The Iona Blog

It’s worse than you thought. Welcome to the hook up culture.

Just when you thought that certain aspects of the culture couldn’t get any more sordid, you read a piece that makes you realise that things are sometimes a lot worse than we think. This New York Times feature explains that not only are US college students not waiting until marriage to have sex, or even...

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Lucinda warns that “group think” is dangerous for democracy

                    Lucinda Creighton’s principled stand against her own Government’s abortion Bill was widely seen as an act of rare political courage, even by some who disagreed with her position. Some have suggested that not only was she sacrificing her job as Minister for Europe, but a...

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How voters were duped into accepting the X Case

My latest column in The Irish Independent explains how Irish voters were manipulated into supporting abortion legislation by poor reporting, twisted media coverage of the medical facts and the bullying tactics employed by Fine Gael towards its own TDs. However, the passage of this Bill is by no means the end of the story. There...

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Lucinda Creighton’s latest speech on the Abortion Bill

                    In last night’s marathon debate on the Government’s Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, Lucinda Creighton gave one of the most thoughtful and thorough speeches. She provided an in depth analysis of the medical and legal flaws in the Bill. Here is her speech...

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Kenny is creating the perfect circumstances for a new party

            Presumably Enda Kenny does not want to create a political party to rival Fine Gael. But if he did, he couldn’t do better than the job he’s doing now. We learned this weekend that not only did Mr Kenny make an electoral promise to protect Ireland’s pro-life laws, they...

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What Lucinda Creighton said about the abortion Bill

On Monday, all eyes in the Dail were on Lucinda Creighton in anticipation of what she would have to say on the issue of the abortion Bill. She did not disappoint those who hoped she would express her opposition to the Bill. She has called for certain amendments, especially to Section 9 which deals with...

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The Atheist Magisterium turns on a fellow atheist

                One of America’s most noted philosophers is Thomas Nagel of New York University. Nagel is an atheist, but lately he has set a very large cat among his fellow atheists by dissenting from their reductionist, materialist doctrine which, among other things, denies the existence of free will....

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Irish debate over abortion dominated by “groupthink”, Creighton says

The Minister for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, has said she will vote according to her conscience on the abortion Bill and said she was “deeply concerned” about the suicide clause in the legislation. Speaking in the Dáil debate on the issue yesterday, she also criticised the “groupthink” which she said dominated the abortion issue in...

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Incoherence and illogic in the Dail abortion debate

I’ve been reading some of the contributions made in the Dail so far as part of the debate on the abortion Bill. Several stand out for all the wrong reasons. The worst I’ve come across so far is from Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn. He told the House, “this Bill, when enacted, will still not be...

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After Prime Time: what childcare is best for children?

On Tuesday The Iona Institute held a conference on child-care prompted by the recent Prime Time programme on this topic. The keynote speaker was Jonas Himmelstrand, a critic of the Swedish daycare system. He was interviewed by Drivetime on Monday. The next day, Drivetime interviewed a number of participants at the conference to give a...

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