Mary Kenny: 'Ulick and me... They say we should never speak ill of the dead, but surely it's better to remember people as they really...
There's a long tradition that 'we do not speak ill of the dead' (de mortuis nil nisi bonum). But need...
Mary Kenny
Mary Kenny: 'Celebs often feel they need cosmetic surgery - but for how long can they fight Father Time?'
Actresses - yes, some women in the performing arts still prefer not to be called 'female actors' - and songstresses often avail of cosmetic surgery.
Mary Kenny: 'Young girls with courage have long been mocked, but Greta is an inspiration to all of us'
Most of us, I think, are admirers of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish ecological crusader. She often reminds me of the young girl saints we...
'I saw terror in her eyes' - Mary Kenny recalls interviewing troubled star Judy Garland shortly before her death
Renée Zellweger's portrayal of the legendary star Judy Garland - Judy - which appears in cinemas...
Mary Kenny: 'A feline friend in need'
You could tell she wasn't well. She was off her food. One eye looked sort of wonky and her movements were slow and reluctant. She was sleeping a lot, curled up in ball. She seemed awfully needy, like a baby. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with our pet cat,...
Mary Kenny: 'For a united Ireland to prosper, we have to look farther than Erin's green playing fields'
If Brexit brings a united Ireland - or even a "reconstituted" or "reconciled" Ireland - closer, that must surely be a good thing. As the fans of rugby football and golf have always emphasised, if Ireland North and south can pull together on the playing field, or across the golfing greens, surely that's a fine model for the whole island working together as one (albeit varied) unit?
Mary Kenny: 'In our summertime revisiting of writers of yesteryear: Honor Tracy, who once convulsed Ireland in controversy'
Honor Tracy wasn't Irish, but she resided in Ireland for long periods, and once played a controversial role in Irish life and letters, which brought her renown, notoriety and sometimes loathing.
How Mary Lavin dissected the restrictions of Irish bourgeois life
I began my working life as a 16-year-old waitress in a restaurant called The Country Shop then situated in Dublin's Stephen's Green. One of the regular customers, along with her three high-spirited daughters, was the author Mary Lavin, a woman then in her late forties, with a strong, smiling face and iron-grey hair.
Maura Laverty - banned by the censorship board despite being as 'wholesome as brown bread'
When she died in 1966, Maura Laverty was a highly acclaimed Irish novelist, playwright (she wrote for the popular TV series Tolka Row), renowned cook and radio agony aunt.
Mary Kenny: 'Boris needs Bertie to fix his blind spot over Border issue'
If I were in a position to advise Boris Johnson - and though I know him slightly from journalistic circles, I'm hardly in that category - the one piece of counsel I would give him is this: if you want to make progress with "our friends in Ireland", engage with Bertie Ahern.
Mary Kenny: 'The era of the car is over but allow me to wallow in a little nostalgia for when it represented freedom, style and...
All these Green political parties gaining popularity across Europe are wonderful, but we know...
Mary Kenny: 'Fewer couples are marrying in church, or getting babies baptised... but people still want milestones'
'Tis the season for weddings and it's always a season for Christenings and funerals: but in a more...
Mary Kenny: 'Tory wannabes' eclectic back stories are more fascinating than their actual policies'
It's not the policies of the various Tory candidates currently vying to be the UK prime minister that are striking; their policies don't differ all that...
Mary Kenny: 'Never read Joyce's Bloomsday masterpiece? Don't fret. Here's my infallible cheat sheet'
Dublin celebrates Bloomsday tomorrow, but it's surprising how frequently people disclose that they've never actually read Joyce's Ulysses. The...
Knockfane: Engaging Big House saga of adoption and long-lost families
It may come as a surprise to some, but Irish Protestants from the Big House background also experienced pregnancies out of wedlock, were also shamed by their families when it happened,...
The Daily Digest
Mary Kenny: 'Brits may be ignorant about Irish matters, but they are seldom hostile towards us'
I've never bought into the narrative that the British are essentially anti-Irish, since it's never been my experience. I never did encounter those "no Irish, no coloureds, no dogs" posters back in the day, though I did see landladies' notices in Earl's Court of "no Australians" - since the Aussies partied a little too hard with the tinnies, keeping the neighbourhood awake.
