by Barbara | Aug 31, 2018 | Political
The summer of 1979 will forever live in my memory as that special gap summer that occurs after you leave school and before you embark on the next phase – be it college or work. It was a summer of delicious discovery, of excitement and of freedom. I was 17 and by...
by Barbara | Oct 23, 2017 | Uncategorized
I had 32 days. 32 days in Perth, Western Australia; days of living Australian while fruitlessly searching for some good, sharp blackberry jam to go with my homemade scones (yep, I see what I did there.) I did manage to source Kerrygold butter, which my daughter told...
by Barbara | Jun 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
As I write it is ten am and the temperature in Dublin is 23 degrees. Now we all know that in Ireland temperatures of 23 degrees are unusual at the best of times, but this is about the fourth day in a row that we have reached such scorching heat. And in Ireland when...
by Barbara | Jun 7, 2017 | Religious Orders
We are currently riding another wave of self-congratulation on how modern and inclusive we are in Ireland, in the wake of the election of Leo Varadkar as Leader of Fine Gael and presumptive Taoiseach. We now have a leader to match Canada and France in terms of boyish...
by Barbara | Apr 21, 2016 | Religious Orders, Uncategorized
Every year, on the Sunday before International Women’s Day, the public are encouraged to place flowers on the graves of ‘Magdalene’s’ – so called fallen women, ‘unmarried mothers’ who were placed in laundries run by the church. I recently discovered that there had...