It’s an unlikely pairing, I know, but my mind has been drifting between former president Mary McAleese and former footballer Jamie Carragher.

A politician I know told me the other day he gave up smoking following a concerted campaign from his seven-year-old daughter, writes Alison O'Connor.

If I live to be 100 I will never forget that first time hearing my baby’s heartbeat while having a scan. It was, and remains, the best sound ever.

Alison O’Connor believes he showed belated wisdom in not going to the country back in December. But all he needs at the moment is a valid, or valid enough, reason to throw us all into a general election campaign.

Marking the 100th anniversary of the introduction of voting rights for women and their right to stand in parliamentary elections Culture Minister Josepha Madigan singled out the legacy of Countess Markievicz.

Abortion is not as black and white as people might portray it, and ‘there is a lot of grey’ in this profound, complex moral issue, writes Alison O’Connor.

This was a debate about women’s rights and healthcare and about giving women equal opportunity, writes Alison O’Connor

There was no getting over the oddness... of her being elected unopposed, writes Alison O’Connor

Has Fianna Fáil become too domesticated? Has the party changed from a wily electoral beast, with a sixth survival sense, to one that is content to sit in front of a warm confidence and supply fire, and lap on the saucer of warm milk kindly supplied by Fine Gael? This year will give us the answer to that, writes Alison O’Connor.

The speed in which Lewis Hamilton felt the ire of the digital world was something to behold, writes Alison O’Connor