Berna Cox takes a tumble and wonders why people get so embarrassed over things that are out of their control. If the ground could have opened and swallowed me, it would have been a welcome relief. If there had been a passing bus, I’d have gladly hurled myself under it. If there hadn’t been anyone [...]
Dr John Wallace looks at Barry O’Donnell’s new book, which reveals a few home truths about surgeons and surgery in Ireland . ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the hospital’s experience had prepared it for what lay ahead.’ This is a story of surgery on a small island during the 20th century. The account starts in the [...]
Bette Brown writes that Sebastian Barry’s award-winning novel, The Secret Scripture, should be read by everyone in the medical field. One might recoil from a novel set in a mental hospital in Roscommon as holiday reading. But Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture recently became my inseparable holiday companion. While at once terrifying, it is also [...]
Much has been written about tax incentives provided to private hospitals, but how do they work? Conor White of Goodbody Stockbrokers answers the most commonly asked questions Private hospitals in this country are generally funded by a combination of bank debt, tax equity and promoter equity. The Irish state has decided that it should encourage [...]
Berna Cox is delighted and flattered that she still has what it takes to make hotel staff think the worst of her and her husband. It’s a source of some small comfort to me that, even at my advanced years, there’s still a bit of naïvety and innocence left in me. Regrettably, though, I discovered [...]
Shirley Lanigan writes that the fragile-looking snowdrop will brighten up any winter garden and happily multiply to form a ‘snowdrift’ for future years. These are lean times in the garden. Waiting for spring to be sprung can be a bit of a bore, and growth will probably arrive later this year than it did over [...]
Giovanni Morelli writes that even experts can be fooled when it comes to recognising true quality, and this applies to wine as much as other areas Now that the festivities are over and all the New Year’s resolutions have been made (or broken), it’s time to look back at the wines we drank in 2008. [...]
Jack Lynch – A Biography, by Dermot Keogh (Gill and Macmillan, €26.99). Kealan Flynn writes that a new biography of Jack Lynch offers us a rare insight into how past political leaders dealt with economic difficulties. Dermot Keogh’s biography of the former Taoiseach Jack Lynch is an impressive and thoroughly researched study of one of [...]
Berna Cox is a dab hand with a shovel when it comes to whipping up a dinner for the family. If myself and the ever-loving other half were ever to find ourselves on that awful TV programme Mr and Mrs, the awfulness would be immediately increased. Even after almost three decades of cohabitation, he’d probably [...]
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