Breda O'Brien

We should be thankful people still want to be teachers, instead of making it almost impossible for them to live while training

Breda O’Brien: The real headline is not the decline of Catholicism but the subtle and not-so-subtle ways our society is being shaped by the object of veneration that is replacing it - capitalism

Breda O’Brien: There should be more to life than being manipulated by algorithms to consume more

Embarrassing as it is, research shows children want their parents to speak to them about pornography

Breda O’Brien: Teenagers, not known for their extensive fact-checking or emotional balance, are expected to train Snapchat’s My AI monster for free

Let’s stop presuming bad faith. The gulf between those who are pro-choice and pro-life isn’t as wide as it sometimes appears

Women are being failed on systemic level, leading some to feel that their only, despairing choice is abortion

Breda O’Brien: Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium are troubling indicators of what could happen in Ireland

The expansion of critical thinking allows us to move beyond mysteries and explore our reality

Where people were raised by people with visible, sincere, practical faith, they were far less likely to lose their faith in God

Francis is earnestly trying to provide a moral compass, an antidote to the individualism and consumerism that is posing an undeniable threat to our shared, fragile planet

The Burke family are far from representative of the diverse homeschool movement, which in some cases can be far more effective than school

Church must offer an alterative to contemporary values if it wants to help teenagers grappling with anxiety and frightening levels of meaninglessness

Referendum is likely to devalue the work of mothers and fathers even more, by subsuming their specific roles into a generic caring role

Are women being informed about all their options - such as continuing a pregnancy or considering adoption - by State-provided services?

Breda O’Brien: It is not enough for Kate Forbes to be talented. She must also avoid thoughtcrime

Persecution of Catholic Church, including jailing of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, must be challenged

Mental health has been deteriorating for years among the young but this cohort has had a particularly rough time

Brigid can be revered as a goddess and as a saint but the abbess of a powerful monastery cannot be erased in favour of a goddess with scant sources

Reforming the Senior Cycle to allow for more continuous assessment has suddenly become a lot riskier thanks to this pioneering piece of AI

Australian cleric won respect for the dignity with which he endured 404 days in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, for crimes he did not commit

Sinn Féin is benefiting from politics of houses trumping history. But what if it fails?

Easing restrictions and other reforms are essential at a time when demand for teachers is outstripping supply

Allowing women the space to reflect on a matter of life and death is something both sides should agree on

In run-up to Repeal referendum, some 56% of babies diagnosed in-utero with Down syndrome were aborted

Government must provide incentives to people to remain in or enter teaching to address significant issue

The Catholic Church richly deserves opprobrium for acts of horrifying evil, but that does not mean religious orders should have no right to speak or even exist

Women and men are being conditioned to see practices such as strangulation as normal, and women are dying because of it

Truth cannot compete with an evermore rapidly spinning toxic brew of tweets, clips and soundbites

A ‘Panorama’ documentary about the pope’s ‘secret ’ relationship with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka tells a one-sided story

This insightful account shows how uniting, strategic, and effective the campaign was

Care must be taken in drawing lessons from Quebec study linking subsidised childcare to crime rates

The predictable chorus that we ‘must look after our own first’ is depressing

Having breastfed three babies, I can guess their answers

‘My bank doesn’t want me cluttering up its premises. It makes this clear by closing most of its teller windows, keeping the queue long and slow’

The marriage referendum created some new heroines as clowns played on

Live blog starts at 8.30am with in-depth analysis and political reaction over the weekend

Barnados chief Fergus Finlay says the media ‘needs to get real about this too’

Presenter chairs new RTÉ show with emotive discussion on same-sex marriage

About 190,000 short-term unemployed will get no water support payment