Brian Dooley writes about Irish-trained doctors imprisoned for treating protesters. Ask most people what they know about Bahrain and chances are it won’t be much – the smallest country in the Middle East is known a bit for being on the Grand Prix circuit and for its pearl industry. In the last few years it has also gained a reputation as the place where the government … [Read more...] about The Trouble in Bahrain
August September 2014 Issue
Living with MS
Sharon Ní Chonchúir breaks her silence about living with MS to give people inspiration and motivation to help themselves. My name is Sharon and I’ve got multiple sclerosis. It sounds as though I’m introducing myself to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting but I have cause for solemnity. I was diagnosed with this condition four years ago but it’s only in the past few months that … [Read more...] about Living with MS
Sláinte: The Mighty Salmon
While health practitioners now praise the protein and amino acids provided by salmon, it has long had its place in Irish history simply because it is such good eating. Every year more than 180,000 people visit Ireland expressly to engage in an activity that has been one of the island’s top drawing cards since the first intrepid hunter-gatherers arrived over 7,000 years ago: … [Read more...] about Sláinte: The Mighty Salmon
Poem: “Soda Bread”
She said she’d lost the knack—not the recipe, which had never been written down— but the knack of mixing the dough just so, not too much, not too little, so that the moist, buttery loaves rose into their perfectly rounded shapes, the cross impressed in the top revealing itself as the crust hardened, sure as the Annunciation. It was because my father had … [Read more...] about Poem: “Soda Bread”
Review of Books
Fiction Someone By Alice McDermott Someone captures the universal experience of life’s joys and tragedies in the story of Marie Commeford, a most unremarkable woman. The novel begins in Depression-era Brooklyn as Marie, a myopic 7-year-old sitting on the stoop waiting for her father, chats with a teenage neighbor, Pegeen. Despite Marie’s bottle-bottom glasses, she still … [Read more...] about Review of Books