Free Republic

The owner of a small coffee shop in the centre of Athlone was shocked when she opened her electricity bill this week and realised she had been charged almost €10,000 for just over two months of energy usage. The cost of electricity to the Poppyfields cafe for 73 days from early June until the end of August came in at €9,024.70 an increase of 250 per cent in just 12 months. There doesn’t include the €812.22 in VAT, which brought her total bill to €9,836.92. It has left Geraldine Dolan wondering if she will be able to continue running the...

onald Scully gazes at his herd of 208 cows munching grass and clover in a verdant field, as a light breeze ruffles the stillness. “There is an enjoyment for me to come out and look and see how healthy and happy these cows are,” says Scully, 47, a third-generation dairy farmer. “Every single cow has her own personality, they’re all individuals.” The pastoral scene in Ballyheyland, a landscape of rolling hills in County Laois, is replicated across rural Ireland. Ireland has 7.3 million cattle, substantially outnumbering humans, and a long history with the animal stretching into myth, including the Cattle...

Irish Catholics demand big changes in church in report sent to RomeFormer president Mary McAleese describes the document sent to Rome as ‘explosive, life altering, church altering’Demands by Irish Catholics for major change in the church’s attitude to women, LGBTI+ people, those who are divorced or remarried, and single parents have been sent to Rome. They have also urged the removal of the mandatory celibacy rule for priests.In a covering letter sent with a report outlining the demands, Catholic Primate Archbishop Eamon Martin told Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, that it pointed...

Following the passage of the Dying with Dignity Bill in the lower house of the Irish legislature last year, the Irish Parliament Justice Committee recommended the formation of a special committee on assisted suicide. The committee is expected to meet in October to review the possibility of legalizing assisted death, according to The Journal. People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny said he hopes the committee will be the “beginning of a serious conversation in eventually changing the law around this issue in the lifetime of this government.” The Dying with Dignity Bill would allow people diagnosed with terminally health conditions...

The Death of Catholic IrelandIts secularist pols move to ban prayer vigils at abortion facilities.Ireland was once famous for dispatching Catholic missionaries to pagan lands. But now an increasingly secularized Ireland needs missionaries sent to it. The once-pious island has gone from saving civilization to losing it, plunging into a hedonistic culture that promotes “abortion rights” and the sexual revolution.The repulsive New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently chortled that “Ireland and the United States have traded places.” In the past, she said, the Irish went to America for abortions. Now Americans after the collapse of Roe v. Wade will...

Pro-life campaigners and advocates for religious freedom in Ireland have expressed dismay following the news that the Irish Government intends to introduce fines and prison sentences for people who pray, hold signs, or try to persuade women not to have abortions while they are within the vicinity of an abortion facility. The proposed legislation would mean that individuals would not be allowed to express pro-life views within 100m of abortion facilities while also prohibiting silent prayer, the holding of placards, and any peaceful offers of alternatives to abortion. Pro-life activists have reacted by highlighting that there is no evidence that...

In Ireland, socialism is fast destroying both family and property rights.(ISFCC) — On a Monday afternoon in the peaceful town of Athlone, Ireland, a shout rang out “Ireland Should be Catholic, Not Socialist!”The young men with Irish Society for Christian Civilisation were back in town defending the perennial values of tradition, family, and property. The specific issue for the public’s attention was the worrying advance of socialism in Ireland. A plague is threatening IrelandOver the last few decades, a plague has been spreading through Ireland. Most people don’t know its name, but they see and feel its effects. It spreads...

While not of great speleological significance...[a]s an archaeological monument it forms part of a complex of 50 archaeological monuments that make up the ancient pre-Christian Connaught royal site of Cruachán. It is therefore of special importance as a cultural adaptation of a natural geological feature...Originally, an earthen mound surrounded the entrance but this was almost entirely removed in the 20th C. construction of the access laneway (Waddell, 1983). Thankfully, however, what is below ground is preserved in excellent condition. This consists of a double souterrain (which is closed-in on one side) leading, after 3m, to a natural cave. In the...

A complaint that the playing of Christmas hymn O Holy Night on RTÉ Radio One stigmatised non-Christians has been rejected by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI). The BAO published its latest list of decisions on complaints, one of which raised the broadcast of the hymn on The Ronan Collins Show on 8 December 2021.The complainant noted that lyrics in the hymn refers to people as pining in sin and error. The complainant said that accusations of sin and of error are "stigmas, grievous insults and egregious religious taunts that disparage persons and groups in society on the basis of...

President Biden raised eyebrows Friday when he compared the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland — a remark many saw as a swipe at two key US allies, Israel and the United Kingdom. “My background — the background of my family is Irish American,” Biden said near the beginning of his remarks at the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem. “And we have a long history not fundamentally unlike the Palestinian people, with Great Britain and their attitude toward Irish Catholics over the years, for 400 years,” the president continued.

