Since setting up in 2006, Galway theatre company Mephisto have rapidly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with.

A FEW weeks ago, I wrote here that the Taoiseach’s apology to the women who had survived the hardship and abuse of the Magdalene Laundries represented significant social progress, for which he deserved a lot of congratulations.

The cruelty of the news cycle, the relentless, unavoidable nature of the next, more pressing topic, has been very evident over the last few days and hours.

THE campaign for justice for the Magdalenes, for the so-called “fallen women” who were grossly mistreated in a chain of laundries run by nuns, has been resoundingly vindicated by the call for an independent investigation into the scandal from the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT).