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Justine Mccarthy

Justine Mccarthy

The Irish Times

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The sting of the crosier is dead and buried with Eamonn Casey’s secrets

While womanising ex-bishop Eamonn Casey was attending first Communions as a Catholic curate in England in 2001 – the year Limerick diocese...

yesterday 9

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Justine McCarthy: With Ireland on a knife edge, it’s a bad time for a brain drain from the Dáil

Leo Varadkar’s announcement that he is quitting politics brings the number of departing TDs to 28, including four who have been elected to the...

19.07.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Michael D Higgins is proof that age is not Joe Biden’s biggest problem

Until Joe Biden started tottering – you know that quickened walk he does at a precarious tilt as if an aide has put batteries in his shoes? –...

12.07.2024 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

She has been abused, has had intimate photos shared online, has turned to drugs. She is 17

She is identified as “M” in the Supreme Court judgment of February 26th this year. The sketch it paints of her life could hang in a hall of...

05.07.2024 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

The new mayor of Limerick should erect a monument to Natasha O’Brien

Cathal Crotty picked on the wrong woman. That is to be his enduring punishment. Instead of atoning behind bars for his crime before anonymously...

28.06.2024 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Clare Daly’s dog-whistle to haters of the media wasn’t just hypocritical, it was reckless

It wasn’t just the ungraciousness of Clare Daly’s departure from the election count centre after losing her European Parliament seat that left the...

21.06.2024 40

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Neale Richmond should know better: calling grown women ‘girls’ is inherently belittling

The prize for biggest blooper in the orgy of postelections analysis goes to Neale Richmond. The Fine Gael Minister of State from Dublin Rathdown was...

14.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Do polls merely reflect public opinion - or do they actually shape it?

The image that will endure after this week’s parliamentary elections in India is not of incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi claiming victory in...

07.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Fine Gael candidate’s hubris reflects tolerance shown to past doer-uppers

Keep an eye on Marian Agrios’s tally when votes in the local elections are counted next week. For how many votes she gets – if any – may tell us...

31.05.2024 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Did Israel expect a country which has endured occupation and violence to stand idly by?

Wednesday was a breezy day. A gentle wind had been ruffling the leaves on the silver birches since early morning. It tap-danced across clotheslines...

24.05.2024 90

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

There is one other measure we could take to reduce deaths from road crashes

The voice on the radio sounds chillingly detached. “The death will occur of your loved one. They will die tragically in a preventable car crash...

17.05.2024 40

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

US, UK and Germany have sown the shame of their nations in Gaza’s blood-drenched soil

Television pictures of euphoric Gazans celebrating in the southern city of Rafah last Monday after Hamas announced it was agreeing to a ceasefire...

10.05.2024 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

We need to talk about why we’re all so angry

Lionel Shriver writes novels. She called one of them We Need to Talk about Kevin. It was scary. Lots of people bought it. Her new book is called...

03.05.2024 100

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Why are so many journalists leaving to work for the Government?

During goodbye drinks for a former colleague some years ago, the departing journalist took me aside to offer friendly career advice. If you want to...

26.04.2024 80

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Four years ago, we were clapping health workers in the street. Now we’re reducing their benefits

Remember when we emerged en masse from behind our front doors, flung open our windows, and stationed ourselves on our balconies and at our garden...

12.04.2024 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Politicians demonising NGOs is fodder for extremists

Some Yes advocates for last month’s referendums on care and the family privately confess they feel so bruised by the personalised abuse they...

05.04.2024 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Sudden stampede to the right by our politicians can only benefit democracy

Here’s an audience-generating idea for impoverished RTÉ. Now that the curtain has come down on Dancing with the Stars for another year, it’s time...

29.03.2024 9

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

We know what’s going on in Gaza, and won’t be able to say we didn’t

Signs of starvation are becoming visible now in the faces of Gazans. In the news pictures, we see how their cheek bones protrude sharply under eyes...

22.03.2024 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

We may see a united Ireland with a DUP taoiseach sooner than a Constitution free of sexist language

The night before the referendums polls opened, a nephew in South Africa sent a screenshot of a television news report that Ireland was about to vote...

15.03.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Catherine Martin’s colleagues should praise her honesty, not criticise her for going on TV

For as long as audiences find ventriloquists entertaining, our politicians will never be out of work. Their talent for speaking not only out one side...

01.03.2024 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Yulia Navalnaya and Nikki Haley embody a single truth: sometimes the act of opposing is enough

Eleanor Roosevelt said women are like tea bags because “we don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water”. There is something else we...

23.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly are filling the crater history put between them

Nothing encapsulated the momentousness of what is afoot on this island as vividly as a road trip two women shared last weekend. It was the day of the...

16.02.2024 40

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Trust the romantic French to come up with a pragmatic solution on ‘durable relationships’

For anyone who thinks marriage is a sentence, not a word, the French have a solution. It surfaced when a young Franco-Irish couple recently visiting...

09.02.2024 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

If Leo Varadkar goes to the White House, it can’t be for a quiet word about Gaza

Joe Biden has blamed Iran for the killing of three US soldiers in Jordan last Sunday on the entirely logical and credible premise that “they’re...

02.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Ian Bailey could never resist having his name in a newspaper, ideally the headline

The last time Ian Bailey rang me he said he had a cracking story about a national personality who, he alleged, had indulged in a sexual orgy. Ring...

26.01.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Article 41.2 of the Constitution is a patronising pat on the head for women. It needs to go

In the treasure trove that comprises John Charles McQuaid’s papers lies a note from the then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin to his buddy, Taoiseach...

19.01.2024 9

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

By caving into protests about asylum seekers, the Government has torched its own principles

The heat from the sun was fierce. There was nothing for it but to plunge, once again, into the cooling sea before flopping back down on the beach...

12.01.2024 6

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Keeping Enoch Burke locked in a cell, wallowing in his martyrdom, serves no one

Enoch Burke is still doing time in Mountjoy jail. He has already done more than 200 days and seems likely to set a record for time served for contempt...

04.01.2024 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Just reaching out about those odious Americanisms and infuriating academic affectations . . .

Stuck for a new year resolution? Convinced yourself that smoking and jam doughnuts are actually good for you and, sure, you’d only be dicing with...

29.12.2023 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

It’s okay to gloat a little about our artistic accomplishments. They are the creative fruits of a period of social turmoil

Snootiness goes against the native grain. Try it, and see how quickly you get pulled back down to what the communal spirit level deems to be your...

22.12.2023 10

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Nothing can justify this massacre of the innocents in Gaza. No politics. No history. No revenge

A long time ago in Bethlehem, so the holy Bible says, Mary’s boy child, Jesus Christ, was born. Glad tidings reached King Herod of Judea that the...

15.12.2023 20

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

Irish politicians throwing around terms such as ‘scumbags’ and ‘thugs’ is a slippery slope

Dáil Éireann’s linguistic stylebook, entitled the Salient Rulings of the Chair, contains a list of insulting nouns that TDs are not allowed to...

08.12.2023 30

The Irish Times

Justine Mccarthy

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