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James Quinn and his classmates called it the blackjack - five layers and 18 inches (46 cm) of leather, studded with coins and other metal objects. The priests at the school Quinn attended in rural Ireland in the 1950s each carried a blackjack and used it, along with bamboo rods and other objects, to dole out almost daily beatings to hundreds of children. "Whatever class you went to, you got a beating from whoever was in charge," says Quinn, now 70. "But knowing what other people went through, I know I was one of the lucky ones." Quinn was one...

To discuss the scandal of child abuse in the Catholic Church without factoring in the role of the Vatican is to miss the main point. Irish Catholics had been told in advance, by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in his Holy Thursday homily, that the contents of the report of the commission of inquiry published yesterday would “shock us all”. But we may doubt whether all were sufficiently prepared for what’s emerged. We are set for days of discussion of the different levels of culpability of priests, bishops, diocesan authorities, the institutional Church, society at large. Pope Benedict will likely issue...

DUBLIN — A fiercely debated, nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. High Court Justice Sean Ryan on Wednesday unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions.

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions. It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial...

DUBLIN — A fiercely debated, nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. High Court Justice Sean Ryan on Wednesday unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions. More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families — a category that often included unmarried mothers...

Former supermodel Kathy Ireland is making no secret about her opposition to abortion – a position that puts her at odds with much of Hollywood and the world’s glitterati. In an interview with Fox News, Ireland described her conversion to a pro-life position.

Wednesday April 29, 2009 Former Supermodel Kathy Ireland Gives Powerful Defense of Right to Life on National Television By Matthew Cullinan HoffmanUNITED STATES, April 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Former supermodel Kathy Ireland, who became famous in the 1980s and 90s for her appearances on the cover of Sports Illustrated, is not holding back on her pro-life views as she tours the nation promoting her new book on motherhood.In a recent appearance on Fox News' "Huckabee," Ireland gave an explanation of the right to life that host Mike Huckabee said was the most articulate that he had ever heard from any source (see video...

Here is an excerpt of an interesting piece from FOXNEWS about how previously "pro-choice" supermodel Kathy Ireland went from believing in abortion to speaking out against about it: "My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science." ... "What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA...

It’s no secret that the majority of Hollywood stars are strong advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy, however former "Sports Illustrated" supermodel-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Kathy Ireland has gone against the grain of the glitterati and spoken out against abortion. "My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science," Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book "Real...

A new Health Services Executive (HSE) report has revealed waiting times of two years or more for colonoscopies, a check which should be performed within four weeks to look for cancer and other conditions. It shows that there are 909 patients around the country waiting for a colonoscopy, a test thatallows a doctor to see if there are any abnormal growths. In December, Minister for Health Mary Harney told the HSE to comply with a target of access to a colonoscopy within four weeks of being referred by a doctor. AdvertisementHowever, the HSE report reveals that 59 patients are waiting...

About 15 masked men armed with steel bars, chains and nail-studded clubs ransacked a Shell pipeline site, police said today, in the latest trouble for Ireland’s most controversial energy project. The vandals smashed security fences Wednesday shortly before midnight and forced unarmed guards on duty to retreat. One guard suffered an arm injury when struck by a steel pipe, according to Ireland’s national police force. Shell has spent four years battling opponents of the project in both the courts and on the ground in rural County Mayo, where the global energy giant has government permission to pump natural gas from...

CORK, Ireland April 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When a British professor of medical ethics was slated to speak at Cork University Hospital (CUH) in Ireland advocating legalising euthanasia, including "involuntary euthanasia," he did not expect to be met with an angry group of Irish patriots determined to see him off in the name of their nation's constitution. Professor Len Doyal, emeritus professor of medical ethics at Queen Mary, University of London, is a euthanasia advocate and has said that "involuntary euthanasia" should be permitted. He has advocated changing British law to allow doctors in some cases to end patients' lives...

