Housing, Students, and the Common Good

Every August and September, the housing shortage shows up on campus. First year students move across the country without certainty about where they will sleep. Returning students juggle long commutes, term-time sublets, and rising rents. Parents bounce desperate messages into WhatsApp groups looking for leads. This is now a familiar seasonal pattern, yet it points… Read more »

Picture of terraced housing with the sky showing

CMAT, the Celtic Tiger, and Christianity: what an unlikely trio can teach us about Irish housing

Irish country-pop singer, CMAT, recently released a new song “Euro-Country” in which she depicts life in Ireland since the Celtic Tiger and the Crash. The song is beautiful and haunting, reminding us of the legacy of the Boom and the Bust-era and how it, to this day, has its grip on every aspect of our lives.… Read more »

Pope Francis’ Love for the Local

If you do a search for the word ‘local’ in Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ letter on the care of our common home, you will discover that the document is peppered with references to all sorts of local concerns, actors and solutions.

Ìmage of an original Laufmaschine des Karl Drais from 1817, on display at Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum. Sourced at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Laufmaschine_des_Karl_Drais%2C_1817_-_Deutsches_Museum_Verkehrszentrum.JPG

The Prophetic Origins of the Bicycle

In April 1815, the Mount Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted with a force unmatched in recorded history. A massive plume of ash and gas reached the stratosphere, darkening the skies. The year before, a lesser eruption in the Philippines had already primed the atmosphere. Together, they ejected extraordinary quantities of debris into the environment. The… Read more »

The Urban Localists: Kate Raworth and the Doughnut

My last post focused on localism as practiced by small farmers, but localism is as much an urban phenomenon as a rural one.

We need a Green “Bread, not Bombs”

A rallying cry heard throughout the 20th century was “Bread, not bombs.” The original phrase captured the moral demand to prioritise human need over militarism, often in Cold War and anti-poverty contexts. But in the face of climate collapse, biodiversity breakdown, ecological injustice, and environmental racism, a reframing is badly needed. The drums of war… Read more »

Connecting and reflecting

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 »

The Agrarian Localists: Poets, Scientists, and Activists

As we accelerate towards climate chaos, more and more people are looking to ramp off the globalist superhighway and make their way through life more slowly and simply on winding localist trails.

Formed by More Than Algorithms: Why theology needs to care about democracy in a digital age

Next week, I will be presenting at a gathering of theologians, ethicists, and social scientists in Salzburg, Austria. The event, organised by the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Social Concerns, and its focus is democracy. Or more precisely, democracy under threat. For many years now, Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has affirmed democracy as the… Read more »

Conviviality in the Community Garden

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 »