Jennifer O’Connell: I’d legalise cannabis, but not gladlyI don’t much want to be part of a society where people sit around at dinner parties doing bad Elmo impressionsMon Oct 06 2014 - 01:00
Jennifer O’Connell: Escape the anxious parent trapParanoid parenting isn’t about actual risk: it is about our need for controlMon Sept 29 2014 - 00:00
Whose fault is all dis cod Irishness?Dingy pubs, busty wenches and funerals – welcome to the Ireland of American adsMon Sept 22 2014 - 01:00
Babies don’t care how much you spend on themDo you really need that sunflower-shaped bath or those baby knee-pads?Wed May 28 2014 - 01:00
Menstrual leave? I’ll pass, thanksWomen in Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan are entitled to time off when they have their period – but it’s less about liberation than a horror of women’s bodily fluidsWed May 21 2014 - 01:00
Dublin has a lot of growing up to doIf the success of its shared public spaces are the measure of a mature city, our capital has a long way to goWed May 14 2014 - 01:00
The offline life is well worth livingIf Socrates had had Facebook, he might have decided that the overexamined life was as problematic as the underexaminedWed May 07 2014 - 01:00
Office politics: the horrors of the workplaceMost of us have far worse anecdotes from the front line of gainful employment than the recent leaks from the office of Ségolène RoyalWed Apr 30 2014 - 01:00
21 things every Irish person in Australia should knowDo you know your bogans from your rorting, and your Vegemite from your Golden Gaytimes?Wed Apr 23 2014 - 01:00
A whole Lottie love for female superdollsThe canon of girl action heroes is dismal. Thanks heavens, then, for Donegal-based toy company Arklu’s dolls of pirate queens and bespectacled robot designersWed Apr 16 2014 - 01:00
Gender politics: he, she or zie?Last week, the Australian high court ruled that the sex of Norrie May-Welby was ‘non-specific’Wed Apr 09 2014 - 01:00
Fertility is not just an issue for womenWhat’s the point of this constant badgering women about their egg count?Wed Apr 02 2014 - 01:00
A sneaking sympathy for Patrick NultyHe may have been suffering from the Bart Simpson delusion: if no one saw you do it, it never happenedWed Mar 26 2014 - 01:00
Putting the brakes on sexist moresWhile we’re banning ‘bossy’, here’s a few more words I’d like to usher into oblivionWed Mar 19 2014 - 00:00
Food used to be a simple pleasureThe question isn’t whether it is protein or carbohydrates that kill you first -- it is how we survived long enough to get hereWed Mar 12 2014 - 01:00
Jennifer O’Connell: Seven things women wantHappiness, equal pay, less guilt – and cut us a bit of slack every now and thenWed Mar 05 2014 - 01:00
Are you suffering from the Ikea effect?We feel a disproportionate affection towards something we helped to createWed Feb 26 2014 - 01:20
Loneliness: the last of the taboosWho wants to be the solitary voice in a feed of holiday snaps and baby photos admitting that, actually, life’s not that great and you’re pretty bloody lonely?Wed Feb 19 2014 - 01:00
Wherever I live, I have a bit of Waterford to take with meYou might pass a stretch of Viking wall, an 18th century townhouse and an old Quaker cemetery on your way to buy a pint of milkMon Feb 17 2014 - 01:00
Dark undercurrents: the Australian obsession with Schapelle CorbyThe ongoing preoccupation with Corby, who spent nine years in a Bali prison cell for drug smuggling, is rooted in snobbery, misogyny, and xenophobiaWed Feb 12 2014 - 01:00
This Woody Allen script is familiarVersions of this story have been played out before, in every Irish communityWed Feb 05 2014 - 01:00
Chaps, step away from the eyelinerWhen we said we wanted equality, the chance to compare pore sizes wasn’t quite what we had in mindWed Jan 29 2014 - 11:06
20 things you don’t need to do before you dieFeel free to ignore this list and not do your own 20 things insteadWed Jan 22 2014 - 10:46
How are babies made? Ask the Supreme Court, darlingParents entering into arrangements such as surrogacy are doing so in a legal vacuum, in which everyone risks being exploitedWed Jan 15 2014 - 01:00
Ten phrases we Irish could live without. Just saying‘Twerk’ has been voted the most annoying phrase of 2013. But if the list had been compiled in Ireland, we suspect it might have been a little differentWed Jan 08 2014 - 01:00
Jennifer O'Connell: How Australia sees Ireland. Seven modern stereotypesThe caricatures of us as drinkers, pugilists and poets linger on – but what else does the rest of the world privately think of us?Wed Dec 18 2013 - 01:00
