A little of what you fancy does you good, said the old music hall song. Wise advice. And don’t worry if your fancy doesn’t stretch to vegan diets or running marathons in your back garden. Whatever your weakness it can be turned to a strength at the click of a mouse. Just Google your vice […]
I, like you, remember February 2020 like it was yesterday. I remember the first murmurs that something was brewing in China, and that they had built a hospital overnight—because that’s just the way they do things on the side of the world that’s still functioning. I remember the water-cooler jokes about how great it would […]
For more than 50 years Michael Wolsey has been writing columns and comment pieces for newspapers in Ireland and England. He is a regular contributor to KilkennyNow.ie. A through-the-years selection of these writings has now been published by Amazon. As I Was Saying: Fifty Years of Comment from the Columns of Irish Newspapers is a ramble […]
When discussion began on how to conduct this year’s Leaving Cert exams I assumed the issues were about safety and space. Could schools accommodate that number of students within the rules of social distancing? Would the mingling of teenagers before and after exams send Covid infection rates soaring? But it seems these were not the […]
There used to be a children’s television programme about Billy Bean “who built a machine to see what it could do … he made it out of sticks and stones, and nuts and bolts and glue”. Billy was full of incredible schemes, as crazy as his machine. I wonder if Alister Jack was ever a […]
When the idea of a new national children’s hospital was first mooted I was the father of young girls. I sincerely hoped our family would never need its services but I was pleased, nevertheless, to learn of the plan, since the hospitals that catered for children were outdated and difficult to reach. My daughters have […]
Whatever happened to rounding? No, not rounders – although, come to think of it, it’s years since I last saw anyone playing that old family favourite. Rounders has been with us for as long as people have played with bat and ball. Rounding arrived just six years ago. It came in with a bang and […]
I sometimes wonder if there is an office in the Department of Foreign Affairs charged with finding Irish roots for American presidents. If so, they have made a fine job of it, for Irish links have been discovered for almost every president since World War Two. Kennedy and Reagan were easy, of course. the clues […]
Before America introduced national prohibition in 1920, an anti-drink campaigner by the name of Pussyfoot Johnson attempted to bring it in state by state. If he couldn’t persuade a state’s legislators to order a total ban on the sale of alcohol he would aim for minor restrictions designed to make drinking as unpleasant and difficult […]
Today is set to be a historic day as the report into the Mother and Baby Homes is finally published. The existence of Mother and Baby Homes casts a dark shadow in our country’s history. Too often, women, girls and their children were cast off by a society which decided to exclude and shame them […]