Mary Kenny: 'The Harvey Weinstein saga is a milestone in the history of sexuality since the sexual revolution'
I hadn't heard the word "rape" until I was 18 years of age. And then it was as an au pair in France, where the woman of the house was terrified it would occur if I walked home alone at night through a Paris suburb. "Vous serez violée!" she'd cry in alarm. I consulted the dictionary and then understood. But the warning had never been issued when I wandered around Dublin, in apparent...
Mary Kenny: 'Lessons from the University of Life'
Young people preparing to go to college right now are so lucky! I never had the privilege (mournful violins) of attending university when young, and was therefore obliged to learn from the University of Life. So here are some of the graduation lessons I've earned from that notional campus:
Mary Kenny: 'Birthstrikers pledge to remain childless for the planet's sake. But does it add up?'
Blythe Pepino is aged 33 and after attending a lecture given by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion, she made a decision: for the sake of the planet, she would never have children. So she started a movement called Birthstrike, which is attracting others of a like mind - a pledge to remain childless to help reduce carbon footprints.
Mary Kenny: In the last of our August revisiting of writers of yesteryear: Patricia Lynch, once the leading Irish children's author
A recent reading list of summer stories for children produced a cornucopia of choice - children's literature is booming - but Patricia Lynch, once almost regarded as the children's laureate in this country, no longer features in the canon.
Mary Kenny: Women are woefully under-represented in Irish statuary
Summer visitors exploring O'Connell Street, vaunted as Ireland's main boulevard, will observe that six eminent Irishmen are commemorated in statue form: Daniel O'Connell, William Smith O'Brien, Sir John Gray, James Larkin, Father Theobald Mathew and Charles Stewart Parnell. The only females are the allegorical figures of 'Hibernia' and 'Fidelity' atop the GPO, along with the Roman god Mercury.
Mary Kenny: 'Staying the night in someone else's house? There are a few unspoken rules...'
It must be one of the greatest holiday inventions ever, launched by three guys in San Francisco in 2007 - Airbnb. Such a simple idea: renting out your living space for vacation periods. And I believe it's had the social effect of encouraging people to move around more easily, and to host others in their homes.
The remarkable relationship of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron
The French always put on a good show for their national holiday, tomorrow, and at the centre of proceedings will be their dazzling president, Emmanuel Macron. Along with his renowned wife, Brigitte.
Mary Kenny: 'It's time feminists acknowledged Thatcher blazed the trail for today's women leaders'
We really are seeing a flourishing of women at the top of international politics: Ursula von der Leyen (mother of seven, as it happens) as the new president of the European Commission; Christine Lagarde, new boss at the European Central Bank.
Mary Kenny: 'How painter Paul Henry put the west coast of Ireland on the global map'
Who put the west coast of Ireland on the global map, visually? The honour almost certainly goes to Paul Henry, the Belfast painter whose many exquisite paintings of Connemara, Achill, Kinsale and Kerry virtually invented the genre of the romantic Irish landscape of seascape, lough, mountain, wide sky, and thatched cottage - sometimes featuring a woman in the scarlet petticoat that he...
Mary Kenny: 'Sex, lies and Downing Street'
It's a universally acknowledged point that Ireland has changed dramatically in recent decades - the latest referendum to liberalise divorce being further evidence.
Mary Kenny: 'How The Valley of the Squinting Windows became a byword for nasty nosiness'
It's a well-known phrase implying inquisitive neighbours twitching their curtains, usually in small communities - 'The Valley of the Squinting Windows'. And it's a great title for a book.
Harry and Meghan are modernising the British monarchy, but retaining brand identity is key
Prince Harry has been much praised for his warm, informal approach in announcing the birth of his son, Archie: it's said that he and Meghan are really modernising the British monarchy.
Mary Kenny: 'How to be Irish... From poetry to hypocrisy, a guidebook for our new citizens'
Are you born Irish, or do you become Irish? There seems to be a growing group of people exhilaratedly happy because they've just become Irish - 2,500 of them celebrated their newly-won Irish citizenship in Killarney last month. That adds up to 122,000 new Irish citizens from 180 countries since 2011.
Mary Kenny: 'Farage is not a far-right nationalist - but he's a man who can sell a simple message'
Nigel Farage, whose Brexit Party is leading the opinion polls for the UK European elections, is routinely described as a right-wing populist and nationalist. Yet, if we examine Farage's social views, he emerges as, essentially, a liberal and a libertarian.
