Opinion

AS I SEE IT MARIANNE HERON Our hearts go out to Emily Hand taken hostage by Hamas in the brutal October 7 attack, and her family as they wait for news of the eight-year-old Irish citizen initially assumed dead. Our thoughts go too to the more than 4,000 children in Gaza killed by Israeli bombing …

THE FACT OF THE MATTER BY PAUL HOPKINS The other day I overheard my grandchild Faye ask her mother: “Mama, why is butter yellow?” It seems like only yesterday that my daughter was her daughter’s age – three in January – but I cannot for the life of me remember her asking such an out-of-the-blue …

KATHLEEN FUNCHION Sinn Fein TD for Kilkenny Carlow Sinn Féin TD for Carlow Kilkenny Kathleen Funchion has said that the outcome of last month’s European Council meeting on the conflict in the Middle East represents a failure of EU leadership. She has called on the Irish government to articulate the urgent demand for full and …

FURTHERMORE  By Gerry Moran A coincidence, according to my Oxford Concise dictionary, is “a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection”. Touché. Couldn’t have put it better myself. And let’s cut to the chase here and to my recent coincidence which was anything but remarkable but a coincidence nonetheless. Yet, when I …

AS I SEE IT MARIANNE HERON To say that there were ruffled feathers at Budget time over the Department of Health’s whopping over -spend of a billion plus is putting it mildly. The situation, as other ministers feared that they would get less of the Budget cake due to the HSE’s insatiable appetite for funds, …

BY JOHN FITZGERALD Heroes of the Land War In 1949, two brave clerics, Fathers Tom O’ Shea and Matt O’Keeffe, founded the Callan Tenant Protection Society. This was Ireland’s first pressure group to campaign for fair rents and against the tyranny of landlordism. Though it came to prominence in the 1880s, the tenant rights campaign …

THE FACT OF THE MATTER BY PAUL HOPKINS Ireland joined the European Economic Community on January 1, 1973. September 16 that year saw me join the Irish Press as a rookie, initially running copy to the print room in the halcyon days of hot metal. Back then, Dublin’s Rathmines College was the only institution offering …

BY CLAIR WHITTY Every day we get asked for natural solutions for things like pain, earache, headaches, and warts. For aches, pains, and stiffness, one of the first natural cures I learned about was the apple cider vinegar cure. I clearly remember a customer telling me about it almost 20 years ago now. Add one …

BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR In a recent survey conducted by leading property website MyHome.ie, the concerns of potential homebuyers have once again come to the fore. The survey, which gathered responses from more 2,000 people in late October 2023, revealed a growing unease among those seeking to enter the property market, citing rising interest …

BY CLAIR WHITTY Are you worried about a health issue but you haven’t the time to get to the GP or your GP hasn’t an appointment for you to go to? Now the great news is that you can do self-testing for various health issues in the comfort of your own home. This can save …