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Mary Kenny Opinion Hard times exist today, yes. But it’s nothing compared to the real poverty previous generations endured

Don’t we live in hard times? I hardly know anyone who isn’t dreading the onset of winter, and the cost-of-living crisis occasioned by a dreadful European war, a crippling pandemic and the rocky state of the world economies. It’s depressing to think that clever young people are considering emigrating from Ireland because they feel the crunch of living costs and the shortage of affordable accommodation.

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Mary Kenny Opinion A male contraceptive jab is on the way, but will it truly equalise reproductive control?

It looks as though a male contraceptive vaccine will be available within the next year, according to Dr Amanda Wilson at De Montfort University in Leicester. The jab is called Risug, and it could obviate the demand for vasectomies – which is falling anyway. The vaccine, which has completed its final trials, would be reversible, so it is not as radical as vasectomy.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Of course parenthood makes people more conservative, but the notion that it rids mammies and daddies of their wild side is a myth

After intense sociological research at the University of Pennsylvania, a stunning conclusion has been drawn: when people become parents, they become more conservative. Some 2,610 adults around the world were studied, and it emerged that mammies and daddies gave more conservative answers than the child-free and childless.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Queen Elizabeth held the United Kingdom together – from her early days to global celebrity pulling-power – there will never be another reign like it

At times like these, it is difficult to avoid a cliché: that the departure of Queen Elizabeth II represents, truly, the end of an era. And despite her increasing frailty, her death seems to come a shock. Why she was only photographed the other day greeting her new Prime Minister.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Grand hotel that is The Shelbourne reflects Irish society and history

German television has been airing a series of programmes about grand hotels across Europe – hotels which especially symbolise the history of the country in which they are placed.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Cold comfort: Rocketing energy bills may force us back to the era of chilly endurance

One person in four will not turn on the heating this winter, according to a British survey carried out by Savanta ComRes, a research company speciali sing in public policy. Of those polled, 23pc said they wouldn’t be switching on the heating at all; among parents of children under 18, that rose to 27pc.

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Was Holy Catholic Ireland really as dark as it is now portrayed?

It’s fair to say that the reputation of “Catholic Ireland” has taken a continuous beating in recent times. Books with titles like Republic of Shame and The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland, among many others, chronicle a society once considered to contain “the best Catholics in the world” now in retreat from its ancestral faith, and indeed manifesting a marked hostility towards that faith.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Michael Collins’s star quality still shines bright a century on from tragedy that befell him

It’s been inspiring to see how successful the centenary of Michael Collins’s death has been. Surely, the “Lost Leader’s” assassination at the age of 31 was a tragedy – and yet a century on, his life has also been the source of celebration and a sense of national pride.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Dear old dining room has gone well out of fashion in the design of modern homes

Alas agus ochone: the dining room, once the sign of formal respectability for the bourgeois household, is no more. Fewer and fewer homes now under construction or for sale contain a dining room, according to a study by a British property group, Rightmove, and it’s likely to be a similar situation in Ireland.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Despite aching limbs and advancing years, Pope Francis must set the standard by soldiering on

For more than a year, there have been persistent rumours of Pope Francis’s imminent resignation: pictures of the pontiff in a wheelchair during his recent Canadian trip have enhanced such speculation, along with his own references to failing health.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Can snobbery be outlawed? A group of psychologists recommends it should be

It’s a given now that in any civilised society there are laws aimed at preventing discrimination on grounds of race, gender, age, pregnancy and sexual orientation.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Reform the Catholic church’s structure, yes, but don’t forget its beauty and spirituality

The “next chapter” of the Catholic Church in Ireland will be a very different one from those which went before, says Archbishop Eamon Martin. The consultation among the faithful – known as the Synodal Pathway – whose findings will be published next month will unveil a profile of Irish Catholicism which is much in contrast to what went before.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Step-parent and mother-in-law – Camilla’s relationship with Meghan is no fairy tale

It can be tough being a step-parent in the best of circumstances, and being a step-parent and a mother-in-law simultaneously might be the most challenging of all.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Everybody loathes Boris Johnson now, but I still have loyalty to a rascally fellow wordsmith

Just about everyone seems to loathe Boris Johnson right now, from those who once hired him – Sir Max Hastings, formerly of the Daily Telegraph, has said Boris “cares for nothing but his own fame and gratification” – to an Irish priest friend who sent me an email yesterday referring to “the human horror that is Boris Johnson … that man represents EVIL in so many different ways”.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Robots may be able to imitate Shakespeare, but we’ll always treasure the human touch

And so, the latest development in this brave new world of ours is that a super-robot equipped with a “neural network” can simulate the writings of William Shakespeare or the novels of Jane Austen or Sally Rooney.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Yes, Elvis was a hip-swivelling musical icon but he was also a pioneer of progressive race relations

If diversity is one of the key progressive themes of our age, then it’s probable that one of the pioneers of this idea is an unexpected one: Elvis Presley.

