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Author: Michael Mcgirr

  • EDUCATION

    Welcome to school

    • Michael McGirr
    • 25 January 2024
    3 Comments

    It is usual to focus on kids starting school. Let’s also spare a thought for the hundreds who are about to start their careers as classroom teachers. They are entering a career that has never been more important and never been less understood. I fear it is being strangled to death.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2023: Celebrating 100 years of Teilhard de Chardin's 'Mass on the World'

    • Michael McGirr
    • 11 January 2024

    In the realm of intellectual giants, Einstein's acclaim often overshadows luminaries like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. A century after the publication of 'The Mass on the World', this Jesuit priest's reflections remain challenging, spotlighting his quest for a singular reality binding all existence.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Who loves longer? In conversation with Richard Flanagan

    • Michael McGirr
    • 01 December 2023
    2 Comments

    Flanagan’s new book, Question 7, a beautiful and profound reading experience. It is a deeply personal memoir, a net woven from many threads. It traces the fine lines that link stories across time and around the world.

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  • RELIGION

    Fire on earth: A centenary of Teilhard de Chardin's essay 'The Mass on the World'

    • Michael McGirr
    • 21 August 2023
    14 Comments

    In the realm of intellectual giants, Einstein's acclaim often overshadows luminaries like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. A century after the publication of 'The Mass on the World', this Jesuit priest's reflections remain challenging, spotlighting his quest for a singular reality binding all existence.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Take this: A story of pharmacy

    • Michael McGirr
    • 14 April 2023
    5 Comments

    What are the implications of widespread use of Metformin, Pembrolizumab, or Nivolumab, and what do they say about us? Featuring a humourless pharmacist and a thick wad of prescriptions, the story of our complicated relationship with pharmaceuticals is a meandering map of the human condition.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Chatbots for love

    • Michael McGirr
    • 09 February 2023
    6 Comments

    At the root of questions around ChatGPT are issues of authenticity and creativity. It has the capacity to call the bluff on a society which is increasingly inclined to trade pre-digested ‘messaging’ and call it a conversation. Outsourcing self-expression to a computer forces you to ask yourself what makes a human being. Where does the machine end and where do I begin? 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Best of 2022: The generation of 1926

    • Michael McGirr
    • 12 January 2023

    My mother often reminded us that she was the same age as the queen. They were both stoic to the point of being difficult to understand. There was never any doubt that, living by their lights, they would spend every breath doing what they felt called to do. Self-indulgence was hardly part of their vocabulary; along with that, they didn’t indulge others much either. The generation of 1926 was made of sturdy timber.   

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Why we need a special day to see the poor

    • Michael McGirr
    • 10 November 2022
    2 Comments

    There are many special days in the year and there’s no harm in celebrating umbrellas, origami or crochet. But surely the World Day of the Poor has a special place. It asks us to see the world for what it truly is and it is not always a pretty picture.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The generation of 1926

    • Michael McGirr
    • 12 September 2022
    13 Comments

    My mother often reminded us that she was the same age as the queen. They were both stoic to the point of being difficult to understand. There was never any doubt that, living by their lights, they would spend every breath doing what they felt called to do. Self-indulgence was hardly part of their vocabulary; along with that, they didn’t indulge others much either. The generation of 1926 was made of sturdy timber.   

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    The spirit of The Way

    • Michael McGirr
    • 09 September 2022
    5 Comments

    The Way had been a community of homeless people, built around difficult but wonderful characters. It taught me more than I can easily say. It was a world where things were not always as they seemed and people did not fit into little boxes. We had many challenging days and relationships with our guys were seldom easy, but there was an energy that found light in unexpected places.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    To live until he dies: The gift of Salman Rushdie

    • Michael McGirr
    • 25 August 2022
    4 Comments

    Salman Rushdie is a writer with a most defiant sense of humour. If you want to get to know him, I wouldn’t start with The Satanic Verses (1988), the book that has brought him so much grief. Thirty three years after Ayatollah Khomeni imposed a fatwa on the author, it would seem to have led, on August 12, to a young man called Hadi Matar making an attempt on Rushdie’s life at a public event in New York.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2021: Atheists and God cancellers

    • Michael McGirr
    • 11 January 2022
    1 Comment

    I must have time on my hands. I have been thinking about the difference between atheists and God cancellers. I love my atheist friends, of whom I am blessed with many. I relish the existential grist of our talks, the deep sense of substance and mutual respect. I also love the constant jokes. We keep each other honest. I enjoy a rich engagement with the history of thought and I believe we ennoble each other through the kind of trust that is prepared to talk about things that are off limits to others.

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