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Martin wades into abortion debateAs the Dáil committee hearings continue on the abortion bill, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has waded into the debate saying it is important that Christian believers "be, and seen to be, on the side of life, especially when life is most vulnerable".
Payment cuts see families pay rent shortfallLimits on rent supplement payments set by the Government are forcing thousands of families to make undeclared top-up payments to landlords to secure places to live.
- WORLD
Anger as North Korea launches another missileNorth Korea fired a short-range missile from its east coast, a day after launching three more of these missiles, a South Korean news agency said.
How Star Trek predicted the futureWHEN Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up the concept of a television show based in the unexplored universe of Outer Space in 1964, the world was a very different place.
- BUSINESS
Warnings over future of eurozoneThe eurozone is heading towards a break up unless there are moves towards much closer political and fiscal union, according to chief economist with State Street Global Advisers, Chris Probyn.
Bruton defends corporate tax rateIreland will be able to maintain its current corporation tax code in the face of international pressure to prevent multinational corporations avoid paying their fare share of tax, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton said yesterday.
- SPORT
Mayo’s statement of intentGalway 0-11 Mayo 4-16 Five minutes to go in Salthill yesterday and James Horan was still cajoling his men to sew it into Galway.
Wilkinson inspires Toulon to gloryASM Clermont Auvergne 15 Toulon 16 Not for the first time this season, a matchday performance and the result have made a mockery of the statistics.
- LIFESTYLE
What Lenny did nextLENNY Abrahamson has directed three feature films: Adam & Paul, Garage and What Richard Did.
Clothes maketh you madTrying on clothes, said Ewart, produced "sensations which bring deep peace and perfect contentment" to the female mind.
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You do know about the birds and the bees, don’t you?
I LOVE men. That only became a problem for me when my seven-year-old daughter found out.
We were sitting at the kitchen table and she had drawn circles on the back of old Christmas paper with her pink marker and roll of celluloid tape, and I was busy filling them in. We were mapping out my future, using mind maps.
“You can’t say that,” she said, espying the first of my three entries in my life-convictions circle.
“Can’t say what?” I asked, shocked. It’s not how I raised her.
Her arched eyebrow had the look of ‘come on, daddy, you don’t really expect me to have to say it out loud, do you?’ So, being the good dad that I am, I helped her out.
“You mean, like, I love men?”
She gave me a fervent nod full of gratitude for having spared her from having to say it.
“But why?” I asked.
To her seven-year-old credit, she waded straight in up to her knees.
“The s-thing.” (My mother would have clattered me had I come out with that aged seven.) “The s-thing? You mean, like, the sex thing?” I said.
‘Don’t tell me I have to explain it to you, daddy? You do know about the birds and the bees, don’t you?’ her wry smile said.
“And you can’t say that either,” she said, spotting my second life conviction.
I was beginning to regret ever having taught her to read.
“What?” says I.
“You can’t say, ‘I love women’.”
“Oh, you can’t, can you not?”
She knitted her brows together disapprovingly, like her father.
“And why not?” says I.
“Because you love mummy.”
“Oh, right, so I can’t love other women then?”
“Uh! Uh!”
“And what about this?” I asked as I pointed to my last conviction, deciding that I may as well be hung for a lamb as a sheep.
“Oh, no. No, that’s okay,” she said.
I almost sighed with relief. My last conviction? ‘I love children’.
You see the problem, don’t you? Oh, you don’t? Well, let me explain.
When I told my friends that I was going to write in the Irish Examiner about how I love men, women and children, they counselled caution. Can you not just say you love people, they said. Or at least give some context, otherwise people are going to misinterpret you? Well, some context.
I love men for the way in which they struggle to do justice to their inner world of feelings and the outer world of relationships. I love women for the way in which they struggle to do justice to relationships in a male-dominated world that doesn’t value intimacy. I love children because I have three children.
So, you see now what I am getting at?
It is time to dignify the language of love before it’s too late.
Now, where has my seven-year-old gone till I give her a hug? She deserves it, after all the shocks I gave her.
* http://adrianmillar.ie/