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How can we learn to learn?

This time of year teachers come together to talk about teaching. Often the talk is about pay and conditions but there may be teachers who would like to talk less about pay and conditions and more about what they have to teach and the level of stress they have to endure. Teaching should be a happy occupation, often it is stressful, and sometimes disastrously so.

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A cool, fresh wind blows

It will be an interesting time ahead with – possibly – republicans courteously meeting Britain’s Queen and the Pope visiting Cuba. The more interesting of these is the Pope in Cuba.

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Joy blooms amidst pain

Christmas should be a happy time, but for many it can be too sad for words. Your unhappiness takes on an even darker colour when everyone else is practically commanded to be happy. The best wish we have for us all is, perhaps, a merry Christmas, hopefully a happy one, but certainly, no matter what happens, a peaceful one.

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United Europe gives us pause

We seem to be heading towards a United States of Europe. For some this seems a good idea, others see it as yet another mistake.European nations united under a central government, with centrally controlled tax laws, national parliaments which can make laws but only subject to an overall set of superior laws for the whole of the united states; much the same idea as that

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His ideas were revolutionary

People are shocked when you say Jesus Christ was one of the greatest revolutionaries the world ever knew. At Christmas we are all ringing bells and singing and, if we can manage the money, feasting. But that is not what he was about.

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A legal gift from Ireland

A NEW and thoroughgoing report on our courts and legal systems, and a lot of changes in them are long overdue. For those unfortunate enough to have to visit the courts, much of their indignation is about the length of time it takes to bring a person to trial

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Lock us up and swallow the key!

I was in Donegal at the weekend and I asked a man how he planned to vote in the south’s up-coming referendum. “Well,” he told me, “ if Sinn Féin say no about something, I say yes”.

Big man of GAA celebrates in style

Veni, Vidi, Vinci . I came, I saw, I conquered, was the powerful message sent back to Rome by Julius Caesar when he won a war in Zela (currently known as Zile in Turkey. After spending two days with the Gaels of Glengormley, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh might well have sent a similar message back to headquarters. Throughout the two days he won the hearts of all who met him as he demonstrated his love and passion for the Irish language and Gaelic games.

That’s not the way to do it as summer nears

THERE’S nothing funnier for children to watch than a long-suffering wife getting battered with a cudgel by a short-tempered violent husband – or so you’d think if you watched a seaside Punch and Judy show.

Blues make it a double

Linfield replicated their end of season celebrations from 12 months ago as they lifted their second trophy in the space of a week, defeating Crusaders 4-1 in Saturday’s Irish Cup final.

My marathon highs and lows

HIGHLIGHTS 1. Sheltering in City Hall with marathon veteran from New York Fr Brian Jordan — chaplain to the trade unions of the Big Apple — before the 9am start while thousands were getting drenched outside waiting for the Lord Mayor Niall Óg to sound the starting horn (gun for off apparently decommissioned).

Who calls the shots in Europe?

I enjoy elections. I enjoy them so much, I was delighted when the Fianna Fáil wheeze of introducing electronic voting machines backfired, leaving them (and the taxpayer, of course) with machinery that couldn’t be used and cost a packet to store.