Suicide in Ireland, particularly among male teens, is on the rise. Sharon Ní Chonchúir reports. Few teenagers make a mark on Irish society in the way 16-year-old Tralee native Donal Walsh did. Having battled cancer on three separate occasions, Donal finally succumbed to the disease in May. But before he died, he spread a serious message. He spoke out urging people, especially … [Read more...] about When They Want to End It
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Knowing When to Help
If you suspect something, do something. April Drew writes from personal experience. It was a little after 8 p.m. on a cold and dark Sunday evening. It was the first Sunday of 2009. Christmas was just over and the January blues were setting in all around the world. I was sipping tea at my desk in our Bronx apartment and working on the computer when I heard my phone barely … [Read more...] about Knowing When to Help
An Irish Tradition: Nursing
Compassion mixed with equal doses of technical competence and good humor has enabled Irish nurses to help generations of American patients. Nurses were Ireland’s biggest export in the late 1980s when Anne Kelly finished her five years of training, first as a nurse and then as a midwife. “The job situation at home was bad and everyone was going somewhere else,” she … [Read more...] about An Irish Tradition: Nursing
Hospital Nuns: From the Civil War to Today
From the Civil War to Chicago’s Mercy Hospital, the extraordinary history of Irish nuns in health care. The Sisters of Mercy were the first women to go with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War in 1854. They worked with her to make nursing more effective and to improve sanitary conditions. In America, the Sisters of Mercy would make their impact on the battlefields in … [Read more...] about Hospital Nuns: From the Civil War to Today
A Way of Healing
In memory of her brother David, who died of of MS related causes, Honora Harty flew from San Francisco to Dublin to join a group of MS Ireland walkers embarking on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), the ancient pilgrimage route. The walkers picked up the trail in Estella in northeast Spain and walked to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on the west … [Read more...] about A Way of Healing