Strong Language

Writing in clear English: top ten tips

Want to write clearly, right from the start? Then you need to plan, write and edit in equal measure. Here are Clear Ink’s top tips for getting your message across.  www.clearink.ie Writing and speaking are tools for communicating a message. That’s it. Yet so many things – jargon, legalese, academic-speak, overly formal or informal language, [...]

Losing faith in the church’s business methods

Originally published as a business column in The Irish Times, May 5 , 2009 PLATFORM:Catholicism’s senior management must explain and atone for its questionable actions, writes MARGARET E WARD   It’s a multi-billion euro business with properties and offices throughout the world. The company’s services are used by a huge percentage of the global population and [...]

There’s a lot of living to be done in so-called old age

Originally published as a business column in the Irish Times on May 5, 2009 Western society has hang-ups about ageing, and older people are often invisible or ignored.

Democracy at risk in media meltdown

Ireland’s international reputation is in tatters thanks to strange goings on in business, government and regulatory circles. Now, more than ever, we need a strong investigative media committed to shining a light in all those dark places. Who dares to fund it?

The cost of “Keeping up with the Fitzpatricks”

Ireland needs a drastic shift in cultural attitudes – away from entitlement and towards personal responsibility. The arrogant aristocracy has made taxpayers as cheap as chips.

Wanted: a maverick gunslinger to save us from the cowboys

WANTED: MAVERICK gunslinger to cut down enemies of the State. Year 2010: Tumbleweed blows through the empty streets of the International Financial Services Centre. The once proud little place in the wild west of Europe is almost abandoned. A few nervous survivors squint through cracked glass at the young, fair-haired woman outside. She is wearing [...]

Fighting fraud

PICTURE THE scene: greedy executives, shady solicitors, lying politicians, child- abusing priests, cover-ups, fraud and lots of brown envelopes. It sounds like an episode of US cops and corruption show The Wire, but it’s actually the horrifying reality show known as Noughties Ireland.

How an honest Ulsterman crowned the customer

MORE THAN 130 years ago this month, one of Ireland’s most entrepreneurial sons was kidnapped. Strangely enough, he was already dead.

On November 7th, 1878, the body of Lisburn man Alexander Turney Stewart was stolen from its grave at St Mark’s Church in the Bowery area of lower Manhattan. The kidnappers demanded a substantial ransom.

Toxic tips from D’Oh School of Economics

Originally published as a business column in The Irish Times, October 3, 2008 BREAKING NEWS: Homer Simpson has been operating the controls of the international financial system for the last several years. Mr Simpson, normally the animated nuclear safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Plant, is known to spend much of his time eating doughnuts, [...]

Innovation – not nostalgia – will be the way to play ourselves out of recession

THE PLAYROOM was a mess. Cheerfully painted plastic toys littered the floor and the storage boxes were overflowing. Time to bring in the black bin bags. Two were filled with rubbish and five with toys to give away. The playthings that remained were the classics: wooden train sets, teddy bears, ancient handpainted dolls, the beloved [...]