Diarmaid Ferriter

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

In 1988, journalist Francine Cunningham wrote in this newspaper about growing evidence of stress-related resignations from the teaching profession in Ireland, noting that in the previous year, these pressures had led to the departure of 50 secondary schoolteachers. The framework of understanding for this phenomenon, however, was slight, as “there has been no solid research done on the subject of teachers and stress in Ireland”, she wrote.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Until two years ago, I was unaware there was such a thing as a “life administration” day. This was how I heard a radio presenter describe her day off; a clearing of the decks to sort out bills and make calls to utility companies. As such duties have become ever more irksome and time consuming, a single day will hardly suffice. We are constantly told to shop around, switch providers, do our services homework and compare a multitude of plans.

3 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

The recent sourness pervading Dáil proceedings has generated understandable criticism of lack of decorum. There is little doubt the language heard in the Dáil has become coarser; insults such as buffoon, guttersnipe, corner boy and yahoo, once regarded as egregious, now look tame given the contemporary preponderance of the F- word and Michael Lowry’s recent two fingered gesture.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

One hundred years ago this month, those intent on purifying Dublin orchestrated a clampdown on the city’s red-light district. The previous year, a vocal commentator on sexual immorality, the Jesuit priest Richard S Devane, had suggested that as long as the British army garrison was in Dublin, “it was impossible to deal with prostitution effectively.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Willie Walsh, the Catholic bishop of Killaloe from 1994 to 2011, who died last month, was admirable in his uncertainty, not just about the institution he represented, but his own faith. As a seminarian in 1952, he came to his vocation when, in the words of historian Daithí Ó Corráin, the Irish Catholic Church had become a “lazy monopoly” which ultimately proved “to be its greatest burden”.