Dr. Tom Dillon, President of Thomas Aquinas College, was killed in a car accident earlier today. The TAC community is absolutely devastated. Please pray for them, for Dr. Dillon's family, and most especially for Dr. Dillon himself. He was a truly extraordinary man. I treasured the times I had with him: on the basketball court, in the cafeteria, in the classroom, in the office... I only wish I had treasured them more. May he rest in peace.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams Thursday denounced the Israel-led blockade on Gaza as having turned the coastal strip into an "open-air prison," news agencies reported. "This is a total denial of the rights of the people of Palestine. This is an open-air prison," The Guardian quoted the Sinn Fein president as saying during a visit to the Hamas-ruled territory. "People can't travel out of here, they can't travel in." Adams met with the head of the internationally-shunned Hamas government during a two-day visit to Gaza, and said he plans to brief President Obama's special Mideast envoy about his contacts. "Mr....

Scientific evidence of an ancient invasion of Scotland from Ireland may have been uncovered by DNA techniques. Researchers from Edinburgh University said studies of Scots living on Islay, Lewis, Harris and Skye found strong links with Irish people. Early historical sources recount how the Gaels came from Ireland about 500 AD and conquered the Picts in Argyll. Scientists said the study was the first demonstration of a significant Irish genetics component in Scots' ancestry. The research, which features work by geneticist Dr Jim Wilson, a specialist in population genetics, is being featured in programmes on Gaelic television channel BBC Alba....

ELECTRONIC TAGGING for “tax exiles” is being considered by the Department of Finance in advance of next week’s budget. The measure is aimed at monitoring the presence in the State of individuals who claim to be non-resident for tax purposes. Last year, 5,803 people claimed non-residency for tax. The Revenue believes that 440 of those are “high net worth” individuals. “These are the people who we’d be aiming this proposal at,” a spokesman for the department said. Foreign-based Irish millionaires can avoid Irish tax if they spend fewer than 183 days in the State. Last November, Minister for Finance Brian...

The majority of “undocumented Irish” young people living illegally in America come from Fermanagh and Tyrone, the Assembly had been told. But new President Barack Obama intends to tackle the problem, according to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. Reporting on his recent week-long trip to the US, Mr McGuinness said the issue came up constantly. There is an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 illegal Irish in the US, with the majority coming from Fermanagh and Tyrone. Mr McGuinness said: “The issue of the undocumented Irish came up consistently and persistently at many of the engagements in which we were involved. “There...

Jacques Chirac, the French President, is sitting in his office when his telephone rings. "Hallo, Mr. Chirac!" a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Mayo, Ireland. I am ringing you to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you and your country." "Well, Paddy," Chirac replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?" "Right now," says Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, me Cousin Sean, me next-door neighbor Seamus, and the entire darts team from the pub. That makes eight!" Chirac paused, "I must tell...

Ireland was stripped of its top AAA credit ranking and downgraded to AA+ by Standard & Poor’s(S&P) yesterday while being warned that it could drop further if Dublin fails to get its public finances under control. The former “Celtic Tiger” economy is the second eurozone country after Spain in January to lose its top ranking since the onslaught of the global downturn.Such a downgrade will increase Ireland’s borrowing costs. S&P said the Irish Government had underestimated the scale of its fiscal problems and the agency dismissed the possibility of a solution emerging at an emergency budget next week. “The downgrade...

March 24, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/March/09-nsd-264.html Irish Trading Firm and Its Officers Charged in Scheme to Supply Iran with Sensitive U.S. Technology WASHINGTON – An Irish trading company and three of its officers have been charged with purchasing helicopter engines and other aircraft components from U.S. firms and illegally exporting them to Iran using companies in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Among the alleged recipients of these U.S. goods was an Iranian military firm that has since been designated by the United States for being owned or controlled by entities involved in Iran’s nuclear...

