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Author: Michael Mcgirr

  • 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
    5 Comments

    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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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ted Lasso's workplace

    • Michael McGirr
    • 20 September 2021
    11 Comments

    It’s not hard to understand why so many people are watching Ted Lasso (Apple TV), nor why it was nominated for twenty Emmy Awards and won seven. Believe it or not, it is twenty years since The Office first premiered on the BBC. Not since then has a comedy series cut so close to the bone of our cultural needs and anxieties.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    LinkedInglese

    • Michael McGirr
    • 02 September 2021
    15 Comments

    There is a curious world called LinkedIn, a social media site for people trying to nurture their careers. The problem with it is that the participants are expected to take themselves more seriously than they might in what we used to call real life. LinkedIn has a culture of self-importance that cracks me up every time. There is nothing quite as funny as utter humourlessness. 

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  • RELIGION

    Atheists and God cancellers

    • Michael McGirr
    • 10 August 2021
    28 Comments

    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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  • RELIGION

    Christianity tells stories; Islam finds designs

    • Michael McGirr
    • 31 October 2018
    21 Comments

    My year ten class studies Islam, one of the most formative influences in the world that my students will inhabit and hopefully improve. I have a profound respect for Islam. Westerners often fail to acknowledge the debt they owe to Islam, a tradition that had a huge role in bringing Europe through the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The Viennese moment

    • Michael McGirr
    • 04 July 2006

    Michael McGirr looks into Peter Singer’s Pushing Time Away.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Just the ticket

    • Michael McGirr
    • 31 May 2006

    So Mr Latham thinks he has a problem. If elected Prime Minister this year, he is worried that he will have two houses, one in Sydney and the other in Canberra.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Letter from a Chinese restaurant

    • Michael McGirr
    • 22 May 2006

    Michael McGirr farewells Alistair Cooke.

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