From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Within minutes of opening his mouth to announce an official review of Leaving Cert and university results last week, Batt O’Keeffe was doing his bit to make the case for those bemoaning falling standards in our education system.
“I’ve asked the State examinations commission and the HEA and my own senior officials [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
It’s nearing the end of her shift, and Ciara is exhausted. She can no longer feel her fingers as they fly instinctively across her keyboard.
But she can’t afford to stop now for a coffee, or to exchange a few words with one of the 500 colleagues occupying the [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism,
By Natasha Walter
Virago
Reviewed by Jennifer O’Connell
It’s always a pleasure to hear someone else admit they were wrong. And when that someone else is a pre-eminent feminist, playwright and Guardian journalist, there’s not so much pleasure in some quarters, as barely-disguised glee.
Natasha Walter is most famous as the mouthy [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Michelle Obama found herself in hot water recently after she launched a strategy aimed at combating childhood obesity. The US First Lady spoke frankly about her eldest daughter’s weight, controversially revealing that Malia’s body mass index was too high at one point.
Her purpose in doing so wasn’t to [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
In the last 24 hours, I have read roughly 57,626 words.
I know this because I kept a diary.
For a while now, I’ve had a niggling suspicion that I’m not reading anymore; that my brain has responded to the cacophony of noise and chatter to which it is constantly [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
I thought we’d said goodbye to the lazy, casual misogyny that once characterised so much public discourse in this country.
But lately – like acid-wash denim, Charlie Bird and interest rate hikes – it seems to be on its way back.
Perhaps it’s the recession; maybe it’s a [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Last Saturday morning, several hundred people in a handful of cities in Britain and elsewhere around the world waved their families a cheery goodbye, and headed off to engage in a mass suicide attempt.
Like members of some slogan t-shirt wearing cult, they congregated in large groups at street corners. They stood [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Jean Treacy didn’t have a hope. The primitive courtroom sketches were never going to cut it.
Even if the gardai had whisked her out of the Central Criminal Court in a UFO, it was only a matter of time before the one-time mistress of Eamonn Lillis was gazing out [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
It’s not actually true that the Eskimo or Inuit people have hundreds of words for snow. In fact, they have a modest seven.
The legend reputedly comes from the fact that most Inuit languages are polysynthetic, so that even seldom-used expressions like – say – ‘snow that falls [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
I swore I wouldn’t get sucked in. I wrote a 4,000 word article urging others not to get sucked in.
I pointed out that the only people who would benefit from the mounting hysteria surrounding swine flu were shareholders in the pharmaceuticals companies involved in manufacturing the vaccines.
I [...]
