Tortuous Anglo-Irish Treaty talks come to life with a human touch

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 has been picked over repeatedly these past hundred years. It brought to an end one form of hostilities but divided Irish politics acrimoniously and led to civil war.

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Mary Kenny Opinion He has been called ‘shambolic and chaotic’, but that’s an integral part of brand Boris

Is the jig up for Boris Johnson? The consensus of the wise seems to think it’s looking likely. He has been described as “losing his grip”, “shambolic and chaotic”, “incompetent”, “like Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo – a defeated figure”.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Did our revolutionary women of legend put themselves outside the establishment?

It is gratifying to see so many women in active politics these days – why, Mary Lou may become the next taoiseach, if the polls are right.

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Mary Kenny Opinion How London cabbies have shown us the way to keep our cognitive skills intact as we age

Anyone acquainted with London will have some knowledge of the distinctive London black taxi, with its box-like design, and the cabbies who drive these remarkably adaptable vehicles.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Amid fears for queen’s health, UK faces up to life without its anchor of almost 70 years

At a level of everyday, private conversation in Britain, you hear concerns expressed that Queen Elizabeth may be in the final furlong of her long life. There’s a problem with her health that Buckingham Palace is not explaining.

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Mary Kenny Opinion To help save the planet, start by shunning daily showers and buy clothes that last

“If you want to change the world,” said Solzhenitsyn, the Russian sage, “start with yourself.” As we’re all being nagged to change our lifestyles to halt climate change, perhaps we should all start with ourselves.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Prince Harry and Meghan Markle preach about being kind, non-judgemental and ethical – but are they awful hypocrites?

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – aren’t they awful hypocrites? Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, seems to think so. Of their latest venture into the world of high finance, he has remarked bitterly: “It’s not finding freedom but finding money they’re after.”

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Mary Kenny Opinion When banks close local branches, another part of the community gets whittled away

We’re all aware we have to move with the times and update practices, but many of us can’t help regretting that so many bank premises are shutting up shop.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Petrol pump queues may be temporary, but the war on private cars is well under way

Whingeing about a petrol shortage seems like a first-world complaint. Aren’t there many greater afflictions facing humanity?

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Mary Kenny Opinion Going back to the office? It might afford a chance to make the best of both worlds

You know what? I’d love to be putting on my coat and going off to an office today. I look back on my days of working with colleagues as among the most rewarding, merry and gregarious passages of my life.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Before raging against capitalism, idealistic youngsters should bin their designer gear

It’s an accepted idea among sociologists that the generations are much more harmonious than they used to be. Older and younger people often listen to the same ‘disco’ music, wear the same kind of clothes – grannies in jeans, granddads in T-shirts – and share tastes in food, holidays, even political values such as climate change.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Thinking of becoming a mum in your 60s? Before you proceed, spare a thought for the child

We have become accustomed to those horrible little pictures of deadly diseases printed on cigarette packets. They don’t affect me directly as I’m not a smoker, but I find them distasteful and like a form of bullying. Let grown-ups take responsibility for their own health.

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Mary Kenny Opinion We wrote them off as Holy Joes, but Frank Duff’s Legion of Mary was really ahead of its time

As a youngster, I had regarded the Legion of Mary as an awful bunch of Holy Joes, appearing with their book stalls in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and imposing their sanctimonious presence.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Fiction attracts more women than men, but maybe the topics just need broadening

Will you be rushing to the bookshops next week for the new Sally Rooney nov- el, Beautiful World, Where Are You?

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Mary Kenny Opinion Lessons of de Valera and Churchill tell us that Joe Biden’s steady pair of hands should be kept to a single term

United States President Joe Biden is an experienced politician and a steady pair of hands, which made him an attractive alternative to Donald Trump last year. But President Biden is 78, and his televised press conferences since the Afghanistan debacle have been described as “incoherent”, a “word salad” and “stumbling and slurring”.

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Mary Kenny Opinion I’m at an age when, sadly, I’m seeing many old friends die, yet hardly ever from Covid 

Sarah Grazebrook was an enchanting woman who I knew as a comic novelist and creative writing teacher. This summer, she felt a little off-colour and tired and by July had lost her appetite. Because of Covid restrictions, she had found it awkward to see her GP and she didn’t press for an appointment. Finally, her husband insisted she get a blood test; when it came back, she was diagnosed with a virulent leukaemia. She died within three weeks.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Queen’s favourite, Prince Andrew, might never recover from sexual assault claims 

As a young man, Prince Andrew was so popular with the ladies that he attracted adoring fans of groupies, merrily shouting: “We want Randy Andy.”

