- NEWS
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 Abrahamson did nextLENNY Abrahamson has directed three feature films: Adam & Paul, Garage and What Richard Did.
Why do women love to dress up?Trying on clothes, said Ewart, produced "sensations which bring deep peace and perfect contentment" to the female mind.
15-18C
Live Blogs
- We have no upcoming events at the moment. Please check 'Recent Events' tab for past events
Breaking stories
Shatter: I didn't use private information on Wallace driving incident
Hayes: Government may settle for less than €300m target in pay talks
Number of abuse allegations against Catholic church increasing
Gardaí accessing PULSE system inappropriately, data protection office says- Male, 63, dies at scene of Belfast flat fire
Building relationships - Families who eat together stay together
Very many of us will know, or have learnt from experience, that when things are really difficult, when our options are very limited, that turning to our family for support is often the best and only realistic option.
The converse is equally true — who do we turn to but our family to celebrate our greatest joys?That may not, of course, always be the case for everyone. Some of us may, for whatever reason, decide to live our lives well outside the family corral.
Equally, the definition of family, the unit that society is built on after all, is changing almost yearly.
The traditional characterisation centred, for centuries, on a married mother and father working together to rear their children. This is still the dominant arrangement but today it is augmented by a wonderful rainbow of successful and secure partnerships, each working honestly to fulfil the emotional and material needs of all of those involved.
Building this solidarity, this trust and lifelong reliability — love by another name — is probably taken far too much for granted. Changing social, work, unemployment or living arrangements, emigration and economic difficulties challenge it too. So too do the barriers to communication created, ironically and unintentionally, by so many digital communications and entertainment devices.
As our aspirations, usually material, change our willingness to devote precious time to a project we sometimes imagine natural and self-sustaining may diminish, it may be carelessly forgotten. This reluctance, this skewed selfishness, is defined by that bizarre and completely inhuman phrase — “spending quality time with my family”.
There are few causes as thankless or as ridiculed as those that celebrate values recognised and lived by our grandparents but it would be foolish to believe that something like the passage of time might undermine essential truths.
Consider for a moment the embarrassed silences that have followed some of Katie Taylor’s declarations of God’s role in her wonderful Olympic success.
The back-to-basics campaign by John Major’s Tories, as enthusiastic a band of philanderers and topers as ever wore hand-tooled shoe leather, may have been the comedic high point of those campaigns but that should not mean we throw the pink-cheeked baby out with the bath water.
Today we report on research that suggests that the very positive role of the family meal plays in developing character and relationships, not to mention social skills, has been greatly underestimated.
It may be stating the obvious, to those with a conservative bent at least, that the study by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, found that children who dined with their family ate more fruit, vegetables, fibre, calcium-rich foods and vitamins, and less junk food. The habit of a healthy diet was formed and one preventative measure against obesity had been established.
The study, again stating the obvious, recorded that teenagers who regularly ate with their family were less depressed than other teenagers.
In the great, changing mosaic of life these may be small, seemingly inconsequential things but their benefits cannot be ignored. These are very challenging times for a great number of families and parents and there are few instances where doing the right thing can be so joyful. Dinner, for everyone, at six then.