Irish Papist

"[Baptism] is like a birthday because baptism makes us reborn in Christian life. That is why I advise you to teach your children the da...

On the night of a full moon, a Philip Larkin poem that has grown and grown on me over the years.  I think of this poem every time I see a fu...

As I've often said, I love traditions. I've even created a whole blog about them, although whether it will ever get off the ground i...

A list of my favourite saints and possible future saints, that I jotted down recently, to remind myself to pray for their intercession.  Som...

Rock shandy is an Irish fizzy drink. It came about when fizzy orange was mixed with fizzy lemon, in a pub in Blackrock in south county Dubli...

Tomorrow is a bank holiday in Ireland. All my life I've hated bank holidays-- well, at least since leaving school. I hate the whole bank...

Tennyson's early work "The Owl" is a delightful vignette, the poetic equivalent to a miniature in art. Even though some of the...