Mary Kenny: 'Those magnificent men'
As a youngster, whenever I'd visit that jewel of Connemara, Clifden, my Galway uncle would proudly point out the historic spot when the pioneer aviators Alcock and Brown landed in 1919. As Uncle Jim was a boy when this occurred, it always remained for him a source of awe and wonder that these men had been the first to fly the Atlantic non-stop. They crossed in 16 hours and 28 minutes in a fragile two-seater open-cockpit airplane - then the longest flight ever taken - and landing in a bog just by Clifden.
Mary Kenny: 'When it comes to voting on divorce, grandparents often taken the longer view - and see the children's well-being'
How will you vote in the divorce referendum on May 24, (proposing to reduce the waiting time to finalise a divorce)? People will bring their own values and experiences to the ballot box, possibly with mixed feelings.
Mary Kenny: 'Brexit has caused anxiety, frustration and even anger here. But there are 20 positives to consider as the saga continues…'
⬤ It's put Dublin on the business map, with City of London traders asking themselves "Frankfurt, Dublin or Luxembourg?" as an EU location. (The gilets jaunes burning the Champs-Élysées in Paris rather demoted the French capital.)
Mary Kenny: 'Amid relentless march of secularism, Notre-Dame reminds us Christianity still burns bright in Europe'
A FRENCH scholar concludes that despite the Catholic faith of the EU's founding fathers, Christianity has continually lost ground to secularism. Yet, there are signs this Easter that the spiritual has not disappeared from society.
Mary Kenny: 'Gin's the thing... The drink once branded as Mothers' Ruin has been reinvented with a health-conscious profile'
If I ever took up drinking again, I'd probably join the Gin Revolution. I didn't even know there was a gin revolution until the other day, when I discovered there's a hugely fashionable renaissance of gin in both Ireland and Britain - up by over 47pc last year in Ireland and by some 56pc in the UK.
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Mary Kenny: 'Young people are increasingly reluctant to learn a foreign language, simply because everyone now speaks English'
It is frequently lamented that there is such a steady decline in the learning of foreign languages among native English speakers. Only 4pc of Irish students go on to study a foreign language at university. In England, Wales and the North, the outlook for European language learning is just as gloomy: French and German have experienced a steep decline since 2010.
Royal biographer Lady Colin Campbell’s insights on the parallels between Meghan Markle and Princess Diana
Babies cheer up everyone, but for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the birth of her child, in April, will also enhance and empower her status within the British royal family.
Mary Kenny: 'Why, like Mary McAleese, we should always reserve the right to alter our opinions'
When Mary McAleese was first elected as President of Ireland, doubts were expressed about her profile. At a time when it was evident that the culture was already becoming more secular and liberal, she was seen as a bit too, well, Catholic. One commentator said her Catholic identity represented a "tribal time bomb".
Mary Kenny: 'Backstop has rallied more to our cause than the shamrock'
I was travelling on a train to Liege recently when I espied a Belgian newspaper flagging up a photo of Tánaiste Simon Coveney at the top of the page. It concerned, predictably, editorial comment and reportage on "the Irish backstop", which has been the main focus of so much discourse in the EU over the past two years.
Mary Kenny: 'As secularism takes hold, Protestants and Catholics are more aware of their common values. Perhaps St Patrick would approve!'
Can you be both Protestant and Irish? A new academic book published by Cork University Press, Protestant And Irish, stresses that of course, of course, you can. But the background context is, nevertheless, that it's been something of a struggle to establish that identity in the midst of what...
Mary Kenny: 'Some things - even quite anguishing family worries - are simply beyond my control, and this I must daily accept'
One of my oldest friends gave me a meaningful present at Christmas: a book of morning readings entitled The Daily Stoic. This is a compilation of thoughts and meditations drawn on those dead white males from the ancient world - Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus. Stoics, whose philosophy could be summed up by the snappy aphorism: "grin and bear it".
Mary Kenny: 'Au revoir to Ma & Pa, salut to 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2'?'
Would it be a good idea to re-name 'Mother' and 'Father' as 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2'? The French have been having this debate for a while now. And it's been voted through parliament, on first reading, that the national education system should delete 'Mother' and 'Father' in all official documentation, substituting gender-neutral words instead.
They're gaining new popularity, but are boarding schools a prison or a paradise?
