Yesterday the Irish government published the Executive Summary of the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. It begins with the following statement: The story of mother and baby homes in Ireland is complex and its nuances cannot easily be captured in a summary. Well […]
The Psychological Society of Ireland have issued a report on vaccine hesitancy, Maximising the Benefit of a COVID-19 Vaccine: Getting the Psychology Right. I was part of the group that produced the report, which seeks to explain how psychological barriers to vaccine uptake can best be overcome. The report was […]
There has been another racist attack on property in Galway, where I live: Arsonists have burned down a house that the local council was preparing for new residents. A family from the Traveller Community were about to move in. Late on Sunday night, just before 5 am, attackers set the […]
So Ireland is having yet another vote, this time — of all things — to elect its government. As international readers might be aware, for this type of election, Ireland uses a voting system called proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV). It’s fun! Your job as a voter […]
Social controversies are frequently seized upon by bigots. In Britain, for example, the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum saw a sharp increase in racist incidents, with reports of people being harassed on the street, jeered at in shops, and barracked at passport control in airports. There is even a […]
Releasing the Genie Notwithstanding frantic after-the-fact efforts to rehabilitate the town’s reputation, there is little doubt that alt-right/far-right extremists successfully infiltrated that public meeting in Oughterard. The townspeople currently protesting the proposed Direct Provision facility (Ireland’s version of an asylum seeker reception centre) are not members of any far-right organisation. They are […]
