25 brilliant Irish women in 2025
Sir, – The article “Shaping the Century: 25 brilliant Irish women in 2025″ highlights the brilliant work of some amazing Irish women. I realise there are only 25 slots allocated for these brilliant women (let’s not lose the run of ourselves, ladies), but surely no such list is complete without including: Sharon Horgan, Aisling Bea and Fiona Shaw. – Yours, etc.
ALICE WALSH,
Baldoyle,
Dublin 13.
Fintan O’Toole: A cunning plan to bring Saint Patrick’s writings to the White House
Parkinson’s: ‘I know it will beat me in the end, but I’m going to make it wait’
Mark Carney’s ‘back of envelope’ idea paved way for Ireland to renegotiate bank debt
Gracie Abrams in Dublin review: No nepo-baby here. A real star stands before us
Aviva blues
Sir,- Trust Les Bleus to have the Gaul to rain on Ireland’s parade! – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – While France didn’t ultimately need the support one must wonder how so many French supporters got access to tickets in such huge numbers. In the Irish Rugby Supporters Club we didn’t get access to buy tickets but rather a draw to see who might get access. You reap what you sow. – Yours, etc,
DAVID CURRAN,
Knocknacarra,
Co Galway.
Sir,- After 40 or more years supporting Ireland at Landsdowne/Aviva the biggest disappointment on Saturday was not just the scoreline. We are missing our “16th” player, the roar of the crowd. As Ireland limped their way through the game, the French fans lifted their team with their support. La Marseillaise boomed around the stadium. Honestly, it was like a home match for France. The IRFU needs to address this issue, and not just view each rugby match as a corporate opportunity. The team need and deserve our support. – Yours, etc,
SARAH TIERNEY,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I’m long enough in the tooth to remember the days in the old Lansdowne Road when France invariably won the match and triple crowns were as scarce as hen’s teeth. Lest we forget; this year Ireland won the Triple Crown and the way the French prepared and celebrated their win on Saturday is a testament to the respect they now have for Irish rugby. No doubt the better team won on Saturday but I would be confident of a positive response from this Irish team next weekend. Paddies weekend in Rome; looking forward to it. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN McNALLY,
Skerries,
Co Dublin.
Red light runners
Sir, – Unfortunately I have to agree with your recent correspondents regarding red light runners (Letters, Friday, March 7th) as my experience of cycling in and around Dublin is that it is becoming more and more challenging, with cyclists seen as a hindrance and annoyance to drivers and with little regard being shown for their safety.
I recommend to anyone navigating the city on foot or by bike to bear the following facts in mind: firstly, a green light does not in fact mean “go” but rather “go if it’s safe to do so”; the second is what seems to be the uniquely Irish three-second “rule” whereby a red light is interpreted not as a directive to stop but as allowing an additional three seconds to proceed.
Let’s hope we can all stay safe out there, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike. – Yours, etc,
LAURA FLYNN,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Post-Catholic Ireland
Sir, – As Ireland drifts further from its Catholic past, we often congratulate ourselves on shedding the weight of old dogmas (What have the Christians ever done for the Irish? Opinion, March 10th). But in doing so, have we also discarded something of value? The virtues once instilled by faith – humility, compassion, and self-restraint – are not uniquely religious ideas, but they did provide a common moral language. Now, public discourse often swings between outrage and indifference, with little space for reflection. Perhaps the real challenge is not choosing between faith and secularism, but recognising that a meaningful life requires more than rights and self-expression. It needs virtues —whether learned in a church, a philosophy book, or simply by observing those who live well. – Yours, etc,
ENDA CULLEN,
Armagh.
Sir, – The problem for Joe Humphreys in his comments on the Catholic Church is his terminological inexactitude. He mentions “our lapsed Catholicism” despite also clearly stating that he is an atheist.
There is a clear and absolute difference between an ex-Catholic and a lapsed Catholic. An ex-Catholic makes a conscious decision that they are no longer Catholic as Humphreys has by explicitly declaring his atheism.
Meanwhile, lapsed Catholics have stopped behaving as explicitly required by the Catholic Church such as attending Mass etc. However, if asked, and forced to give an answer, they would express a belief in Catholic teaching.
The irony is that in terms of Catholic theology, once a Catholic always a Catholic, and from that point of view, Joe Humphreys is still a Catholic. – Yours, etc,
FRANK DESMOND,
Cork.
Sir, – There is a lot of wisdom in Joe Humphreys’s timely column outlining three aspects of Christian belief that an atheist might envy – God’s love, absolution and an afterlife aren’t nothing, certainly. I would argue, though, that he misses the crucial point, which underpins those three. It’s that we actually matter at all. Our lives, those of everyone we know, even the earth itself, are known to be of finite duration. This seems to make anything and everything we can do transient, ephemeral and, perhaps, therefore meaningless. The (admittedly preposterous) idea that the creator of the universe cares what we do, why we do it, and what our motivations are, is extraordinary hubris but nonetheless an antidote to such existential angst. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.
