I was blessed to be a classmate and a dear friend of the late Fr Niall O’Brien. He was a wonderful person, artistic, intelligent, an excellent writer, a man of deep spirituality with an infectious sense of humour. He had a gift for learning languages and quickly...
In the light of the current anti-immigrant disturbances, Fr Bobby Gilmore, who founded the Migrants Rights Centre Ireland, recalls an article published by The Economist over a decade ago which, even then, was trying to scapegoat immigrants. Ireland, he warns, has...
Fr Neil Collins recalls Columban martyr Fr Jack O'Brien who served as a chaplain during the D-Day landings in World War II and was subsequently killed during the Korean War. John P. O’Brien was born in Donamon, Co Roscommon on 1st December 1918. He wrote to Fr John...
To mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the Negros Nine and the 20th anniversary of the death of Fr Niall O’Brien, Fr Donal Hogan recalls a miscarriage of justice in the Philippines and the RTE reporter that made the Columban missionary a household name. On...
The struggle of any missionary is to give effective aid to those who are in need. Yet, it is sometimes difficult to determine how best to aid others. In the 1990s when I was a seminarian, a man came knocking on the door of our Columban house. He wanted to speak to...
Fr Ed O’Connell considers why so many voters in different parts of the world today feel such apathy and argues that we must all discern how to play an active part in society. It certainly has become a small world! I was talking recently, on Zoom, with young adults...
The collapse of our oceans will spell disaster for all life on this planet, warns eco theologian Fr Sean McDonagh. In 2021, Rosamond Naylor an American economist who focuses on global food security and sustainable agriculture calculated that the amount of fish...
Fr Dan Troy writes about Nanfeng, a small corner of China that is forever Columban, where three of our missionaries worked in the parish and are now featured in the parish church’s stained glass windows. Two years ago, as restrictions around Covid-19 were being...
Students aged 13-18 were invited to produce a piece of writing or create an image on the topic ‘Biodiversity Matters’ for the 2024 Columban Schools Media Competition. Their work had to demonstrate an awareness and an understanding of the issue of biodiversity and...
Fr Niall O'Brien’s influence is enduring and still bearing fruit in the places he served, writes his friend Hannah Carter. We were so blessed to meet Fr Niall O'Brien in May of 1997 while he was still in Bacolod. It was my first trip to the Philippines along with...