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Mary Kenny Opinion The ‘change’ in attitudes to menopause is welcome – but it’s now wrongly viewed as a disease

When I was in my 20s, my aunt called me “disgraceful” for using the word “menopause” in mixed company.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Michael D very fortunate he doesn’t get a king-sized thrashing for voicing an opinion

When the Prince of Wales contemplates the matter, he must sometimes envy President Michael D Higgins, who seems to have so much more leeway in expressing his opinions .

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Mary Kenny Opinion Why there’s good reason to mark Father’s Day – even if you don’t have a card to send

The adverts have been piling into my inbox since last week – while the shops have been full of suggested gifts – urging us to mark Father’s Day, celebrated in 48 countries on the third Sunday of June.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Divorce, hook-ups and violent porn – have women been harmed by the sexual revolution?

Was the sexual revolution essentially exploitative of women? That’s the thesis advanced by a young left-wing feminist, Louise Perry, a graduate in women’s studies and columnist for London’s New Statesman.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Have a heart, sisters – nuns are people and people are a mix of negative and positive

I am not an unalloyed admirer of nuns – still chippy about my convent education, which I consider to have been blighted by the Loreto nuns’ obsession with respectability and their favouritism of the cleverer pupils.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Forgetful? Yes, we can be. But brain blur is not always the same as Alzheimer’s

So the experts have now nailed a proper distinction between the onset of dementia and the normal signs of growing old. Forgetting something you were told 10 minutes ago is a sign of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. Forgetting something you were told several months ago is normal oldster behaviour.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Queen Elizabeth’s absence from state opening of parliament signals new era for monarchy

Like the Catholic Church in Ireland, the British monarchy is said to have lost, or is losing, its historic allure for younger people. Older people support it, but a younger generation is more favourable to an elected head of state. According to a poll published this year by Statista, 41pc of 18 to 24-year-olds would now choose an elected president over a hereditary monarch – which, like religious faith, seems an outdated concept to the Instagram generation.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Twenties were nothing at all like Downton Abbey, but its escapism still enchants

My mother and her five siblings were all young in the 1920s. From the drift of their conversation, I got the impression they had the most wonderful time.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Teachers might be wise to not enter risky blackboard jungle of grading their pupils

Teaching is a unique profession. People remember an inspirational teacher – and a cruel one – all their lives.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Forget those qualms about ‘flashy’ first holy communions. We all need the beauty of ceremony in our lives

The two women sitting alongside me on an Aer Lingus flight to London were the epitome of the ‘ladies who lunch’: perfect tans, expensively streaked hair, designer handbags.

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Mary Kenny Opinion ‘Liberty, equality, uncertainty?’ – How anxiety has replaced French self-confidence

I have spent time in France every year of my adult life, since the age of 18. It took Covid to break the pattern and I hadn’t been back since 2019 – until last week, in the throes of the presidential election campaign.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Yes, there are a few aches and pains but to live to be old is a privilege that has its own joys

Earlier this week, I reached another milestone in Senior Citizen status – yes, hard to ignore my palindromic date of birth: 4.4.44. Those of us who came of age in the glorious 1960s may find it difficult to identify with being old – why, we were the youth generation, who wore lapel-badges saying “Never trust anyone over 30” – but that’s just what we are. Old biddies and old gits exchanging conversations about “the organ recital” (the current litany of health complaints).

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Mary Kenny Opinion The evolution of attitudes to transgender is wonderful but it cannot distort fair play

It’s a little over two years since I encountered April Ashley at a London lunch party. She was 85 years of age and a beautiful old lady with perfect skin and graceful manners. She had been born George Jamieson in a poor Liverpool family and had once served in Britain’s Merchant Navy.

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Mary Kenny Opinion Yes, Planet Binchy is a cosier Ireland of yore – and maybe that explains its appeal

It’s lovely to see Maeve Binchy’s hugely popular novel Circle of Friends having a stage production next month, first at the Lime Tree Theatre in Limerick, and then at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.