When??I think about??happiness, it is not an image I see, though I know the ads that show perfectly matched children hugging their toys or an impeccable couple strolling on the beach at an exclusive resort or a silver-haired pair holding hands beside a golf cart. My happiness moves. Where I live in the west of Ireland, often in the evening a bar of golden light blazes along the horizon of the ocean. Then small clouds, ragged and wistful, drift across ...

The 1955 advert for the Magdalene laundry in Dublin, Ireland reads like a tear-jerking charity appeal: "The Superioress and Sisters of The Magdalen Asylum ... very earnestly beg the support of the liberal and kind-hearted to help them with the upkeep of the Institution for 130 Poor Penitents, who receive a home within its walls." But the reality for many of the "penitents" — or repentant sinners — living in these institutions was very different from the ...

Ireland, which enriched the English language with the word boycott,* has invented a refinement of the term. The new word: fethardism, meaning to practice boycott along religious lines.When, eight years ago, Sean Michael Cloney, 22, a Roman Catholic farmer, married Sheila Kelly, 22, Protestant, in London, she made the usual agreement imposed by the Catholic Church on mixed marriages: the children would be brought up as Catholics. Sean brought Sheila back to his big brown farmhouse called Dungulph Castle, a 600-year-old rebuilt Norman mansion in the southern ...

Northern Ireland's troubles aren't entirely over. A police constable was killed by a car bomb in April, and one was seriously injured by a car bomb last year. But despite these sporadic atrocities — dissident republicans are thought to be behind both attacks — peace is finally working there, so much so that enterprising taxi drivers are taking visitors to the capital, Belfast, on tours of once dangerous sectarian areas. Billy Scott is one of several drivers making ...

As Queen Elizabeth II was touching down in a Dublin airport on May 17 for the start of her four-day visit to Ireland, the Irish people were holding their collective breath. The Queen's visit was being billed as a sign of the end of centuries of friction between the two countries — and one which most Irish were praying would go well, as they could little afford any more harm to their nation's reputation given the bad ...

In the coming weeks, Ireland will host two of the world's most recognizable VIPs: Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama. And as the country gets ready, the taxi drivers of Dublin are seeing the careful — and sometimes inconvenient — preparations up close. "The police have been down every manhole in Dublin twice at this stage," says one, describing the increase in security that includes the inspection of the city's sewers for bombs. Ireland is taking no ...

Only eight major nations in the world, all Catholic, do not allow divorce. They are Italy, Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay. Of the eight, the one closest to ending its prohibition is the home of the church it self. Italy's Chamber of Deputies last week began full debate on a bill that would allow civil divorce for one of seven reasons. Parliamentary observers predict that the bill will pass, probably before the end of the year. Divorces ...

Europe debt crisis rolls on as Irish bailouts grow Economist Lucey said Ireland was needlessly tying its future fortunes to keeping all senior bondholders happy. He said bondholders should be forced, on a case-by-case basis, to accept punishment for the risks they took in loaning to Irish banks. "We haven't been told who owns this senior debt," he said. The biggest surprise in Thursday's announcement was confirmation that Ireland has conceded it will effectively nationalize Allied Irish Banks, once the country's largest financial ...

Ireland Takes Over 2nd Bank as Bailout Bill Rises In a sweeping action meant to regain the confidence of jittery investors, the Irish government said Thursday that it expected to inject billions of additional euros into two of the country’s largest banks, underscoring the extent to which they continued to jeopardize Ireland’s economic condition. The announcement comes at a time of increasing fiscal duress for euro-zone economies, highlighted most recently by a French budget submitted Wednesday that was one of the most ...

Wanted: Clean-living young people for a long career . Responsibilities: Varied. Spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, public relations, marriages . Hours: On call at all times. Salary: None, bar basic monthly stipend. He hasn't placed classified ads in the Irish press just yet, but according to Father Patrick Rushe, coordinator of vocations with the Catholic Church in Ireland, "we've done just about everything" else to attract young men to the priesthood. And yet, the call of service in one of Europe's most religious countries is ...