Death and dying have become far too medicalised — pretending it is not happening, doesn’t make it go away, writes Alison O’Connor.

Another Irish State survivors commission and The UK Goddard Inquiry — once again at enormous cost to the Irish State and taxpayers of many millions of euros, and as usual more to do with the Commission of Inquiry itself than the survivors it is supposed to help.

I was one of the first people to sign up to the 1999 Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse –but then I found out Protestants were not to be included.

Tributes are being paid to a sportswriter who died after he collapsed playing indoor football on Thursday. Carl O’Malley, 37, had became a father for the third time only last week.

The Dublin fire of 1875 killed 13 people. However, not one person died from burns or smoke inhalation but instead from drinking contaminated whiskey writes Robert Hume

WHEN is a dead baby in an unmarked grave not a dead baby in an unmarked grave? When it’s a Protestant baby!

Once again, it has taken international press headlines to make the Government address a dirty little secret the State has been aware of decades.

The lives of 222 children whose deaths at a Protestant mother and baby home were hidden for decades have been recognised with a special memorial.

As a monument is unveiled today to the 222 children who died at a Protestant children’s home and were buried in unmarked graves, survivors of the home have pledged to continue their fight for justice.

WILL there be truth now, or will we go on hiding?

IF we did not deprive them of life, we deprived them of their identity. That is the hard truth about our relationship with “illegitimate” children which Stephen Frears’s film Philomena makes us face.

THESE are the terrible words of a Bethany Home survivor to fellow survivor Derek Leinster, who has for many years led the campaign for redress.

VICTOR Stevenson looks and sounds like your average middle-aged, middle-class Northerner.

TDs will shortly meet with survivors, says Victoria White

The only son of award- winning restaurateurs Derry and Sallyanne Clarke was laid to rest amid emotional scenes on Saturday.

The Archbishop Of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, attended a memorial service for Bishop KH Ting at Mochou Road Church in Nanjing, China, on Saturday, Dec 8.

I was surprised to hear the journalist Bruce Arnold tell Marc Coleman on Newstalk a few days ago that I came ‘lately’ on the scene when he was writing his book about child abuse in Irish orphanages and industrial schools.

It is good to see that some reporters and media are starting ‘to get it’ in relation to the treatment of non-Catholics in Ireland today.

THE boy’s shoe laces were tied together.”

A last word on Con Houlihan?

One of the country's finest sports writers Con Houlihan was remembered today as a gentleman who painted pictures with words.

In Joe Little’s RTE interview recently with Ruari Quinn and John Kelly of Irish SOCA, John Kelly confronted the minister, pointing out that he was wrong in claiming that the new €500,000 memorial for neglected and abused children represented all Irish abused children.

The Irish Examiner is to be congratulated for publishing Shaun Connolly’s article (Jul 4) and also Victoria White’s article (Jul 5).

The Government has today been accused of discriminating against Protestants by failing to pay compensation for mistreatment at a children's home.

ABUSE victims, politicians and fellow journalists gathered yesterday at the humanist funeral Mary Raftery had arranged herself before her death on Tuesday.

I AM reliably informed that the reason the Government will not allow former residents of the Protestant evangelical Bethany Home to apply for redress is because the coffers are bare.

THE survivors of a Protestant home for unmarried mothers where more than 200 babies died have asked for the Government’s position on including it in the redress scheme.

AS a child survivor of the state neglect and abuse in a minority religious institution, I wish to reply to recent letters.

THE Justice For Magdalenes (JFM) advocacy group has accused the Government of refusing to apologise to the women who were kept in Magdalene Laundries as they know most of the women are very elderly and too ashamed about their past to campaign for justice.

I HAD the privilege last week of attending one of the most enjoyable events in quite some time. The occasion was a tribute night organised by Raidió na Gaeltachta to honour the incomparable Mícheál O Muircheartaigh.

THE late writer, Hugh Leonard, received the traditional applause of the theatre world at his funeral mass in Dalkey yesterday at what mourners were told was his “final curtain call”.

PLANNING permission has just been granted for the first crematorium outside of Dublin, which will be built at a cost of €2.5 million.

The first crematorium outside the Dublin region is to be built on a derelict island in Cork Harbour, it was confirmed today.