Previous Day
The triumph of Easter
GOOD FRIDAY has been free to date of the tendency to commercialise and secularise religious holidays. So far, there are no noticeable efforts by card makers to cash in on it nor have the windows of the best department stores been decorated with Good Friday themes. For the message of Good Friday is stark and challenging: it asks questions to which there are no easy, slick, commercial or profitable answers. p
A visit by the queen
THE ONLY unusual aspect of a visit to the Republic of Queen Elizabeth II, mooted this week after her meeting in Belfast with President McAleese, is that it has not yet happened. Given that it is almost 12 years since former president Mary Robinson made the first official visit by an Irish head of state to the queen, normal diplomatic reciprocity would suggest that the compliment should have been returned a long time ago. Given, too, that Mrs McAleese issued an informal invitation to Queen Elizabeth during a meeting at Buckingham Palace in 2002, the extraordinary delay has made the whole issue of a state visit far more fraught than it needs to be. p
Opinion
Silence of FF TDs on Ahern finances speaks volumes
ANALYSIS No FF TD seems to have a problem with Bertie Ahern - a sad commentary on the state of Irish politics, writes Stephen Collins . pBetter way to manage HSE needs to be found
ANALYSIS GROWING ANECDOTAL evidence that the Health Service Executive is a dysfunctional organisation delivering a service insensitive to the needs of patients was confirmed with the recent publication of three reports into the Portlaoise breast cancer debacle. pEaster Sunday's message of hope has been obscured
A culture steeped in Catholicism leaves us with the darkness of Good Friday but not the Good News, writes John Waters . pMoral high ground is shifting beneath secularists' feet
OPINION Anti-religious zealotry will not eradicate religion. But it may prompt it to assume grotesque forms, writes John Gray. pMinghella an inspirational film-maker and a generous man too
It took an intervention by the late film director to rescue my writing career, writes John Boyne . p111-year-old New Zealander rewarded for his patience
THE MAGPIE : A NEW Zealander, Henry the tuatara, was observed having sex last Friday afternoon. This surprised curators at the Longtime Southland Museum and Art Gallery where for the past two months Henry, who is aged 111, has been sharing space with three female tuatara, in the hope he would breed for the first time. At 5pm - precisely - curator Lindsay Hazley saw to his delight that Henry was getting intimate with Mildred, a "prolific breeder" aged a mere 70 to 80 years. p
An Irishman's Diary
TODAY is World Poetry Day, as designated by Unesco. So it seems as good a time as any to publish this curious document I found recently in a skip. Undated, but yellowing at the edges and clearly quite old, it appears to have originated in the offices of An Bord Pleanála, or possibly that body's predecessor. p