Ten top Christmas conversation killersAs families and friends get together over the holidays, here’s our guide to 10 hot-button topics to avoid if you don’t want a bloodbath over the turkeySat Dec 14 2013 - 01:00
Selfie, word of 2013, sums up our age of narcissismIt’s hard to think of a more appropriate symbol of kind of society we've becomeWed Dec 11 2013 - 09:49
Disrupting the pink aisle? Not quite, GoldieBloxDisney’s ‘Frozen’ and the girls’ toy GoldieBlox are really just clever marketing ploys by companies promising that they take gender equality seriouslyWed Dec 04 2013 - 12:34
Having my kids arrested was the best €20 I ever spentWe are raising a generation of super-confident, cosseted monstersWed Nov 27 2013 - 07:38
At last a bit of honesty about the post-birth bodyHurrah for Lily Allen and the video for her new single, a witty riposte to our ridiculous standards for women’s bodiesWed Nov 20 2013 - 01:00
Season’s eatings: an Australian obsession we could all learn fromAustralia has won me over with its evangelical dedication to buying fresh, local produce when it is in seasonWed Nov 13 2013 - 01:00
Lost in translation: How to sound the business when you don’t know what you’re talking aboutA beginner’s guide to business jargonTue Nov 12 2013 - 00:30
Down Under diariesAlmost 80,000 Irish people have moved to Australia since 2008. Has it lived up to their expectations? And will they come back?Sat Nov 09 2013 - 01:00
‘Parent’: from noun, to verb, to competitionHaving children, successive studies have found, doesn’t make you any happier – and can actually make you less happyWed Nov 06 2013 - 15:16
Cultural hang-ups about food are making us fatterStories about babies being fed blended McDonald’s make the rest of us feel better – but the truth about obesity is much more complexWed Oct 30 2013 - 07:09
Australian bush fires: what turns a child into a ‘firebug’?This week’s arrests suggest that better education on fire hazards for schoolchildren should be part of any future bush-fire prevention planWed Oct 23 2013 - 01:00
The Nobel committee was right not to choose MalalaFor all her intelligence, the girl who was shot by the Taliban is still just 16 and recovering from a life-threatening injuryWed Oct 16 2013 - 01:00
The bra: 100 years old and holding up wellThe bra has always had a cultural significance that goes far beyond its purpose as, in the immortal words of Bette Midler, ‘an over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder’Wed Oct 09 2013 - 10:06
The White Widow is the new Black WidowSamantha Lewthwaite is the latest example of the media’s desire to iconicise women accused of involvement in violent crimeWed Oct 02 2013 - 01:00
Society is obsessed with presexualised girlsIreland has a history of moral panics about female sexuality, but we’re not the only ones in a tizz about child beauty pageantsWed Sept 25 2013 - 01:00
Australia’s new Irish aren’t ‘victims of emigration’Emigration is an emotive term, burdened down by memories of food parcels, one-way tickets in steerage and long-lost uncles. But it’s not always a tragedyWed Sept 18 2013 - 01:00
A ‘bullsh*t job’ is better than no job at allAnthropologist believes ruling class ‘has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on its hands is a mortal danger’Wed Sept 11 2013 - 01:00
Ghost of Gillard haunts Australian politicsTo those outside Australia, that nation’s first female prime minister is an iconic figure. To Australians, she seemed cold, shrill and a bit dourWed Sept 04 2013 - 01:00
Goodbye anonymity: let’s unmask the internetThe Huffington Post’s aim to validate the identity of every new user is ambitious, and it may not succeed – but it is right to tryWed Aug 28 2013 - 01:00
Men are being done a disservice by society’s paedophilia paranoiaBelieving a sexual predator lurks behind every tree is neither healthy nor commendableWed Aug 21 2013 - 01:00
Vomit and flying fists? Doesn’t sound like an Irish pub to meAustralia’s Irish bars have been getting a bad rap. But on a recent crawl in Sydney, from the Cock’n’Bull, in Bondi Junction, to PJ O’Brien’s and Scruffy Murphy’s, in the central business district, the most frightening thing was a sticky floorSat Aug 17 2013 - 01:00
Don’t ban the internet. Educate your kidsChildren need to be taught, as early as possible, about the consequences that can spiral from an anonymous, 140-character tweetWed Aug 14 2013 - 01:00
