How different would Ireland have been this last century if the tears of women were a national emergency?

‘We didn’t talk about these things in my day’ seems to cover whatever range is convenient, and it never holds up

Friends who can look thoughtfully on conflict and sadness and trouble and still find charity and curiosity are precious

I like the way replacing but with and invites me to think. It’s an invitation, not a command

It’s not a bad lesson at any age, to know how to take our pleasures at a lower altitude

The Irish arrangement affirms bonds through generosity and obligation

I rarely carry water and my bodily systems seem to run just fine

The pleasure of thinking about prehistoric people was never that of laying claim to land or heritage but of familiarity and strangeness

The bestselling author turns his attention to the mysteries of awareness and perception

The word ‘reason’, like ‘natural’ and ‘common sense’, often alerts us to a hidden agenda

In most situations, data promotes safety only when someone knows what to do about it

Choosing from a menu of deficits for your hair, skin and body is not freedom

The adults in my life had cause to doubt my word, because I did a lot of imagining and I wasn’t always sure what I’d made up

You’ll see very few helmets on cyclists in the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, certainly no laws mandating their use

When the technology of 19th-century prisons is sold to us as healthful, it’s worth asking some questions