In an age where equality is so widely extolled, private education is thriving and most private schools in the Dublin area are over-subscribed. With the return of economic prosperity (apparently), parents don't baulk at paying €6,000 or €7,000 annually for their cherished offspring to attend Alexandra or Gonzaga College.
Mary Kenny's Brexit cookbook: 'Have you tried only eating food that doesn't have to be transported or imported?'
Who'd have thunk that the dreaded Brexit might turn out to be a culinary inspiration? Someone, somewhere in Britain will soon produce a Brexit cookbook.
Mary Kenny: 'The Oireachtas proposes revising sex education. But can the full truth about sexuality ever be taught?'
I am totally in favour of sex education. Generations - including mine - were sent out into the world unprepared for what it might put their way. Girls who grew up in institutions were particularly vulnerable: knowing nothing about sex, they were easily seduced with the promise of love, and were soon on the road either to a lonely and impoverished single motherhood, or a depressing cycle of...
Mary Kenny: 'Our values are guided by geography - so let's put common sense on the Brexit map'
It is welcome news that there are plans to restore history as a core subject in primary schools. It can't be said often enough: unless we understand the past, we cannot proceed to the future.
Mary Kenny: 'Procrastination is condemned as a character failing - but there are times when it can help creativity and decision-making'
Procrastination, 'tis said, is "the thief of time". "Never put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today," we are prudently advised. Duties are "put on the long finger". Decisions are "kicked into the long grass", while a procrastinating process of "kicking the can down the road" takes place.
Mary Kenny: Parallel lives? The fascinating similarity between the literary beginnings of France's Colette and our Edna O'Brien
Do men always have the advantage over women? Are men always the winners and women the victims? That tends to be the narrative that we favour today - sometimes for plausible reasons - but it isn't always the case.
Mary Kenny: 'If you want to help reduce climate change, do not take a daily shower'
We are all environmentalists now, aren't we? We are all converts to the idea that we must save the planet by living sustainably. Young people, in particular, are embracing a "greener" lifestyle. Climate change, we are told, is the greatest threat to our universal civilisation.
Mary Kenny: 'We have only to look at our own past to grasp the Brexit mindset'
I have a vote in Kent, but I didn't vote for Brexit, nor would I - it certainly isn't in Ireland's interest. But I am surrounded by those who did, here in strong Brexit country.
Mary Kenny: 'At last I've found a diet that really works for me'
A new diet in January is predictable: that's why I started my latest diet at the end of last October. By January, I hoped, I'd be sufficiently encouraged by positive results.
Mary Kenny: 'Our future will be ever more organised - and controlled - by artificial intelligence. Should we fear rule by robots?'
Who knows what a new year will bring? Who knows what the future will bring? No one can foretell because nothing turns out quite as predicted.
Mary Kenny: 'I had a bit of a tidy-up of my bedroom recently, and realised that I owned (at least) 47 lipsticks'
I had a bit of a tidy-up of my bedroom recently, and realised that I owned (at least) 47 lipsticks: in addition to all the other unguents, potions, skin creams, moisturisers and assorted cosmetics.
Mary Kenny: 'My advice to all those Brits who now want to be Irish? Be careful what you wish for'
It's St Stephen's Day and I'm happy to offer tutorials to all those Brits I know who have successfully received their Irish passports over the past year: It's not Boxing Day, it's Stephen's Day.
Mary Kenny: Magi magic
In our era of multiculturalism, perhaps the image of The Adoration of the Magi is quite apt: the "three wise men" who bring gifts to the infant Jesus are depicted as representing three different ethnicities.
Friend or foe?
There's a theory going around that social media has made people now more intolerant of others, their opinions and values. Facebook users sometimes 'unfriend' each other, and people on Twitter quite commonly 'block' other contributors if they dislike their views or consider them hostile.
Does misogyny lie behind the abuse of Theresa May?
There is one aspect of Theresa May's character that invites admiration - her sheer grit.
Mary Kenny: 'I woke up one morning and found that the sight in one eye was impaired'
On the morning of Saturday, July 28 this year, I opened my laptop computer as usual, and something seemed rather weird about the screen. It wasn't quite in focus: it was as though I was wearing the wrong glasses. Oh well, I thought: better get a check-up. But in the meantime, life was busy. I had a French student coming to stay, and I needed to do a major blitz on the house.
Mary Kenny: False prole chic?