Brian Cowen's critics might say that they've heard all of his speeches before. But last night, they were right. As the Irish Taoiseach delivered his St Patrick's Day speech at the White House, it emerged that he was accidentally reading off the teleprompter one made by President Obama only minutes earlier. A startled-looking Mr Cowen – realising he was experiencing more than the usual case of déjà vu – looked back at Mr Obama 20 seconds into his address, and said: "That's your speech!" Mr Obama is becoming known as the 'teleprompter president' for his excessive use of the prompting...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a plea to Ireland on Monday to give asylum to Guantanamo prisoners. "It is clear that we will need help" in shutting down the Gitmo terror prison, Clinton said, "because many of the detainees cannot safely, for themselves or others, be sent back to the countries from which they came."

Washington, DC (Sports Network) - Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney was nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Ireland by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Rooney, 76, is a lifelong Republican, but he endorsed Obama in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary and later campaigned for him in western Pennsylvania during the general election. "I am honored and grateful that such a dedicated and accomplished individual has agreed to serve as the representative of the United States to the Irish people," said Obama. "Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education, and I have every confidence that he and...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After spending Monday night being honored in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney will be named an ambassador to Ireland. President Barack Obama announced his intent on Tuesday to nominate Rooney as the Ambassador to Ireland. “I am honored and grateful that such a dedicated and accomplished individual has agreed to serve as the representative of the United States to the Irish people," Obama said. "Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education, and I have every confidence that he and Secretary (Hillary) Clinton will ensure America’s continued close and unique partnership...

Move over, St. Patrick, and make way for the Messiah . . . Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland, used quasi-religious terms to discuss Pres. Obama in an interview with Meredith Vieira broadcast on this morning’s Today. Watch as McAleese’s face lights up at the mere mention of his name. MEREDITH VIEIRA: Barack Obama, our new president. I understand much loved here, in part because he’s a native son. MARY MCALEESE: Absolutely, from Moneygall, County Offaly. VIEIRA: So he’s an Irish boy, in your book. MCALEESE: For sure. For sure. I mean, even if he wasn’t, I think we would...

A friend sent me a flyer his employer had sent employees. Included in it was a description of "St. Patrick's Day" intended for a diverse and, apparently an under-10, audience. "He is the patron saint of Ireland -- he became a priest and taught the Irish about God -- we parade and dance and sing -- we decorate with shamrocks and green -- there's a legend about snakes." What could be written for non-Catholic or non-Irish audiences about reasons they might respect him as more than an Easter bunny? Here's my attempt: The Saint Patrick honored on March 17 was...

"Today" might have hit a new low in tasteless humor on network morning news shows, with a sheep-shagging double entendre this morning. Meredith Vieira and Al Roker are over in Ireland this week. Opening this morning's show, the pair explained that as part of their visit, they did a bit of sheep-herding, which led to this suggestive exchange between the pair. . . View video here.

On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. Maybe just for the moment, or for the next few beers. O’Hara, O’Leary, O’Bama. But some of us have real, biological connections to the Emerald Isle. One of the reasons I was delighted to make a trip to Ireland last year was the chance to close the circle. By a happenstance the year before, I found the oldest proof of my European ancestors. On the Internet I stumbled across the website of the Compass Inn in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. What became the Compass Inn was built as a log building in 1799 on the...

Security sources in Northern Ireland fear the next attack by Republican dissidents is likely to involve a bomb, Sky News has confirmed. It follows reports that the Real IRA has smuggled a large device into the province from the South. Sky's Home Affairs correspondent Mark White says the focus of investigations is now on a 300lb car bomb left at Castelwellen at the end of January. That bomb was diffused after a warning call was received. It caused a security alert outside the town for five days. Security sources suggest that whoever put the "sophisticated" device together was an experienced...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) Rumors are swirling that the man most identified with the Pittsburgh Steelers is about to be named Ambassador to Ireland. Dan Rooney has had a long interest in the land of his grandparents and this appointment would cap it off. Even before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, KDKA-TV Political Editor Jon Delano reported that Rooney was a possible candidate to be Ambassador to Ireland. Now just days before St. Patrick's Day, a time when such appointments are often announced, the unofficial word out of Washington is the man whose team won the Super Bowl could himself...