The ecological display is designed to highlight awareness of ‘climate change’ and is named after the pagan goddess known also as ‘Pachamama.’COBH, Ireland (LifeSiteNews) – A historic Catholic cathedral in the south of Ireland is currently displaying a giant earth sculpture named after a pagan god of the earth, in an ecological display attempting to “appreciate the complex rhythms of our planet.” The historic Cobh Cathedral in the Diocese of Cloyne is currently home to a giant sculpture of the earth, named GAIA, designed to highlight awareness of “climate change.” The name GAIA is that of the Greek earth goddess...

The men whose centuries-old remains were found buried under a landmark Cork city pub with their hands tied behind their backs “met a violent and gruesome end”, archaeologists have confirmed.And it has also emerged that a second major archaeological discovery, a 1,000-year-old defensive ditch, found nearby on the site of the former Nancy Spain's pub on Barrack Street suggests that the mediaeval city was bigger than previously thought...The nature of the gruesome find made headlines around the world.It has now been confirmed that the skeletal remains of six people in total, all male, were found on the site.Four were dumped...

The UK government on Monday introduced legislation to rip up post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland, despite the possibility that could spark a trade war with the EU. London says it still prefers a negotiated outcome with the European Union to reform the Northern Ireland Protocol. But with talks stalled, the bill proposes overriding the EU withdrawal treaty that the UK signed, although the government in London insists it is not breaking international law. The EU quickly threatened legal action in response while Dublin called it "a particular low point in the UK's approach to Brexit". That could not come...

307 jobs are under threat at online payment firm PayPal’s offices in Dublin and Dundalk in County Louth. The company is opening a consultation with impacted staff who have been notified about the situation. The roles that are being targeted for compulsory redundancy are across a range of functions. 135 of the positions are based in company’s Dublin office in Blanchardstown, while the remaining 172 roles are in the County Louth town. PayPal has stressed that the decision does not change its commitment to Ireland. “PayPal remains committed to Ireland and our Dublin and Dundalk sites will continue to be...

The EU has threatened to use "all the measures at its disposal" after the United Kingdom signalled it would introduce legislation to change the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland. Britain says its move to change the legally binding treaty — an apparent breach of international law — is an insurance policy in case it can’t reach an agreement with the bloc to end a long-running dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. ... The announcement drew a sharp response from the EU, which has long accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of trying to wriggle out of a deal that his government negotiated...

Sinn Féin will be the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time, pushing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) into second place. Sinn Féin has 27 seats, compared to the DUP's 25. The result means Michelle O'Neill will be entitled to become first minister - unprecedented for a nationalist. Earlier, Ms O'Neill said it had been an election of "real change" and a "defining moment for our politics and for our people". "Today ushers in a new era which I believe presents us all with an opportunity to reimagine relationships in this society on the basis of...

Is there any corner of our government bureaucracy that isn’t overrun with woke, partisan operatives seeking to enact their political agendas? I think we all know the answer to that, and the latest example comes via the FTC moving to “investigate” Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter on…anti-trust grounds?This comes after Democrats and their media allies have spent the last few weeks absolutely losing their minds over the fact that conservatives might have a single platform that doesn’t bias their policies against them.Fox Business provides some of the details.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reviewing Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion...

Ireland’s President Michael D Higgins has suggested that Elon Musk loosening speech restrictions on Twitter would be “incredible and dangerous narcissism”. “Is it a great success that a multi-billionaire would be now deciding what is appropriate for people to exchange by way of discourse? I think it can hardly be described as anything other than a manifestation of an incredible and dangerous narcissism,” the 5’3″ octogenarian opined at what was supposed to be a climate change conference at Dublin City University, clearly referring to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter but declining to identify the South African entrepreneur by name

A century after its fraught foundation, Northern Ireland looks set for a constitutional earthquake this week with the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein on course to win regional elections. Apart from periods of direct rule by London, pro-UK unionists have monopolised power ever since Britain carved out a Protestant-majority statelet in 1921, when the rest of Ireland achieved self-rule. But pollsters expect victory on Thursday for Sinn Fein, which was once the political arm of the paramilitary IRA, in polls for the devolved assembly in Belfast. The party took the deputy leadership in a power-sharing deal with unionists when Northern Ireland...

Researchers studying Dublin Bay have said recent sea level rise there has happened at “approximately double the rate of global sea level rise”. The study examined sea level trends over eight decades and confirmed elevated rates in recent years. Researchers at the Hamilton Institute and ICARUS Climate Research Center at Maynooth University found that the Dublin sea level rose by an estimated 1.1 mm per year between 1953 and 2016. Researchers said the overall sea level rise is “in line with expected trends”, but large variability across many decades has led to higher rates in recent years. The research published...