I love all kinds of funky, weird fashion. But I did hope that by 2018, the irritating trend for deliberately torn, or "distressed", jeans would finally come to an end.
Mary Kenny: Tug-of-love dilemma
Is there such a person as an "unfit mother"? Should a child be taken away from its natural mother by the authorities? Is it sometimes in a child's best interest to be placed with stable foster parents?
Mary Kenny: Bean counters... coffee is the emblem and epitome of civilisation
No, no, no! There is no such thing as too many coffee outlets! An Bord Bia is surely in error by announcing that coffee shops in city centres in Ireland have reached "saturation point". Other "quick-serve" restaurants, maybe. Fast food has never been a culinary adornment.
Mary Kenny: 'When a woman becomes the mother of a son, her perspective changes, as a top politician may discover'
Last month, the popular - and gay - Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, gave birth to a baby boy, Finn. Ruth and her partner Jen Wilson said they were absolutely delighted with the arrival of much-loved Finn, who was conceived through IVF treatment.
Mary Kenny: 'The hot air of 'fascism' fans flames - but it's nowhere near'
Fascism? It's all the rage. Or, at least, throwing around accusations about encroaching fascism in every society is now the fashion.
Mary Kenny: More men from Rathnew volunteered for WWI than from anywhere else
The conclusion of the First World War in November 1918 will be a major European commemoration this month. In Woodenbridge, Co Wicklow, a somewhat smaller ceremony will take place in the middle of the month in the beautiful local World War I memorial there - a landscaped park with simple headstones which list the Wicklow men who served and died in that terrible war. They are...
Mary Kenny: The granny bash... Should ageism be considered a hate crime?
As Ireland prepared to vote on whether to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution, in Britain the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, proposed to extend the remit against "hate crimes" and "hate speech" in law. You could argue that the prohibition against offensive speech is just a modern, liberal version of blasphemy. It's certainly another form of "thou shalt not".
Mary Kenny: Periodic tales
In the run-up to the recent Budget, the Fianna Fáil Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee said that the State should provide sanitary products for women experiencing "period poverty".
Mary Kenny: Lady C's reader
At the end of this month, Sotheby's, the auctioneers, will place under the hammer an original paperback copy of DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. This is the sexually explicit novel which was the subject of the very famous court case in 1960, when it was cleared of charges of being likely to deprave and corrupt. It was subsequently published for the multitudes in paperback.
Mary Kenny: Doomed by DNA?
Notice how carefully and conscientiously most young parents raise their children these days. The attention they pay to the child's needs! The ferrying around between swimming lessons and Spanish lessons and music lessons and sports coaching: the urgent struggles to get the kids into the best schools and the outraged resentment if a school with a fine reputation is over-subscribed.
Mary Kenny: Street lessons
If it was up to me to nominate an alternative candidate for the Presidency of Ireland, I'd suggest Alice Leahy, the woman who has done so much, over the past 40 years, to care for the homeless and the people she calls "outsiders" - often in every sense of the word - in the streets of Dublin.
Mary Kenny: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy...
Saoirse Ronan - probably the most famous Irish thespian in the world - is due to make an exciting new movie. On an exciting old theme. Saoirse is to take the role of Jo, in a new version of Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig: Louisa May Alcott's immortal story - never out of print since it was first published 150 years ago - for a feminist age.
Mary Kenny: Dearest stepmum!
During the August Papal visit, Leo Varakar made a landmark speech in which he told Pope Francis that Ireland had greatly changed in recent decades and that "families come in many forms".
Mary Kenny: Drink up, hook up…
We live in a society full of contradictions, especially when it comes to sexuality. Casual sex and ubiquitous pornography are regarded as normal freedoms: simultaneously, the manners and decorum of Jane Austen's drawing room are expected, particularly from men.
Mary Kenny: Granny knows best
The "granny grant" suggestion, made by Minister Shane Ross in July, didn't meet with much enthusiasm. He was lambasted for his proposal to give a grant of €1,000 a year to grandparents who cared for their grandchildren on a regular basis. He reckoned this would cost about €70 million a year to the exchequer, but economists said his sums were ludicrously underestimated: the cost could run into untold billions of euro, since all four grandparents might be entitled to claim.
Mary Kenny: The female Old Master
It is often claimed today that the Catholic church in general - and the Vatican in particular - has treated women unequally: yet there was an astonishing number of women artists flourishing in Renaissance Italy, often under Papal encouragement. Popes Clement VIII, Gregory XIII and Paul V all commissioned and encouraged female artists to produce paintings, embroidery (then called "needle painting") and altar-pieces.
