Yesterday I represented Atheist Ireland at a consultation meeting of the Irish Children’s Rights Alliance, to kick-start the process of briefing the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child before it questions Ireland about its obligations under the most widely accepted UN human rights treaty. The UN Covenant on the Rights of the […]
Yesterday I chaired the launch of “They shoot children, don’t they?”, a report by Professor Liam Kennedy of Queen’s University Belfast on paramilitary attacks on children in Northern Ireland from 1990 to 2013. You can read the report here: Part One – Overview and Statistics Part Two – Case Studies and Conclusion Overview of report
This is Part 1 of “They shoot children, don’t they?”, a report by Professor Liam Kennedy of Queen’s University Belfast on paramilitary attacks on children in Northern Ireland from 1990 to 2013. It is launched today to mark this month’s 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is Part […]
This is Part 2 of “They shoot children, don’t they?”, a report by Professor Liam Kennedy of Queen’s University Belfast on paramilitary attacks on children in Northern Ireland from 1990 to 2013. It is launched today to mark this month’s 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is Part […]
Yesterday Latsot, a pseudonymous occasional guest blogger at FreeThought Blogs, called me a champion of horrible people, a monster, actually crazy, and a weird obsessive crazy person, after I responded to his open letter to me that he had published on his blog. He also called Ashling O’Brien, Dublin Chairperson of Atheist Ireland, a lying wanker […]
The word GUBU was coined in 1982 when a double murder suspect was arrested in the home of the Irish Attorney General, and Taoiseach Charles Haughey described the scandal as grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. 25 years later, when a Tribunal asked Taoiseach Bertie Ahern about an unexplained financial lodgement, Ahern said that he won it on the […]
I have just watched the second part of A Parting Gift, RTE’s documentary about people, including my late wife Anne Holliday, who donated their bodies to the anatomy school in Trinity College Dublin. I’ve already reviewed the first part here, which like this followed medical students through a year of learning from their silent teachers, […]
There is a strange online meme called ‘tone-trolling’, whereby some people who are rude and abusive to you will complain if you ask them to be polite. Now there is a new turbo-charged version called ‘sea-lioning’, whereby they will also complain that you are being persistently polite yourself. It is as if some people want […]
In September 2014, I wrote a review challenging a pattern of misrepresentations and smears in the atheist movement that had started to leak into mainstream media. One of the main culprits, PZ Myers, responded by alleging that I defend, provide a haven for, and support rapists, and he has repeatedly refused to apologise for this […]
I debated Doctor Michael Moran on BBC Radio Ulster last week. He is a medical doctor on the committee that evaluates miracles at Lourdes. I will be debating him again in a few weeks on RTE, along with others in a panel discussion about miracles, so I am reviewing what I know about Lourdes. In 2007 Pope […]