If Direct Provision is a business, then human beings are its livestock. And the Irish government is its financier. The system usually works like this- the Irish government pays money to private, for-profit companies (to the tune of a total €1.2 billion since 2000). In return, these companies’ staff and furnish centres that receive, house…
In the wake of the murder of unarmed George Floyd by a police officer from the Minneapolis Police Department and the ensuing protests in the United States, there have been shows of solidarity all around the world. Last Monday in Dublin we saw similar protests of solidarity in a show of unity marking our society’s…
by Elisha Carey Isolation day 16. I’ve been wracking my brain for days, weeks even, trying to come up with an idea for my final opinion piece. The big finisher. Something that wraps up all these months of hard work in a neat little bow. As much as I’ve tried to resist it, it feels weird to write about anything…
By Aoife Gleeson Ah Australia, the ‘Land Down Under’. Home of The Great Barrier Reef, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Blue Mountains, Hamilton Island…the list goes on. However, who first thought of the West Coast when I mentioned ‘Australia’? Aha, caught you there didn’t I! The humble region that is Western Australia is often overlooked…
By Elisha Carey “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” -Thomas Merton Recently I’ve found myself standing in front of some of the world’s most famous paintings. I’m currently on Erasmus in the Netherlands, which is home to some of the greatest paintings ever painted. Here you’ve…
“Every time I change wives, I should burn the last one. That way I’d be rid of them. They wouldn’t be around to complicate my existence. Maybe, that would bring back my youth, too. You kill the woman and you wipe out the past she represents.” I was 17 when I found out that…
In the afternoon of the 29th of January 1985, Fumiko Kimura waded into the frigid waves of the Pacific Ocean from a Santa Monica beach with her two children, Kazutaka and Yuri. Hours later, doctors in a nearby hospital would fail to revive four-year-old Kazutaka and six-month-old Yuri, their mother, however, would live on to…
Last summer I was extremely lucky to be accepted onto a 5-week study abroad course in Singapore. The exact, rather long-winded title of the course (for those of you who might be interested next summer) is…deep breath…’Science Biodiversity Summer Study Abroad Programme, National University of Singapore’. This was my first time ever in Asia and wow, what an amazing…
For my J1 a couple of summers ago, I was a camp counselor at an all-girls sleepaway camp in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. I was just after a breakup at the time and craved the support and comfort the ‘all-girls’ environment promised. The experience proved really good for me. The place was kind of like a…
American talk show host Bill Maher came under fire recently for suggesting that body shaming overweight people should make a “comeback” in order to combat obesity. “We have gone to this weird place where fat is good. It’s pointing out that fat is unhealthy, that’s what’s bad” Maher said. “Fat shaming doesn’t need to end. It needs to…