Mary Kenny: Thoroughly modern Mainie
Visitors to Dublin viewing its famed Georgian architecture may spot a plaque at 36 Fitzwilliam Square proclaiming that 'Mainie Jellett - 1897-1944 - Painter - lived and worked here'. Dublin Tourism's tribute could have added that Mainie (born Mary Harriett) Jellett virtually introduced modern art to Ireland, with her creative Cubist style.
Mary Kenny: New impressions of femininity
'Madonna and Child' paintings have been a classic artistic theme for centuries, but there is a critique that these images are over-idealised male constructs of submissive maternity: of women accepting the role of motherhood passively rather than embracing it actively, according to feminist theory.
Frida: artist of the selfie
Today, Frida Kahlo is probably the most famous female artist in the world. Although she died in 1954, aged 47, she is truly contemporary: she is the artist of the selfie, since most of her paintings are self-portraits. Even in her own lifetime, she had revolutionised the genre of the self-portrait, bringing not only a dazzling female sensibility and intensity to it, but a narrative of family, nativist culture, costume, obsession with fertility, Surrealism, revolution and religious iconography.
Mary Kenny: Cleaning house
Perhaps unwisely, I have agreed to host a French teenager on a cultural exchange arrangement during the month of August. This has occasioned me to examine the state of my household and my general domestic skills, which are not exemplary.
Mary Kenny: The prediction game
Now here's an interesting career choice for any young graduate searching for something unusual: 'superforecaster'.
Mary Kenny: Advice from the Emperor
On France's national holiday, what better way to mark it than to call to mind the founder of modern France, Napoleon Bonaparte - the historic figure on whom President Macron specifically models himself.
Mary Kenny: Travelling light?
At the height of her tennis career, Martina Navratilova said the only thing she hated about travelling for tournaments was PACKING. She dreaded it and would pay someone else any money to pack for her. Well, if we travel, we have to pack, and the only way to organise it properly is to make a list for our travelling requirements, as I do here…
Mary Kenny: The Collins doctrine
'Age is just a number," Dame Joan Collins said on her 85th birthday recently. "It's totally irrelevant unless you're a bottle of wine. You are what you think you are. I look and feel several decades younger."
Mary Kenny: It's a rich woman's world
There's a bit of a trend at the moment of older people giving advice to their younger selves - or, older women giving advice to younger women. Although there's also some research which claims that advice is often irrelevant and outdated and seldom heeded anyway.
Mary Kenny: The cost of throwaway culture
So here's the new villain in our lives: plastic. Every time we pick up a takeaway coffee in its plastic container - and, even worse, with a plastic lid - we are contributing to the agonising death of marine life in the oceans. Whenever you purchase a bottle of water in its plastic container, you are adding your own little bit to the 8.3 billion tonnes of waste plastic floating around the globe, most of it accumulating from the past 15 years.
Mary Kenny: Adopting attitudes
When I was about 11 I heard my aunt say that a couple we knew had adopted their daughter. "And aren't they brave!" she exclaimed. "Because you wouldn't know where an adopted child came from."
Mary Kenny: Penning pregnancy
It's sometimes suggested that artists and novelists are better at sensing the zeitgeist - that spirit of the age - than more prosaic sources, such as economists and political analysts. This perhaps was illuminated by Dublin's choice, this year, for its UNESCO "one city, one book" focus. The book selected was Sinéad Gleeson's anthology of short stories by women, entitled The Long Gaze Back.
Mary Kenny: You'll have mail!
I love post offices. I love standing in a queue in a local post office. I love the neighbourliness of the people, and I love exchanging chat with the post office staff, about the weather, the state of the neighbourhood, and, if it's Linda, whether we're succeeding in our current diet and fighting the flab. (There was a power cut when I was in a post office queue last week, and everyone started joking about the Russians starting on cyberwarfare.)
Mary Kenny: Family values? Yes and no
Many good people in Ireland are volunteering to serve as stewards for the Pope's visit in August for the World Meeting of Families. And I feel sure that Francis will be met with the customary Céad Míle Fáilte traditionally accorded to visitors to this country, and all will go well.
Mary Kenny: If Meghan Markle wants to promote feminism, why is she quitting her job?