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Mary Kenny Opinion The reason more women want a divorce? They have higher relationship standards

As a teenager, I acted as a companion to a worldly-wise, elderly Frenchwoman who sought to instruct me in the ways of sophisticated society. “The chains of marriage are so onerous that sometimes it takes three to carry the responsibility,” she would say slyly.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Kids today don’t deserve school reports as awful as mine, but are we too soft on them?

How well I remember the dread with which I anticipated my school reports, which would arrive during the summer holidays. They were invariably awful.

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Mary Kenny Opinion He’s been branded right wing and racist. So why does this TV host represent free speech?

Éric Zemmour is a media celebrity in France: he may very well be a candidate as president of France in succession to Emmanuel Macron. Unlikely that he’ll get to the Elysée Palace next April, but as a candidate, he would draw votes away from other parties, and certainly make a splash. After the recent regional elections, 10,000 posters appeared across France with the words, “Zemmour for President”.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Ideas of ‘gender equality’ need revising to accommodate our sexual differences 

Yes, Josepha Madigan was brave and right to disclose she had been a victim of sexual assault and to point out that so many women shared the same experience.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Classic novel highlights how wider society was behind treatment of unmarried mothers

Historical investigations like the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report are valuable contributions to our knowledge of the past, and yet anyone who wants to know what it felt like to be an unmarried mother 50 years ago could well turn their attention to a classic novel about the situation.

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Mary Kenny Opinion It’s only human to make a moral judgment when one behaves as badly as Matt Hancock did

We don’t like to be judgmental these days – it seems so pious and pompous – and words such as “adultery” seem so very Old Testament. Anyway, we’ve renamed adultery with the American “cheating”, although that isn’t particularly complimentary either. Who honours a cheat?

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Mary Kenny Opinion Like it or hate it, our use of ‘bad’ language in everyday life is only getting stronger

I would be a hypocrite if I expressed dismay that an official report has found people nowadays are much more inclined to swear. Nearly half of young people use “strong language” every day, and nearly half of parents use swear words more liberally than they did five years ago. Swearing, in general, has risen by 30pc since 2017. Blimey O’Reilly!

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Mary Kenny Opinion Aviation opened up the world to us, now it needs our support to get airborne again

My mother came of age in the early years of the Free State, and over the course of her lifetime two aspects of being Irish made her hugely proud. One was the “little green passport” with “Eire” embossed on the front cover. The other was the sight of an Aer Lingus aircraft flying the flag to international destinations.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘I’ve just attended the wedding of one of my oldest friends. The bride was a radiant 78 and the groom a glowing 83’

Can people find love — and marriage — in their mature years? I have the evidence that they can: I’ve just attended the wedding of one of my oldest friends. The bride was a radiant 78 and the groom a glowing 83.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘After a long exile, soon I’ll be back in my native Dublin... free to stroll the banks of the Dodder and reminisce about bohemian Baggotonia’

Very soon, all going well, fingers crossed, le cúnamh Dé, and Inshallah, I expect to be back in my native Dublin again, after a long exile caused by the wretched virus. So, doubly vaccinated, distance-abiding and in the open air, I should be free to stroll by the banks of the Dodder river and its environs, watching the waters run over the little brooks and weirs, and the willows bend their graceful boughs.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘Jeff Bezos may have changed how we shop forever but no amount of AI can replace real retail’s human touch’

Major emergency! I lost my mobile phone charger — and without an electric charger the battery would run down, with the unthinkable result of no mobile phone. What to do? Go on Amazon. See screenshots of various charging devices. Click on suitable one. The next morning, a new phone charger plops through my letter box, for the price of a tenner.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘Punctuation inspires passion. People have been driven into paroxysms of rage by the simple misuse of an apostrophe’

There’s a joke about an old grammarian on his deathbed. “I die, or I am dying — both are correct,” are his last words. I don’t think that grammar and syntax will be the last thing on my mind when I depart this world, but it’s surprising how much passion and inflammatory feelings such matters can inspire.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘Before Article 41.2 is deleted, let us face the honest truth about the “woman in the home”: it was never more than window-dressing’

Abolish the “woman in the home” clause in the Constitution! That seems to be the judgement of the Citizens’ Assembly. The 99-member body concluded that Article 41.2, wherein it is affirmed that “the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”, should go. The phrasing is outdated and the pledge is a hindrance to gender equality.