IF the Mafia were handed power in New York, would anyone expect them to go straight? It’s the same with the IRA and Northern Ireland. The price of Tony Blair’s appeasement of the IRA was that terrorists were allowed to share power. And now the terrorists have fallen out among themselves. That’s why two British soldiers have been murdered. We’ve all been worrying about Islamic attacks. Yet suddenly we face a renewed terror campaign on our own soil. It must come as a shock to anyone who doesn’t remember how Ulster violence dominated the news for decades. Blair’s Ulster peace...

Suspected IRA dissidents opened fire on British troops and pizza delivery men outside a Northern Ireland army base, killing two soldiers and wounding four other people. Police said Sunday the attackers fired on their victims again as they lay wounded on the ground. Saturday night's attack at the entrance to Massereene army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast, was the first killing of British troops in Northern Ireland since 1997. Its callousness, in targeting soldiers and civilians alike, appeared calculated to inflame community tensions and undermine Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant administration. "The whole country is shocked and outraged at the evil...

DUBLIN - As a veteran nurse, Margaret Horan is used to feeling overworked and underpaid. A steady flow of coughing, moaning and bleeding Dubliners must wait hours to be seen because of staff shortages at her hospital in the working-class heart of the capital. (Snip) A government that long profited from a property boom is now raising income taxes and pension charges to combat a sudden, gaping hole in the public finances that means borrowing one euro for every three spent. Its emergency approach is fueling rebellion throughout the bedrock of Irish society — teachers, bus drivers, police officers and...

Two military personnel were killed and four people seriously wounded in a shooting at a British army base in Northern Ireland, police said Saturday. "The two fatalities as I understand it are military personnel," a police spokeswoman said,

Gordon Brown visited Washington this week, the first European leader to call on President Obama. We got a good chuckle from this visit and the President's expense when he demonstrated, once again, just how amateurish his Presidency is. On a more serious note, however, the Brown visit also signaled a bit of revisionist history that has angered some over in the motherland. In his address before Congress, Brown announced that the Queen has bestowed upon Senator Kennedy an honorary knighthood, citing peace in Northern Ireland. While peace in Northern Ireland today is only a matter of relative truth, I am...

[photo] Irish demonstrators have had enough. They’re tired of U2 rocker Bono haranguing world leaders to increase taxes when the hypocritical Hibernian band won’t pay its fair share of taxes. While the band staged an concert on the roof of BBC headquarters, a group of demonstrators staged a protest on the street below. They chastised the band for moving its business to the Netherlands to avoid increased Irish taxes. The protesters’ placards read “Bono: pay your taxes” and “Bono: don’t be a banker” and the poetic “We’ll downl’d it 4 free and give the money to charity.”... ...continued

Predicting fate of Ireland turns into a shouting match By Landon Thomas Jr. February 27, 2009 DUBLIN: What separates Ireland from Iceland? According to a local joke, the letter C. According to Morgan Kelly, about six months. The stunning fall of Iceland late last year and the spreading contagion of the financial crisis have provoked fears - fanned by bloggers, analysts and a small group of outspoken economists like Kelly - that Ireland, another small, open economy plagued by deficits and an outsized banking sector with incalculable losses, may face a similar troubles. Known in Ireland as Dr. Doom, Kelly,...

LONDON — Irish carrier Ryanair, Europe's largest budget airline, might start charging passengers for using the toilet while flying, chief executive Michael O'Leary said on Friday. “One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound ($1.43 U.S.) to spend a penny in future,” he told BBC television.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Irish police have solved the mystery of a Polish recidivist who clocked up 50 traffic offenses on different addresses and who was never caught, after one officer noticed his name meant driving license in Polish. An internal police memo cited by Irish papers Thursday said officers taking details of Polish traffic offenders had been mistakenly using "Prawo Jazdy," printed in the top right corner of the driving license, as the holder's name. "Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving license and not the first and surname on the license," the police memo dated June 2007 said.

