It’s been almost six months since I’ve been welcomed onto the JCFJ team, so I thought I would report on some of the highlights in what has been an intense time of learning, reflection, challenge, and connection. As well as helping the team with environment-related submissions, assisting with our publication Working Notes, and promoting my… Read more »
On Wednesday evening I took part in a Hedgerows Cycle in Dublin 12 to mark National Biodiversity Week 2025. Funded by the Irish Environmental Network and co-organised by Dublin Cycling Campaign and Hedgerows Ireland, the event aimed to celebrate the biodiversity benefits of hedgerows, showcase some of the area’s hedgerows, and explore how hedges can… Read more »
If a more populist right Government, than the incumbent coalition, were to emerge in Ireland, then they have an arsenal of tools to further suppress peaceful democratic protest and respond punitively to protestors.
A Presbyterian Appreciation of Pope Francis Sometimes people ask me how I ended up directing a Jesuit social research centre, as a Presbyterian theologian. At this stage, the polite answer rolls out of my mouth with barely any thinking required. But if I was to tell the truth, I would have to say that it… Read more »
Today is the day between. Not death, not resurrection — just silence. Easter Saturday stretches out as a long pause in the Christian imagination: a space of absence, of waiting, of unknowing. It is a day we are not good at inhabiting. We prefer the drama of the Cross or the joy of the empty… Read more »
Watching the news is very tough at the moment. In this time of manufactured chaos, it’s so easy to think that individuals or communities have no power to change things. But instead of giving in to despair or apathy, we can find consolation in all the work that is happening, often by volunteers, to make… Read more »
What we are witnessing is a form of societal resignation. We tolerate a level of road danger that curtails the freedom of children to move through their communities. This is a moral issue. When we fail to police motor offences, when we design streets around the convenience of cars rather than the safety of people, we make a clear choice: to prioritise speed and flow over life and freedom.
Forced to take an indirect route to work or a night out because of “no-go” streets. Hurriedly crossing the road due to serial law-breaking and aggressive behaviour. Speeding up on your bicycle as a “single male” aggressively follows. Children unable to go to school on their own—even the shortest distance—without needing to be delivered to the school gate in the parental car.
We’ve written on this blog before about the environmental impact of the fashion industry and how it increases inequality, and the issue of garment worker exploitation has been explored in our journal Working Notes. Visit any shopping centre or high street and you’ll see bustling stores and people carrying multiple shopping bags from clothing retailers,… Read more »
“What is the moral basis for punishing someone, perhaps hard, in order to prevent entirely different people from committing equivalent acts, when those we punish to a large extent are poor and highly stigmatised people in need of assistance rather than punishment?”
The JCFJ is a member of Coalition 2030, an alliance of over 70 civil society and trade union organisations in Ireland who collaborate for the domestic and global achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs, which are all equally important and should be treated equally, were adopted by all UN member… Read more »
There’s a common trope that we have a name for an entity that seeks to grow without limit (as our variety of capitalism demands) and it is cancer. There’s a deeper, fundamental critique that even anticipating the wonderful gains of efficiency that can come from market competition, infinite growth with finite resources is bound to… Read more »
2025 marks ten years since the publication of the papal encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home and it is also a jubilee year with the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. On the same day that a ten-hour international vigil was held online to mark the anniversary of Laudato Si’, approximately 170 people gathered… Read more »
The question of how people ended up with “multiple and complex needs” is avoided to focus on regulation, form- filling and box-ticking; all wrapped in the language of concern.
Apply by Friday November 29th at 5pm JCFJ exists to promote justice for all through theological reflection, social analysis and research, action, education, and advocacy. The Centre has focused on a range of issues in recent years, including penal policy, the housing and homelessness crisis, environmental justice, and the need for a more just and… Read more »
With the sudden proliferation of early decorations, you may think we have entered the season of Christmas festivities however we are firmly in the season of COPs. The Biodiversity conference, COP16, took place from 14th October to 2nd November in Cali, Colombia while its better known cousin the Climate conference, COP29, will take place in… Read more »
By vividly bringing to life the “bystander effect” and its attendant social forces, Keegan avoids these binaries of past and present and encourages us to ask whether we would say anything or, instead, turn a blind eye to pervasive institutionalisation in our own time.
If you trace the lines of longitude on a map of the world, you discover something counter-intuitive about Ireland. Dublin is at 53.3498° N, which means it is further north than Winnipeg. The daily mean temperature in Winnipeg in January is -16.3°C. Introducing the AMOC Every Junior Cert student in the country can explain why… Read more »
Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its State of the Environment Report 2024 which outlines, in no uncertain terms, the degraded state of every part of our environment and tracks its downward trends since the last publication in 2020. The 2020 report came out early in the current Government’s term and was an… Read more »
Housing and transport are intrinsically linked. They influence so many facets of each other that considering one without the other is folly. Everything from where we locate homes and accommodation, the number of parking spaces, the space given over to access roads and driveways, green space in urban areas, bus routes, train capacity and where… Read more »
Back in 2016, the EU Commission decided that Ireland had given an unfair advantage to Apple through the provision of tax loopholes. Before Irish people could plan a tunnel to Wales or a 100-metre-tall golden statue of Michael Flatley, the Irish government launched an appeal, costing millions, arguing that they should not be forced to… Read more »
It is easy to dismiss the recent furore over surge pricing of tickets for the Oasis reunion gigs. The product for sale is hardly essential, even for people like me, diehard fans from the olden days (who also support Man City). The targeted consumer is hardly oppressed – most Oasis fans are likely to be… Read more »
A report on Faith and Politics 2024 Considering Ireland’s history, the mere suggestion that we need more religious people in politics might seem bizarre. Contrary to the popular narrative that religion should be kept out of the public sphere, there’s a compelling case to be made that religious people bring a unique and desperately needed… Read more »
This time last year I penned a piece which could nearly be reproduced word for word today – “We sit in soggy Ireland and observe the utter destruction which is being unleashed in several places across the globe”. This year, similar to last year, we read about heatwaves across Europe, Americas and Asia – in Greece several… Read more »
In recent years, Ireland has experienced a surge in anti-immigrant protests. These protests are driven in a large part by an organised cohort who are driven by xenophobia, prejudice, and fear. What can we say of Irish “patriots” who march alongside the UDA, except that we have to suspect that they have other more pressing… Read more »
Working Notes is a journal published by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. The journal focuses on social, economic and theological analysis of Irish society. It has been produced since 1987.
