If we look at the words and actions of Ruairí Quinn in his time as Minister for Education, a clear pattern begins to emerge. One big idea unites his suggestion that schools use the time allocated for religious education to teach Maths and the Forum on Patronage’s proposal that Catholic ‘Stand Alone Schools’ move away...
On the Saturday Night Show last weekend, presenter Brendan O’Connor read out an apology to Breda O’Brien, The Iona Institute, and writer and broadcaster John Waters after a guest a fortnight before had accused all of the aforementioned parties of being ‘homophobic’. RTE has also agreed to pay damages to the injured parties. The apology...
The brutal death of Tom O’Gorman has been in the headlines since news of what happened to him broke. Tom worked at The Iona Institute since its launch seven years ago this month. The thought and prayers of everyone at The Iona Institute are with Tom’s family and friends. In this short piece, Iona Institute...
Carissa Mulder, writing on the Public Discourse blog, has an interesting analysis of the contemporary threats to religious freedom. Mulder points out that, for most pundits interested in the subject, it appears that the homosexual lobby has posed the biggest threat to religious freedom. But she suggests that it may be sexual licence in general...
Do government programmes promoting marriage actually do any good, and specifically do they help to reduce poverty? A new study seems to indicate the answer is ‘no’, and if that is so then pro-marriage programmes lose much of their justification. However, Professor Brad Wilcox in this blog challenges the study. Wilcox says the study makes...
There is a growing body of research into the causes of happiness as this article from The New York Times points out. The research is allowing us to pinpoint what makes us happy and who is most likely to be happy. It appears that conservative women are most happy and liberal men are least happy....
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has an interesting piece about new research which suggests that parents with daughters are more likely to be conservative. Douthat believes that what might be driving this is the increased awareness that the culture which promotes commitment-free sex is damaging women more than men. He writes: “[A]s a father...
Last week the Australian High Court struck down a law in the Australian Capital Territory permitting same-sex marriage. It was a good decision, but with a considerable sting in the tail. It offered a definition of marriage that allows the Federal Parliament to define marriage in practically anyway at all. The decision defined marriage as...
Earlier this month saw the publication of the latest PISA results by the OECD. These measure the performance of 15-year-old school pupils in reading, mathematics and science. The results badly weaken the case of those who say the teaching of religion in our schools is dragging down academic standards because Ireland ranks well in the...
Unnoticed and unreported by most of the world’s media, on November 24 a group of several thousand pro-choice demonstrators decided to descend on the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in the city of San Juan, Argentina. What resulted is deeply disturbing to put it at its very mildest. The women had taken part in an annual...
