Opinion
The stress effect on your gut
BY CLAIR WHITTY Stress is part of everyday life and it’s important to keep you alert and aware of your surroundings so that you can avoid danger. But unfortunately, excess stress is not good for your digestive system. It can have a negative effect on your gut because stress affects the production of digestive enzymes …
Making allowance for that time of the month
AS I SEE IT MARIANNE HERON Just as I was musing that social attitudes have reversed between North and South and that the North is now more conservative than we are, comes the news that the Six Counties may be taking a liberal leap. There are calls to do the decent thing there and follow …
Banshees and boyos… and male friendship
THE FACT OF THE MATTER PAUL HOPKINS In the multi-award nominated film The Banshees of Inisherin – the Oscars are this Sunday night – the central thesis of Martin McDonagh’s wonderful piece of cinema comes in the early exchange between the two main characters when Colm (Brendan Gleeson) abruptly ends his lifelong friendship with Pádraic …
Girl Auction
BY NED EGAN Part 7 “I’ve explained to you that if father finds us out, he’ll have me locked up until he can get that Paudhaun swine married to me. If that happens, we’re both done for. Then who’d help you? And who would you have to give cheek to then – smart little Missy? …
The Great Kilkenny Floods
By John Fitzgerald PART FOUR The 1947 flooding of the Black Abbey, where the water reached to a staggering fifteen feet, prompted an act of clerical heroism. When Dr. Gaffney O.P. saw to his horror that the water was about to reach the level of the High Altar, he cried aloud from the boat in …
An evening whooping it up with the Berbers
FURTHERMORE By Gerry Moran On Avenue Hassan 11 a small, bald, beady-eyed man approaches my wife and I. “Where you from? Where you from?” We ignore him. “Francais? German?” he persists. “No,” we say, walking quickly on. “English. You English?” “No,” we reply more vehemently as we Irish do when mistaken for being British. “Actually …
Five ways to cut back on high energy costs
BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR Believe it or not wholesale gas prices are falling but there’s no guarantee that energy bills will drop soon for households. Businesses are to get an average of 10% reduction on their electricity bills and an average of 15% on gas from March. In a previous column I gave an …
Natural remedies for a good night sleep
BY CLAIR WHITTY Sleep problems is a question I often get asked about at the shop. My personal favourite remedy to help you get a decent night’s sleep is A.Vogel Dormeasan. It’s a herbal tincture containing valerian and hops. Valerian is traditionally used for muscle tension, pain, and to aid relaxation. Hops is traditionally used …
Why that invisible Border shouldn’t divide us
AS I SEE IT MARIANNE HERON If and when the Protocol gets patched up we should surely be able to breathe a sigh of relief and hope that things will return to normal in the North and that Geoffrey Donaldson and the DUP will agree to return to Stormont and do what they were elected to …
Alt-right shift commands we not be complacent
THE FACT OF THE MATTER PAUL HOPKINS When prominent far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson (40) recently arrived in Ireland to ‘observe’ a refugee solidarity rally, a spokesperson told me that Gardai were maintaining a “watching brief” on him. Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, said he had been drawn to Ireland by anti-immigration protests and praised …
