“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). New Rules In the new package of restrictions on citizenship being proposed by Jim O’Callaghan, the Minister is keen for Ireland to become tougher on migration. The current requisite five years… Read more »

This week President Connolly used her platform at the opening of The National Ploughing Championships in Offaly to highlight how the effects of climate change and geopolitical tensions are exposing the fragility of Ireland’s food supply.

Climate change is here. There is no question. The years of warning what’s to come if we don’t change our ways has caught up to our present, pointing the finger to human induced climate change. Deadly heatwaves, droughts, glacier instability causing devastating destruction and loss of life and flooding are our prevailing reality now. The… Read more »

At the end of July JCFJ hosted an evening of mixed emotions to mark two occasions.

This is something I have been thinking about as the news cycle has shifted from wildfires, e-scooter mania, road deaths and the doubling down by the government on fossil fuel dependant infrastructure, including road building. The obvious contradictions in sentiments of the government and their actions are something we have noted many times and reflects… Read more »

I recently read an article by the Dublin Inquirer about a shrine in Phibsborough that people pay homage to and leave gifts at in hopes of obtaining a home in Ireland. The Shrine to the Housing God has become a symbol of sorts of the dire state of the housing market in this country, where… Read more »

Operating on the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry, Dingle Hub is a non-profit company that specialises in local activation of communities for climate initiatives. Last week they convened a Teacht le Chéile, a coming together of people from civil society, local government and state agencies. The purpose of the gathering was to show what they… Read more »

The headline “Europe must choose between AI and climate goals, data center lobby says” ran in Politico during the week, and I was impressed by the bluntness of the option, although not surprised that this made headline news considering climate scientists and environmental advocates have been saying variations of this for a while and we… Read more »

Introduction The rural scenes on view from the Holyhead to London train provided a fitting backdrop to reading the memoir of James Rebanks, a farmer and author based in the Lake District where his family have lived and worked for over six hundred years. On a recent sail and rail journey from Dublin to Louvain,… Read more »

To mark Laudato Si’ Week and Biodiversity Week, which both took place in May, we invited members of Jesuit schools and communities to send in their nature photographs. We were delighted with the number and quality of entries from all over Ireland. It was very difficult to choose the winners but the JCFJ hivemind particularly… Read more »

‘In Christ, we are called to cooperate in the work of creation, rather than be disinterested observers of technological processes that limit our freedom and responsibility.’ -Pope Leo XIV, MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS Dr Kevin Hargaden and Fr Niall Leahy SJ take 30 minutes to discuss the main themes of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical. Explaining themes,… Read more »

Galway has a big congestion problem. It has been going on for decades. You would think in this amount of time plenty of solutions would have been put forward to try and stem this problem and release Galway people from the misery of sitting unnecessarily in traffic for hours. This problem is bad for the… Read more »

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend and present at an Economy of Francesco conference, held over three days in Assisi. The conference, ‘At the Roots of Economic Ethics’, celebrated 800 years of Franciscan thought, and explored existing and potential contributions of Franciscan and Catholic theology to today’s economy. It welcomed contributors from… Read more »

This year’s paper, “For we know not what we do. Reflections on punishment, community and forgiveness,” was delivered by Prof. Dr. Pieter De Witte. A prison chaplain and visiting professor at the Chair for Detention, Meaning, and Society at KU Leuven (Belgium). He organises and teaches service-learning courses in Belgian prisons and detention centres, bringing together university… Read more »

“The Pope is weak on crime.” At first glance, one struggles to make sense of it. How can it be that this is something that the American President has said – published, indeed – in an attack on Leo XIV so broad that an ardent Free Presbyterian would wince to read it. The rant was… Read more »

In ecological experimentation, one of the ways to examine how systems work is to disturb the system, by, for example, adding, removing, or changing the behaviour of a particular species and looking at how the system responds. These experiments are used to see how resilient or vulnerable a system is. The fuel protests last week… Read more »

You may have heard talk about planning permissions being waived for homeowners to build standalone or modular units in their back gardens (often informally known as granny flats) up to 45sq.m. in order to increase the amount of available rental units in the country. These types of accommodations are not new and got its colloquial… Read more »

This year’s paper, “For we know not what we do. Reflections on punishment, community and forgiveness,” will be delivered by Prof. Dr. Pieter De Witte, KU Leuven on Tuesday, 21st April. It promises to be a stimulating event as we consider the role of punishment and the place of prison in society. This is particularly… Read more »

Though this ordeal, the State has inflicted immeasurable harm and suffering on Patrick Sibanyoni. There is the immediacy and acuity of the pain from being in prison with a psychiatric illness. There is the potential for greater unnecessary disability over his life as his condition worsened without treatment.

Spoiler alert! Hot Fuzz The 2007 film Hot Fuzz is set in a town which regularly wins the tidy towns competition; there is no graffiti, living statues or underage drinkers. A secret cabal, sinister hooded tidy-town zealous residents, decides what action needs to be taken – usually involving murder – ‘for the greater good’. This… Read more »

Last week on Tuesday (Feb. 24th, 2026), JCFJ in partnership with the European Parliament Liaison Office-Ireland held an event entitled “Ireland’s Way Forward?: the New EU Affordable Housing Plan” on—what I am sure you are already able to guess—the new Affordable Housing Plan (AHP) outlined by the European Union Commission for Affordable Housing. The point… Read more »

The Economy of Francesco is a global movement of young adults seeking to transform and rethink the economy. A local hub has just been in established in Ireland.

Those caught in this situation are often too unwell to stand trial, condemned to spend an indeterminate time in an overcrowded prison. Prisons, which have a deleterious effect on those with stable mental health, exacerbate the rapid fraying of a person’s mind. It is not too much to draw an equivalence to torture.

In Manchán Magans’ book “99 words for rain (and only one for sun)” he effortlessly evoked the prevailing weather system in Ireland. Rain is one of Irelands defining features and it is responsible for our description as the Emerald Isle. All this to say that we are used to rain in Ireland – but not… Read more »

Colm Fahy was part of the Jesuits for Climate Justice campaign at COP 30 in Brazil. He was impressed by the ethos and commitment of the Irish delegation he met there.