An ancient Gaelic festival is the perfect antidote to the frenzy and commercialism of other feast days, writes Nuala Woulfe.

The pilgrim paths of Ireland are once again echoing to pilgrim footfall as a new imitative offers a chance for Irish people and overseas visitors to rediscover their pilgrim inheritance.

A Cork man had to call the gardaí because he was put in fear by his own son — and yesterday the culprit was jailed for three months.

Gardaí found a young woman in tears in Cork city centre after a heroin addict had approached her from behind and snatched her handbag containing her iPhone 5.

Mary O’Riordan looks at the history of candle-making and describes how it continues to be made, from the precious beeswax produced in the hive.

The prophetic voice is not authentic if it seeks to redefine long-established Church teaching according to its own reading of the signs of the times, according to Margaret Hickey

Despite his ultimate conversion, perhaps opportunistic, to the principles of democracy, Ian Paisley’s hate-filled rhetoric left a trail of dead bodies in its wake. TP O’Mahony reviews a mixed legacy.

DON’T call me a “Polyester Protestant”. There’s nothing flimsy about me. I’m an Irish Linen Protestant, woven with the blood, sweat and tears of my exiled Huguenot ancestors.

Three trustees of a Christian church have given solemn undertakings to the High Court not to obstruct bank-appointed receivers from taking possession of three of their properties in Dublin.

Falling Sideways

I WRITE in reference to the recent event where two male students were ejected from the Old Oak pub in Cork for kissing.

IT’S questionable whether Sicily is Italian at all.

INDONESIA yesterday arrested 16 terror suspects who planned to carry out a mass cyanide poisoning against police, according to the national police spokesman.

Soldiers in a central Nigerian city opened fire on university students protesting continuing violence between Christians and Muslims, witnesses said, with at least nine people killed in the ensuing violence.

POPE BENEDICT yesterday condemned a bomb blast outside a church in Egypt which killed at least 21 people, the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in the Middle East and Africa.

Five adults and eight children from a “cult-like” group in Southern California have been reported missing by their families, police said.

REGARDING the current debate on the appropriateness or otherwise of RTÉ broadcasting the Angelus, I share the views of Paul McCarthy, (Letters, August 24).

IN reply to James McGrath (Letters, March 15), if the Catholic Church doesn’t think worshippers are to blame for priests raping children, why did the Bishop of Ferns ask worshippers to pay a “rape tax”?

Eight Muslim men were arrested in Malaysia for allegedly firebombing a Christian church after a court ruled that non-Muslims could use the word “Allah” to refer to God.

ONCE again there are calls from some quarters for RTÉ to discontinue relaying the Angelus bells over the airwaves.

TOMORROW and on Friday we will brave the busiest travelling days of the year to be with our families, or they come to us depending on whose turn it is to host. It’s as if the whole country stands up in a mass game of musical chairs, everyone scrambling to land somewhere, somehow at a table with a turkey and a plum pudding.

Jennifer Connelly almost quit ‘Creation’.

The Democratic Unionist Party was today accused of using 16th-century propaganda to oppose plans to allow heirs to the British throne to marry Catholics.

US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is seen being blessed in church by a pastor praying for her protection from “witchcraft” in a video that appeared on YouTube.

Barack Obama is stepping up his effort to correct the misconception that he is a Muslim now that the US presidential campaign has hit the Christian Bible Belt in the south of the country.

South Koreans who returned from six weeks of captivity in Afghanistan took their first steps towards recovery by entering a hospital for a health recovery programme today.

Belfast is not the race hate capital of Europe, a leading international human rights expert said today.

THE letter from Paul Kokoski of Hamilton, Ontario (Irish Examiner, November 27) cannot be allowed to pass unanswered.

Jessica Alba decided to leave her born-again Christian church after religious leaders accused her of being too promiscuous.

TURKEY’S top Islamic cleric asked the Pope to take back recent remarks he made about Islam and unleashed a string of counteraccusations against the Christian Church yesterday, raising tensions ahead of the pontiff’s visit to Turkey in November, his first to a Muslim country.

Author Dan Brown has been accused of plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code just days after he was cleared in London's High Court of similar allegations.

ACCORDING to a newly restored Gospel, Judas was actually Christ's best friend and was asked by the Saviour to betray him in order to let Christ fulfil his destiny.

THE Catholic Church must share its wisdom, and so lead people home, says Rónán Mullen (Irish Examiner, September 28).

IN September 2004 the Meath Chronicle reported that Meath county councillors had agreed a motion “to invite Pope John Paul II to light the Pascal fire (for Easter) on the Hill of Tara as part of his proposed visit to Ireland in 2005”.

COMMENTING on Pope Benedict’s election in the Irish Examiner last Thursday, I remarked that “the uncertainty now felt by some may yet give way to hope, respect and, in due course, love”.

Officials and churchgoers from around the world expressed hope today that the new Pope will continue the work of his predecessor by building interfaith bridges. Even China said icy ties with the Vatican could improve – but only if the church breaks off relations with Taiwan.

THE next pope will have a hard act to follow in Asia and the Middle East, where Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists alike mourned the loss of a man they saw as a messenger of peace and tolerance.

The Quaker Community has thrown open its doors to the public today to mark the 350th anniversary of its establishment in Ireland.

Pop superstar Madonna's upcoming concert in Portugal has reportedly been cancelled because a church group has already booked the venue where she was scheduled to perform - and they've refused to rearrange their booking.

HOMOSEXUAL, bisexual and transsexual people should be treated with "compassion" and as equal Christians, according to a new Church of England guide published yesterday.

Homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people should be treated with “compassion” and as equal Christians, according to a new Church of England guide published today.

A Church of England report on human sexuality was being published today in the wake of the row over gay clergy in the Anglican Communion.

A MUSLIM mechanic on trial for the Bali nightclub bombings told a court yesterday why he did it: he wanted foreigners out of Indonesia and thinks late-night TV shows and western films are immoral.