Ireland does not easily give up its secrets. That may have been one attraction it held for Sen. Christopher Dodd in 1994 when he became an owner of a refuge on nearly 10 acres on the Irish west coast. The murky tale includes a felonious inside trader, a Kansas City businessman, a presidential pardon and what appears to be a financial bonanza to Dodd during the Irish property boom. The saga of Dodd's lucrative Irish odyssey reveals that his two 2003 sweetheart loans from subprime mortgage titan Countrywide Financial were not the first time he enjoyed a financial advantage from...

A Polish immigrant to Ireland has wracked up dozens of parking tickets and driving violations in nearly every county of the country. Police there have been trying to hunt him down for years, but every time they corner him he has left a different home address causing consternation and confusion for Irish police the country over. Now, Police in Ireland have been looking hard for this Polish nerr-do-well, Mr. Prawo Jazdy, with an intensity that beggers description. And now we have the pleasure to announce that the constabulary of the Emerald Isle at last has found this cunning criminal. Or...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...

Huge protest over Irish economy Protesters gather at Dublin city centre for the demonstration Up to 100,000 people have gathered in Dublin city centre to protest at the Irish government's handling of the country's recession. Many are angry at plans to impose a pension levy on public sector workers. Trade union organisers of the march said workers did not cause the economic crisis but were having to pay for it. In a statement, the Irish government said it recognised that the measures it was taking were "difficult and in some cases painful". The pension levy was "reasonable", the government said....

Details of how police in the Irish Republic finally caught up with the country's most reckless driver have emerged.

GARDAI discovered a pipe bomb stashed close to a Dublin shopping centre last night. The viable device was found at 12.07am on waste ground adjacent to Clare Hall Shopping Centre, and close to a bus stop. The army bomb disposal unit carried out a controlled explosion on a pipe bomb they deemed viable which was packed with explosive. Gardai carrying out a planned search before midnight had discovered the device not far from a bus stop and called in the army's Explosives Ordnance Division to inspect it. The area was sealed off, and the improvised device was detonated in a...

Ireland moved toward greater government control of its financial system Wednesday by bailing out its two largest lenders, while shareholders in Fortis, once the biggest bank in Belgium, derailed state-led plans to sell the nationalized business to BNP Paribas of France. Together, the moves suggested that Europe -- like the United States -- was still struggling to find the right template for stabilizing its banks, one that could soothe jittery markets and an increasingly incensed public. The Irish government, meeting Wednesday night, approved a capital injection of €3.5 billion, or $4.5 billion, each for Allied Irish Banks and Bank of...

EU recognizes new party dedicated to ‘a culture embracing life’ Declan Ganley Dublin, Feb 11, 2009 / 12:43 am (CNA).- A leader of Libertas, a new European Union political party dedicated to “individual freedom, democracy, and a culture embracing life” says the party has now been formally recognized despite “the best efforts by Brussels.”Ganley made the comments over the weekend at a conference’s panel discussion in County Roscommon, Ireland. The conference was organized by the John Paul II Society in Ireland and co-hosted by the pro-life group Human Life International. Libertas founder Declan Ganley said the party is now recognized...

There will soon be 65 regional currencies in operation alongside the EU's, but the financial authorities are not worried yet... If you live in the Bavarian region of Chiemgau, you can exist for months at a time in a euro-free zone of hills and lakes with a population of half a million people. Restaurants, bakeries, hairdressers and a network of supermarkets will accept the local currency: the Chiemgauer. Notes are exchanged freely like legal tender. You can even use a debit card. Petrol stations are still a problem, but biofuel outlets are signing up. Dentists are next. The Chiemgauer...

With today's economy, wouldn't it be nice if we knew how to make an economy grow? To know what works and what doesn't? Well, we do. We just prefer to ignore the truth.What works is economic freedom. What doesn't work is more government. I'm sorry that those words sound simplistic and like Republican "ideology" (or at least what used to be Republican ideology - before the Bailout Fairy arrived). But they have the benefit of being true. If you were to start from scratch, ignoring all ideology and going simply by the evidence of what produces prosperity, you would come...