Acts of commission – such as an amputation of the wrong leg or a dose of morphine an order of magnitude higher than recommended – generally elicit moral outrage. This anger usually extends to the relatives of the deceased should the victim pass away. Based on figures from the U.S., where medical error is the … Read more
John Dillon, Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin, is an Irish classicist and philosopher considered a world authority in ancient philosophy and Platonism. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1939, he returned to Ireland as a child and studied Classics at Oxford before earning a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley … Read more
The title of this article may seem somewhat prosaic, but given that it really is about birth after death it seems appropriate. For I really did die on July 25 2022, and that which came back to life was not the same person, and certainly not the same doctor. Prior to 2020 I hadn’t asked … Read more
What makes for fine rhetoric in an age of disinformation? Clearly, this is distinct from the techniques employed by corporate motivational speakers, tele-evangelists or self-help gurus. A useful starting point is to examine Aristotle’s views on Rhetoric, who argued that speech can produce persuasion (pistis) either through the character (êthos) of the speaker, the emotional … Read more
I spent a number of years in Zambia, in the early seventies, the mid-seventies and the early nineties, teaching the English language and literature in English to school students in their early and late teens. They were preparing for public examinations including GCE overseas certificate organised by Cambridge University. It was called Literature in English … Read more
I have been working in education for the last twenty-three years, and been publishing books as a writer over the last sixteen. I find disturbing the recent precipitous decline in reading and, consequent ignorance pervading contemporary culture. In response, in an effort to demonstrate its importance to my critical development, I would like to trace … Read more
Terry Fagan is a renowned Irish local historian and storyteller from Dublin’s North Inner City. Born in the 1950s and raised in the historic heart of what was once Europe’s largest red-light district, the Monto, Fagan witnessed firsthand the rapid transformation, and often erasure, of the surrounding Dublin tenements and their culture. He is, to … Read more
Bullies can take many shapes, forms, and disguises. It seems a daily occurrence that can be defined as repeated behaviours that are intentional or have malicious intent to cause fear or to instil feelings of superiority in the bully, while also causing anxiety and hopelessness in the victim, due to the bully’s relentless behaviour. Northern … Read more
What if I told you that I had a new product – never before used on a population-wide basis – and after coming into use the manufacturer requested that a court compel the authorities to lock away the results of the initial trials from prying eyes for seventy five years? This same product is made … Read more
Aged sixteen, I started trading sex for meth. There was no discussion about this with the drug dealers. It was understood. To me, this was a natural progression. My stepfather began to gawk at me when my first breast bud appeared, then molested me when I was twelve. Until I left home for college, I … Read more