Museum eye : Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum

In his painting Departure, Pádraic Reany depicts an apocalyptic human procession trudging across a blighted and bloodied potato field, the emaciated dead lying beneath the feet of the mourners, the living marching towards perpetual exile on a famine ship. The anger of the piece encapsulates the mood of the inaugural exhibition of the newly opened … Read more

crossword no. 20

Across 1 George Coppinger ———, Irish architect noted for his work on churches and cathedrals (6). 5 Sixth-century British cleric and author of De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (6). 10 Clock Gate Tower and Tynte’s Castle are found in this Irish port town (7). 11 This treaty brought the War of the Spanish Succession to … Read more

A pope emeritus?

‘Christ did not come down from the cross’ was the late Pope John Paul II’s response when questions were raised about his failing health and painfully obvious public suffering in the latter years of his pontificate. So how do we explain the surprise resignation announcement of his successor, Benedict XVI, in contravention of papal tradition (some exceptional medieval cases notwithstanding)? The ‘rules were made to be broken’ adage seems to apply—with the evolution of medical science people are living longer, but not necessarily with their full mental or physical faculties. But the same argument could apply to the evolution of social attitudes and the Church’s line on homosexuality, clerical celibacy and women priests.

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Breaking the silence on abortion:the 1983 referendum campaign

An anti-abortion rally outside the GPO in the early 1980s. (Derek Spiers)
An anti-abortion rally outside the GPO in the early 1980s. (Derek Spiers)

The passing of the 1967 Abortion Act that legalised abortion in the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland) was a source of controversy in the Irish Republic, where access to contraception was illegal. After 1967, increasing numbers of Irish women availed of access to abortion services in Britain while the debate about women’s right to control their own fertility carried on against a background of difficult legal cases. In 1981 the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign (PLAC) secured pre-election promises from both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to amend the constitution to ensure that abortion could not be introduced either by legislation or by the courts. Many Catholic bishops and priests spoke out in favour of the amendment, but all the other mainstream churches opposed it. Fianna Fáil backed the proposal, Fine Gael was divided, and Labour and the Workers’ Party and liberal forces generally opposed it, although all stressed that they were not advocating the legalisation of abortion.

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