I always thought that one of the regrettable aspects of Grace of Monaco's life was that she quit her profession after marriage. Admittedly, women did, usually, resign their jobs on marrying (or were obliged to do so) in those days, but it didn't always apply to women in the arts, and certainly not in the performing arts - some famous actresses even styled themselves "Mrs" for added distinction.
Mary Kenny: Play on! An 85-year-old family piano has a story of its own to tell
Some decades ago - back in the 1930s - my mother acquired an upright piano which pleased her very much. It had, she told me, belonged to the Archbishop of Dublin Dr John Charles McQuaid when he was Dean of Blackrock College, and whether she purchased it from him directly or through another owner wasn't quite clear. (Younger people: if you want to know something about a past episode...
Mary Kenny: Hail glorious St Patrick!
Oh, the neighbouring nations have tried. They've tried very hard. Awed by the success of St Patrick's Day, not only in Ireland, but worldwide, there have been concerted efforts to establish St David's, St Andrew's and St George's as national saints' days in Wales, Scotland and England.
Mary Kenny: Faith accompli?
An increasing number of parents want to remove their children from religious education classes at school - according to Education Minister Richard Bruton - and that's entirely their right. But I now wish I'd had more RE rather than less.
Mary Kenny: For better or for worse…
Planning to marry? My advice from over 40 years' experience.
Does Helena have it all?
Feminist icons are often unmarried or childless or both - Germaine Greer, Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem - but now there is an influential feminist role-model who is a married mother of nine children.
Mary Kenny: An ill wind… How falling sick can expand our horizons
We talk a lot these days about having "agency" - our capacity to exert our own will - and "bodily autonomy" - our rights of ownership over our own body. But if there's one thing that totally wipes out notions of "agency" and "bodily autonomy", it's illness.
Mary Kenny: Sons and lovers
Philip Larkin's most famous poem is a catchy but sour disquisition on the malign influence of parents ("They f*** you up, your mum and dad/They may not mean to, but they do"). It now emerges that his reflections were all too autobiographical: he seems to have inherited his gloomy and misanthropic view of family life from his own mother, Eva.
Mary Kenny: I found sanity at the cinema
The Irish, I'm proud to say, are rated as the best cinema-goers in Europe (along with the French) by the International Union of Cinemas and last year, cinema attendances increased again in this country.
Mary Kenny: Because she's worth it?
When I was a young woman, I was an executive on a London evening newspaper, and when a political storm broke over a trade union dispute, I suggested we should commission Barbara Castle to write a comment piece.
Mary Kenny: Remembering MP Markievicz
Constance Markievicz would certainly be astonished to have been told that 100 years after she was the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons, a British Tory prime minister - also a woman - would be declaring her intention of honouring the occasion.
Curfuggled by Slurvian?
There are 24 official languages in the European Union, but only three working tongues: French, English and German. It had been suggested that after Britain quits the EU, English might lose its official status. (Ireland and Malta, though English-speaking, don't claim English as their official language.)
Happy birthday, you legends!
Those due to celebrate their 50th birthday in 2018 may enjoy contemplating the fascinating year in which they were born: the legendary 1968. This is 'the year that rocked history', in the words of one of its many biographers.
Whatever you do, just don't mention the 'B word' - Brexit lays bare Britain's class divide
I was delighted to be invited to an exceptionally promising lunch - fine cooking guaranteed - in Wiltshire just before Christmas. Train schedules ordained that I arrived early, and this gave the hostess, an old friend, a chance to take me aside discreetly for a moment. "Don't," she said, "mention the B word, for heaven's sake! They're all Remainers here. We don't talk about the...
Fanny's Christmas legacy
On Christmas Eve each year there is a lovely BBC tradition of broadcasting a carol service from King's College Cambridge, and that always starts off in the same way: a young solo chorister, with a voice of perfect clarity, begins the much-loved carol Once in Royal David's City. It's always an affecting moment, summing up so much that is comforting, peaceable and aesthetically uplifting about the tradition of the Christian Nativity.
Mary Kenny writes a 2017 Christmas Carol
Marley was dead, to begin with. Eoin Scrooge knew that his business partner Marley was dead, as he had consigned the ashes himself to the crematorium. Personally, Eoin blamed Jake Marley's death on not really keeping up with the times, business-wise. He had brought so much stress on himself by being so old-fashioned, and muttering hopelessly outdated phrases such as, "Neither a lender nor a borrower be," or, "A penny saved is a penny earned." Imagine saving, with interest rates the way they are!
