The age in which we live is, apparently, one of seismic political shifts. For some, a dangerous popularism is resurgent around the world. Others optimistically spy the end of neoliberal hegemony and the beginning of a new left renaissance. Regardless of where one falls on these questions, two recent books – Chris Arnade’s Dignity… Read more »

  This week saw Climate Case Ireland take to the Supreme Court to bring their case against the Irish Government for its failure to take climate action. The central challenge of Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), a voluntary network of citizens bringing forward the Climate Case on behalf of the people of Ireland (https://www.climatecaseireland.ie/),… Read more »

  We have never been so obsessed with experiments. In some sense, our former way of life ostensibly hinges on their success. Reports of the merest success against Covid-19 imbue us with hope. On the periphery of the pandemic, slightly more removed, many unintended social experiments have occurred or are ongoing in Ireland. Typically, social… Read more »

A common lament of those working in the area of prison policy is a lack of information. This has not been one of those weeks. Since the beginning of the week, a number of documents with either a full or partial focus on prisons – the Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2019, a draft Programme… Read more »

  The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice has made a submission to the Youth Justice Strategy 2020-2026 as part of the public consultation phase for the development of the document. We hope to contribute to the development of a fair and effective youth justice system which responds appropriately to children and young people who… Read more »

  Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Green Party yesterday published their proposed Programme for Government. 128 days after the General Election, this is the first concrete step towards the formation of a new government. The document – 126 pages long – will now be examined by the members of these political parties and by… Read more »

  It is less than two weeks since the Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, was caught on camera killing George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man. Floyd, who was a father of three, an accomplished sportsman, and a devout Christian had been suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 note. Protests in the city of Minneapolis… Read more »

  June 5th is World Environment Day 2020, which is happening against the backdrop of seismic global events including a pandemic, the mounting consequences of climate change and widespread protests against systemic and institutionalised racism, triggered by the murder of George Floyd by US police. Looking through an integral ecology lens allows us to see… Read more »

  We knew it could not last forever. I suppose we wish it could have lasted a little longer. There was a sense of the collective back in March. Curiously for our national holiday, people were at home and gathered around television sets to be addressed by the Taoiseach. Unsure of ourselves, and what a pandemic… Read more »

  There’s a kind of knowledge about the city that you can only learn on a saddle. It’s not just a familiarity with the camber of Dublin’s streets, or the distinctive staccato vibration brought about by tarmac as it degrades, or how the traffic lights are engineered so a cyclist has to move out into… Read more »