Opinion

BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR Finance Minister Simon Harris is making the reduction of taxes on investment income a central pillar of his plan to encourage ordinary people to shift their savings from low-yield bank and credit union deposits into the Stock Market. An internal Department of Finance memo outlines his proposed savings and investment …

AS I SEE IT BY MARIANNE HERON Covering Andrew, Duke of York, and his marriage to Sarah Ferguson in Westminster Abbey I couldn’t have imagined how things would turn out. Yet 40 years later there was Andrew splashed across front pages on February 19, his 66thbirthday, prone in the back of a police car, following …

THE FACT OF THE MATTER BY PAUL HOPKINS My mother was of that era when a woman in Ireland wed and had children she had to give up her job in any State or semi-State body. Her generation were defined by having babies and looking after “domestic chores”. She was my stay-at-home parent and did …

CHOICES SHAPE YOUR FUTURE By Judith Ashton Last year I met two American women in their hire car, looking for directions. I was in my front garden and we got chatting. Something compelled me to invite them in for a cuppa and before they were out of the car and in the front door we …

BY CLAIR WHITTY Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body, providing structure and strength to skin, joints, bones, hair, nails and connective tissue. While we naturally begin to lose collagen from our mid-twenties onwards, the decline becomes far more noticeable for women during perimenopause and menopause. Oestrogen plays a key role in collagen …

By John Fitzgerald (Part two) Annie Keating’s younger sister Madge Kelly of the sweet shop in Bridge Street, had a famous budgie as I mentioned last week. Apart from the locals, thousands of emigrants sang his praises. Mention of his name elicited many a smile and meandering yarn in the Irish Diaspora. Misty-eyed exiles in …

BY CLAIR WHITTY Happy Mother’s Day, I hope you have a lovely day and that you are pampered in some way or other. Seeing as it is Mother’s Day and someone who loves you could be looking for something special to buy you, I wonder would you like a gift for your skin? I was …

FURTHERMORE By Gerry Moran “Hi, dad.” “Hi, Rich” – my son Richard phoning me from Berlin where he lives. “Dad, did you know you’re on YouTube?” “What?” “You’re on YouTube, dad.” “Doing what – sharing my unique recipe for melt-in-your-mouth meringues?” Rich laughs. He know, as his three siblings do, only too well that my …

BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR The world’s biggest toy fair just finished in Nuremberg. In halls filled with over 2,300 exhibitors and around one million products, including about 70,000 new ones, buyers, designers, and enthusiasts discussed Christmas 2026! This year’s fair highlighted a toy sector in recovery and reinvention. Global sales grew 7% in 2025, …

AS I SEE IT BY MARIANNE HERON “There’s no so blind as those that cannot see,” was a favourite saying of my mother’s, referring to those who refuse to recognise what is in plain sight. Never truer than in the case of the web of sex intrigue surrounding convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Curious isn’t it, …