artistic pretension down to basic humanity.
READ MORE