Ireland didn’t invent boycotts
Sir, – The article written by Liam Kennedy on the power of boycotts (Could boycotts be an effective way of protesting against the Trump administration?, Opinion, 10thMarch) focuses on just one of many powerful nonviolent tactics. He details how the word “boycott” came about and indeed the word has since entered a number of languages other than English. However, the claim that Ireland has a “strong claim” to have invented the tactic is simply untrue. It is a tactic as old as the hills and Gene Sharp’s classic book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, gives numerous examples prior to the1880s.
That Irish “boycott” did, however, name the tactic and perhaps succeeded in making it more recognisable as a political methodology. The article is correct in stating that boycotts are not always progressive, with the example he gives of use against involvement of a beer brand with a transgender influencer. The use of a nonviolent tactic such as a boycott rather than violence is more likely to lead to success, as demonstrated by Chenoweth and Stephan’s empirical research, and indeed when Capt Boycott later returned to Ireland. After a period in Britain, he was a supporter of “the Irish cause” – this was extremely unlikely to happen if he had been targeted personally with violence.- Yours etc,
ROB FAIRMICHAEL,
Editor, Nonviolent News / Coordinator, INNATE,
Belfast,
Co Antrim.
St Michan’s crypt
Sir, – Some other way will have to be found to support St Michan’s Church rather than the apparently soon to be reopened crypt with its undignified, disrespectful display of human remains. Your photo essay (We’re in dire straits: St Michan’s appeals for public support as it plans crypt reopening after arson, Weekend, March 8th) describes this more fully than any words of mine can.
As an archaeologist who has excavated a considerable number of individuals from prehistoric to modern and a museum curator who has been involved in the exhibition of human remains in purposeful, educational settings, the images published on Saturday show that the bodies of the individuals held in the crypt at St Michan’s are “displayed” in a way that is both unacceptable and appallingly inappropriate. It is time that these human persons are respectfully reburied and that the crypt is closed permanently. – Yours etc,
MARY CAHILL FSA,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Communion money
Sir, – Joanne Hunt’s piece (“Children will receive over €500 on average for their Communion. Where should you put it?”, Wednesday, March 5th) provides a timely and tawdry reminder that while some parents mull over whether to invest their child’s Communion money in crypto or the credit union, a sizeable cohort of parents will be contemplating why so many hours, weeks and months are dedicated to the preparation for this sacrament during the school day in our taxpayer-funded primary schools, while their “opt out” children sit idle and excluded, absorbing every lesson. – Yours, etc,
AOIFE CASSIDY,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.
Apolitical Oscars?
Sir,- Echoing Finn McRedmond’s article on the purportedly “apolitical Oscars” (Apolitical Oscars a chilling sign of the times, Opinion, March 6th), Mike Moran (Letters, March 8th) tells us that the Oscars ceremony “was both cowardly and fearful of retribution from an authoritarian administration”.
In that ceremony, the Oscar for best documentary went to the Palestinian/Israeli film No Other Land, a stark portrayal of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank. To a standing ovation, the Palestinian codirector Basel Adra expressed the wish that his recently born daughter’s life would be unlike his, “always fearing settler violence, home demolitions and forced displacement”.
Apolitical? Cowardly? I think not. – Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Dublin 7.
OCSE should step up
Sir, – Paul Gillespie argues (“Complacent liberals were too slow to see Trump coming,”, Opinion, 8th March) that “a colossal expansion of EU military capacity is not the way to deal with the Ukraine crisis” and that the EU “should instead do its own deal with Russia on security guarantees and political futures”. Tentatively, I would offer two observations in support of Gillespie’s vision.
First, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) is the dog that has not yet barked in the current crisis. The European Union, UK, Russia, Ukraine, US, Turkey, Switzerland, and a range of other potential actors meet every week in Vienna in the OSCE permanent council. Why not make the OSCE a venue for talks about talks, corridor conversations, and creative diplomacy? The OSCE is the global expert on security guarantees. The Helsinki process, in which the OSCE has its roots, is perhaps history’s best example of a dialogue on “political futures”.
Second, the customs union, the single market, the free movement of workers, the euro, agricultural policy, budgetary supports, and other aspects of shared sovereignty are likely to be applied by the EU in a differentiated way in different geographies (including post-Brexit Britain) over the rest of this decade. In 2012 and 2013, in published articles, Russia president Vladimir Putin floated the idea that the Eurasian Economic Union should gradually adopt EU standards. Similarly, the underlying assumption in the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 was that Ukraine might join the EU while retaining economic links to Russia. Is there something to work with here?
At the right moment, we might start to envisage a new all-European process aimed at: (i) recognition of the European Union as the anchor of a wider European zone of peace and economic co-operation (an important ask in both Moscow and Washington); (ii) the avoidance of binary economic choices in eastern Europe and the Caucasus; and, (iii), a renewed commitment to co-operative economic relationships at the global level, with particular reference to Africa (as Gillespie suggests). – Yours, etc,
PHILIP McDONAGH
Adjunct Professor,
Director, Centre for Religion, Human Values, and International Relations,
Dublin City University.
