I HAVE fallen in love with my children and my grandchildren all over again in the last fortnight. Of course, they’ve always meant the world to me, but, suddenly — I’m talking about the grandchildren — they’re personalities in their own right.

Is he naïve? Stupid? Unthinking? Callous? Some combination of all of those qualities?

THE Department of Education is an extraordinary place. In the various bits of bumph it publishes from time to time — annual reports, statements of strategy, and the like — it sets out its mission as "enabling learners to achieve their full potential and contribute to Ireland’s economic, social, and cultural development".

Aras Attracta is home to nearly a hundred people. It’s in Swinford in County Mayo. It has a website, part of the much larger HSE website.

AS far as I can tell, any government which is a party to the Rome Statute can refer a crime to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The Rome Statute is the piece of international law that set up the Court.

GARRET Fitzgerald believed in the common good. He talked about it as the cornerstone of public policy, and advocated that government promote it.

IT was GK Chesterton who said about the Irish that "the great Gaels of Ireland, Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad". I don’t know about the wars, but the mournfulness of the songs is the reason I’ve never been a huge fan of Irish traditional music, if the truth be told.

MARGARET McLOUGHLIN was born with three things. Down syndrome; a serious untreatable heart condition; and a huge, infectious, and empathetic personality. She wasn’t expected to live. But live she did, to the fullest extent that was possible.

I’VE decided how I will vote in the Labour leadership elections. All these years a rank-and-file member, and now I have a say in who should lead my party.

I SPENT a good deal of last weekend at the Special Olympic Games in Limerick. And a glorious weekend it was. A wonderful, intimate, family-focused opening ceremony on Thursday night was followed by three days of intense competition in the variety of sports in which Special Olympic athletes compete. A lot of the Games was centred on the University of Limerick campus, and the place couldn’t have been more welcoming.