Historic handshake signified determination of Reynolds

MUCH has been said and written about the passing this week of former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds who was laid to rest following a state funeral on Monday.

PJ's Prize, but don't cry for Adele

WITH JIM HAYES IIT'S extraordinary what an award will do for sales of an album. Not any award, mind you. We're talking Mercury Prize here, the music accolade for which the words coveted and prestigious were surely invented.

Terror threat is now greater ten years after 9/11

THE 10TH anniversary of 9/11 has passed with an emotional outpouring of collective grief in the United States and in other country's affected by the world's worst terrorist outrage in which almost 3,000 innocent people lost their lives.

Surely we already have enough established cosmetic ingredients. There must be ways of combining these safely without sacrificing animal lives.

Animal testing must stop

WHEN I was a vet student, I witnessed a dog being deliberately bled to death. A Beagle, bred for use in the laboratory, was anaesthetised then connected up to a range of monitors, so that his respiratory rate, blood pressure and other parameters could be measured.

Watching a middle-aged Sinead O'connor on TV made me just cringe

Justine O'mahony IFELT a sort of empathy with Sinead O'Connor last week when she went on The Late Late in a desperate bid to find a man. I know she's a bit bonkers and her fashion sense leaves a lot to be desired (whoever let her out of the house with that haircut is no friend of hers let...

5 THINGS

Ireland has become a country of three seasons. We went from winter to spring to autumn this year. Another reason why our country is so unique.

9/11 showed how humanity conquered hate

FR BRIAN WHELAN ON SUNDAY New York remembered the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Not just New York, but right across the world, people paused to remember that awful day when the planes hit the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan.

To tackle high legal costs we must end restrictive practices

with IVAN Yates Since 2006 average earnings have been reduced by more than 25%. An exception to the rule is an increase in legal service costs, which have risen by 12%. National Competitiveness Council reports that...

Facebook has a duty to monitor itself

DEBORAH COLEMAN AS BOB Dylan once said ' the times they are a changin' and parents, for one have all sorts of unprecedented issues to deal with. This week saw a new departure as a parent filed a law suit against Facebook for failing to do, frankly what he should have been doing himself-monitor his child's online activity.

Nursing homes given a bad name

DEBORAH COLEMAN IT MADE me sick to learn this week that HIQA inspectors were left with no option but to go out and buy food for elderly residents in a Co. Kilkenny nursing home. That any such institution would not ensure that its residents were fed properly is a scandal, not to mention the questions that were asked about their personal belongings records.

Public attitudes harden against riot hooligans

with IVAN Yates IHAPPENED to be in the UK last week, during the riots in London, Manchester and Liverpool. A palpable sense of shock and horror was evident amongst the public as they awoke to burning buildings and mayhem. The police were clearly unprepared. With high levels of holiday leave, inadequate numbers and poor intelligence - they...

Relentless attack on faith and religion

FR BRIAN WHELAN WORLD YOUTH Day takes place in Madrid this week. It is estimated that over a million people will attend, all young people, somehow captured by the mystery of divine, and drawn towards Christ through their faith. Here, they publicly celebrate their Catholicism, their belonging to the Catholic Church. Here they share and live out their faith, in the midst of like-minded individuals.

Enda/Eamon deal to be a marriage of sorts

AIDAN O'CONNOR IWONDER if the coalition deal took the form of a Catholic marriage where vows are exchanged – a promise that you'll stick by your partner for life, no matter what. Who knows, maybe somewhere in a back room while those drafting a span new programme for Government were hard at work, Enda and Eamon might have...

Fine Gael miss the opportunity to go it alone in Government

with Gavin Duffy REGULAR READERS will know that I was hoping for a strong, single party, Fine Gael Government. I am not a regular Fine Gael voter but I was "lending" the party my vote to once and for all sort...

Stability of new coalition crucial

AS EXPECTED Fine Gael and Labour will form the next government after negotiations between the two parties came to a successful conclusion at the weekend. As was also to be expected, the programme drawn up by the coalition partners involves considerable compromise on both sides. This may not be entirely welcome - depending on one's political alignment, among other matters - but it's not a bad thing to get critical areas of difference between the two parties ironed out from the outset.