Bots, Brexit and Meghan
In 2017, I learned: how to waste an enormous amount of time on Twitter. How bad-mannered and ill-tempered I can become on Twitter, in (perhaps imagined) contrast to being reasonably cordial in normal life. How to pronounce 'quinoa' - though I'd rather pronounce it than eat it. That the "new" cure-all therapy is sleep. Not all that new, though: the Victorians prescribed "bed rest" for every ailment.
Mary Kenny: Take the 'feminist test'
Everyone claims to be a feminist these days - Meghan Markle has affirmed her feminist credentials. But feminism is a wide agenda, and that's why I wrote a book to try and clarify, to myself as well as others, what being a feminist now means. Are you a feminist? Take this test…
Mary Kenny: Songs of praise
The wages of sin for 40 years of smoking is a wheezing chest and a possible diagnosis of a COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). When I was informed that I had a condition called bronchiectasis, a consultant at one of London's leading chest hospitals told me to go and join a choir, or take singing lessons. Singing, he said, was one of the best things you can do for your chest.
Mary Kenny: 'I saw some ghastly dumps while searching for new home'
All of life's experiences come to an end, eventually, and I knew that one day I'd be booted out of the adorable, if somewhat ramshackle, Georgian flat that I have rented in Dublin's Kildare Street since 1996. The rent hadn't increased for 20 years - it had remained just under €800 monthly - although, on the other hand, there were structural faults with the apartment which mightn't have passed muster with Health and Safety: doors didn't close properly, there was an actual hole in the bathroom floor, the radiators hadn't worked for ages, and maintenance and repairs seemed scanty.
How Fido became Freddy
The world is divided into those who favour dogs and those who favour cats: just now, dogs seem to be winning attention. Dog sociologists like John Bradshaw have observed that we are becoming much more anthropomorphic about doggies. Canine pets used to be given names like Rover or Fido: now they're christened (virtually) with much more human names, like Max or Sam, Hubert or Felicity.
Mary Kenny: When sirens called the shots
I have before me a picture of Marlene Dietrich in her prime, sent by a friend in Berlin. It's taken soon after her 1930s debut in The Blue Angel, an erotic tale about a sedate professor who falls under the spell of a night-club singer. Dietrich played the role of femme fatale in many a film, when as a woman whose power is in her beauty and her compelling personality, she calls the shots.
Mary Kenny: The Romanovs' Irish nanny
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 is seen as a stirring event, not unlike the Easter Rising of 1916: when an archaic and reactionary regime is replaced by a vital new leadership. Lenin and Trotsky are charismatic figures, even if the most powerful of the troika, Stalin, is now better known as a ruthless dictator.
Mary Kenny: Pimp or liberationist?
When Hugh Hefner - founder of the famed Playboy empire - died last month, some feminists finally felt legally free to describe how they saw him. Suzanne Moore of The Guardian called him "a pimp" - as she had done during his lifetime, though under threat from his lawyers.
Mary Kenny: Postcards from the past
It's pleasing to see shops in Ireland still display and sell pretty picture postcards. I hope that visitors are buying and sending them, but the postcard is not a thriving business, worldwide. The American postal service has been charting a progressive decline in postcard sending since 2010. Last month, in Britain, the oldest postcard publisher, J Salmon of Sevenoaks, announced its closure - put out of business by changing holiday habits and the instant gratification of social media. It's reckoned there's been a 60pc decline in the picture postcard over the past 20 years. People are taking more...
Mary Kenny: The teenage nightmare
A British academic survey, the Millennium Cohort Study, has found that 24pc of adolescent girls at the age of 14 were depressed (compared with 9pc of boys). One of the authors, Praveetha Patalay of the University of Liverpool, said that: "Compared to previous generations, there seem to be increasing problems, particularly in girls." Twenty thoughts on this situation…
Mary Kenny: The petulant princess?
It was always known among reporters who covered the British royal circuit that the late Princess Margaret was "difficult". She liked to be seen as a royal rebel and "with it" - in the lingo of the time - but people were warned that she'd seem friendly and approachable, and then suddenly pull rank. If those socialising with her alluded to "your sister", she would haughtily correct them with an icy "you mean, Her Majesty the Queen".