Taking teachers seriously as professionals would solve some big problems in Irish education
Primary and post-primary schools are struggling to fill teaching posts and having to resort to employing unqualified people. Why?
The lure of AI companionship poses a real danger to vulnerable people
The same online forces that nudged Gen Z into a pit of loneliness using algorithms are selling AI companionship to them
Ireland is in an adolescent stage where everything that smacks of Old Ireland is embarrassing
John Henry Newman’s legacy has fallen victim to the new orthodoxy that there is nothing good at all in Catholicism
Let’s stop glorifying motherhood and glorify parenthood instead
But we’ll need more than just a cultural shift if we’re to stop birth rates falling further
Parents facilitating a 16-year-old’s ‘prinks’ is a sign of our weird relationship with alcohol
With alcohol labelling, we were on the verge of doing something as revolutionary as the smoking ban. Then we chickened out
As abortions triple, when will we admit that reluctant repealers were profoundly wrong?
We collect statistics on where abortions happen in Ireland and under what part of the legislation, and little else. We have zero interest in knowing why women have them
Some schools are relying on deposit return scheme to stop them going broke
More is being spent on free hot meals for students than on education itself
Oliver Plunkett’s story would make a great film – it’s a shame modern, secular Ireland has forgotten him
This year marks the 400th anniversary of Oliver Plunkett’s birth and the 50th since his canonisation. Coverage has been muted
My friend finally has a diagnosis of lipoedema, but she still feels judged when she explains it
Many young women try to cure the condition, which often starts in puberty, with diet and exercise - and lose weight everywhere but their legs (or arms)
Reformed Leaving Cert would allow too many opportunities to cheat using AI
Every step is already susceptible to AI intervention, from brainstorming ideas to generating a structure for each section, to writing the entire piece
Dogs are being treated as substitute children. How did we end up here?
By the time couples feel they are in the right place and can afford children, women’s fertility has often declined
Why are people in their late 20s and 30s so disillusioned with religion?
One in four would be happy to see the Catholic Church vanish from society – but it’s 25- to 34-year-olds, not 18- to 24-year-olds, who are the most disenchanted
Teachers are being bullied into accepting reforms that will damage education
Unethical use of AI is rampant and in danger of producing students whose degrees are essentially meaningless
Pope Leo XIV in Ireland: Unassuming and personable, he answered emails on the friary stairs
The key to understanding the former Bob Prevost, say those who met him in Ireland, is not as an American pope or a liberal or conservative one, but as a South American one
€2,000 refund for teaching graduates may just go towards their flight to Australia
Ireland's schools are facing a polycrisis