FEATURES AND PUBLISHED ARTICLES
You might be interested to read a small selection of some of Mary's journalism. Any feedback is very welcome. Please respond using the form on the feedback page.
THE ARCHBISHOP IS WRONG – CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE PERSECUTED
The former Archbishop of Canterbury – that is, the leader of Anglicans, world-wide...
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THE ROAD TO WOMEN’S LIBERATION - MONEY
I was sorry I had to turn down an invitation from Trinity College Dublin’s eminent College Historical Society ...
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PERMISSIVE PARENTING – YES, PLEASE.
It is obvious that people are much more permissive with their children, nowadays, than parents (or teachers, or grandparents, or elders of any kind) used to be. ...
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CAN A RAPIST BE A GREAT MAN?
Can a man be both a rapist and a person of acknowledged greatness?
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Thoughts of a Jewish Buddhist
Golden Hawn, the American comedy star, has recently described herself as “a Jewish Buddhist”...
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LET GAY MEN MARRY ----- OLDER WOMEN
A friend of mine, who is a gay man, was explaining to me that he was once engaged to be married to a lady. “She was lovely,” he said. “I was mad about her.”
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PAEDOPHILE OFFENCES – THE CHURCH WAS SOFT ON CRIME
My mother-in-law had a good friend – a decent Protestant – who began reading about all the scandals rocking the Catholic church throughout the centuries, particularly focusing on the period of the wicked popes...
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KILLING AND KEEPING OFFICIOUSLY ALIVE
Last year, I spent a week in an old lady’s home – it was just a week’s convalescence after a spot of hip surgery, but it gave me a chilling insight into the way many of us spend the last years of our lives...
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OCCASIONS OF SIN: Sex & Society in Modern Ireland.
By Diarmaid Ferriter
Every society we know has tried to exercise controls over sexuality and its consequences. In Jewish culture, to be born out of wedlock was to be punished “unto the fourth generation”...
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WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN DUBLIN AT EASTER 1916
Speaking recently to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic, Mr Brian Cowen, invoked “the spirit of 1916” to urge businessmen to bring the country through the present economic gloom...
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The Literature of the Irish in Britain
This is an expensive academic book, yet for anyone interested in immigration and emigration, working-class (as well as more privileged) lives, personal memoir, and just a wonderful chronicle of the way things were, it is one of the most absorbing, and meticulously annotated collections I have encountered...
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60 Years on: the “Southern Unionists”, the Crown and the Irish Republic
When the Twenty-Six Counties – then known as “Eire” – became the Republic of Ireland in 1949, the change of status was greeted with a certain degree of mixed feelings...
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Why the Act of Settlement should Go
It was suggested in the spring of this year by Gordon Brown’s administration that the 1701 Act of Settlement should be reformed in two ways: female heirs should be made equal with male heirs, so that primogeniture – the first-born of whichever sex – should inherit...
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Archive of Past Articles and Journalism