Two years ago Cork Penny Dinners served about 100 meals a week. Now it’s over 1,500.  

They are supplying meals now to people they never saw before, not “just” homeless people or those with drug or alcohol dependency but people with families, parents of small children, “the new poor”, people who just can’t make ends meet. They also supply a weekly shop to several households, literally to put food on the family table.

Cork Penny Dinners is on Little Hanover Street, within sight of the Courthouse.

I walk in and one or two of the people sitting at tables turn and smile. To the right is the kitchen, all clatter and steam as volunteers bustle about. This is not an extravagant space and that will become a recurring theme. Nothing is wasted here.

A man my own age welcomes me, his hand stretched out. “How’s it going?” he asks. “Will you have…

I am a so-called ‘lazy’ teacher.

I work for only 40 weeks of the year. School finishes at 2:45pm every day.

I am a so-called ‘lazy’ teacher.

I teach 600 different teenagers a week, and I address each one individually by name, and ask how their weekend was, making sure to remember that John had a trip away with his choir. I stand at my classroom door and smile as they laugh at me singing songs and at me calling everyone ‘sausage’ or ‘treacle’, and wishing them an ‘amazeballs day’.

I am a so-called ‘lazy’ teacher.

I get to work for 7am, by 7:15am the car park is already a third full with my colleagues. If I arrive at 7:30am, there are no spaces left. I stay for 13, or 14 hour days, sometimes for parents’ evenings, or school concerts, or meetings about a trip. Sometimes I work this long when I return home…

I must confess I had never heard of burns survivor Turia Pitt until one of my Twitter followers in Australia sent me a picture of The Australian Women’s Weekly’s July edition. And, as you can see, its cover is a photo of the remarkable and beautiful Turia.

The reaction has been effusive, with BuzzFeed describing it as ‘probably the best women’s magazine cover ever’. Quite a statement that, and perhaps also an unintended criticism of that sector of the magazine world where the emphasis on beauty is constant, and the cover photos are practically always gorgeous women – and men.

Women’s Weekly dared to be different and in doing so was pretty courageous, but also
reflective of the diversity of women, whether it’s a disability, race or a facial difference. It also acknowledges her strength of character in turning her life around following a horrific accident and the amazing love…

Yesterday, 1st July 2014 saw an incident occur in Dublin city centre.

An incident that, in the way it played out, spoke volumes about our relationship with mental health in Ireland. Faced with the reality of  a potential emergency, the Irish public and media reacted in a way that painted a stark, grim and dare I say it, depressing picture of our real attitudes towards those who behave in a way that suggests mental distress.

At approximately 10.30pm yesterday morning, a shirtless man was spotted on the roof of the Abercrombie and Fitch building on College Green, where he was seen climbing back and forth between the “peak” of the building, to the roof just behind it. He then moved to the adjacent, taller Ulster Bank building where he continued to move around the roof, and for a time balanced precariously on top of a statue on top of one…

Every so often they line my cage with newspaper, and if I’m lucky it is the readers letter page.

Over the years I have seen a high number of people writing in and moaning about how teachers are so lucky to have such an easy job. They start at 8:50 and finish mid afternoon plus have so much time off during the year including 6 weeks in the summer! How hard can it be looking after a few children for a couple of hours?

The beauty of free speech is that it allows those who have no idea about the truth to make wild comments and make themselves look more stupid than a hamster (hang on! I think I just insulted myself.) As a hamster I have never driven a lorry (legs too short to reach the pedals) nor have I ever been offered a job as a surgeon (could not afford…

Voice for Teachers https://www.facebook.com/VoiceForTeachers has written a few times already about the new SNA Circular. However, we feel it is such a current and very important topic, that it deserves further discussion.

We received the following message from an NQT, who asked us not to mention her name.

“I am really worried about this SNA circular. If the Department cut SNA jobs, teaching jobs won’t be far behind. JobBridge has been used when SNA jobs were cut. I am really scared that JobBridge will be used to get free teachers too”.

Solidarity with this NQT. Voice for Teachers will continue to oppose JobBridge for teachers and for SNAs. Thank you for your message.

Thank you, also, to Donncha Mac Fhionnlaoich for sending us the following information.

Circular 0030/2014http://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0030_2014.pdf

affects every single child, teacher and SNA in our schools. Please acquaint yourself with it. Both IMPACT and INTO have requested…

“The job satisfaction and goodwill of teachers has been decimated and there’s a feeling that your best will never be good enough- something that never existed before.”

Short days, long holidays; the teaching profession in Ireland was once considered the ideal, offering a perfect balance between work and home life. Drastic cutbacks have since led to a surge in dissatisfaction among teachers who are over-worked and under-paid. Is the profession headed for a crisis? As teachers reach breaking point, we investigate how recent changes have affected teaching attitudes, priorities, morale, and in turn, student’s learning.

“The short days and length of holidays has perpetuated the myth that teaching is an easy job”, says Ciara Mahony, a permanent primary school teacher based in Dublin. “A teacher’s job is far from finished when the school bell goes at the end of the day. During those ‘short days’ a teacher’s brain needs to be…

credit: https://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-i-m-a-history-teacher-16/

This is my response to this article from The Irish Times.

You bet Junior-cycle reform remains a contentious topic! You bet many history teachers think it represents a threat to the subject we love!

The problem isn’t the breath of the current syllabus, but that when we were asked a decade ago to clean up the vast course we made recommendations about shortening it. Those recommendations are sitting on a shelf gathering dust somewhere in Marlborough St. That’s what happens when you consult teachers, sure you’d be better off not asking them for their opinions at all!

Teachable moments come thick and fast in history class, we know well how to turn dry topics like Gothic architecture or French revolutionary peasants (to pick two from today alone) into gold for students. Long gone are the days of ‘learn the textbook of by heart girls and boys’. We use…

I’ve been called ‘monkey’ many times. I’ve studied all my pictures and, honestly, I don’t look like one. I haven’t got a tail either, and as for being able to swing from trees – I never tried it as a child and it’s too dangerous now that I’ve reached the ripe young age of 60.

Of course it hurt to hear the word those first few times. I was younger then, more easily wounded by words hurled at me by others. I also had to endure monkey gestures from other youngsters. It was part of the price for looking different, for not fitting into the ‘normal’ world.

I was called ‘scarface’, ‘apeman’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Frankenstein’, ‘monster’. Some of the other names aren’t fit for a blog, but you get the drift. I tried not to let the pain show, but occasionally I couldn’t stop the tears, even if they were shed…