Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh is an Irish journalist working in London.

Family favourites | 6 December 2018

There’s no shortage of magical rings in the children’s canon, the sort of things that usefully make you invisible or beautiful. But rings that can turn objects into a pile of excrement are something else. So one warms to Bianca Pitzorno’s Lavinia and the Magic Ring, translated from the Italian by Laura Watkinson (Catnip, £5.99)

The vegan debate has taken another absurd turn

Naturally, the news that the League Against Cruel Sports is being sued by an ethical vegan, one Jordi Casamitjana, for discrimination – on the basis he was allegedly sacked for his beliefs – cheered up my whole day. The hunting sabs being called out for not occupying the moral high ground – Casamitjana says they

The real reason atheists want to be on Thought for the Day

Oh God. Or maybe not. There’s a letter in the Guardian today from assorted unbelievers asserting their right to a place on Radio 4’s God slot, Thought for the Day. ‘It’s time for the BBC to open Thought for the Day to humanists. Religion doesn’t hold a monopoly on ethical worldviews. Humanists… make sense of

The crusade against blasphemy laws only goes so far

GK Chesterton observed that “Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.” And indeed this week began with an orgy of self-congratulation on the part of Irish pundits about the electorate doing away with a reference to

The dishonesty of the abortion debate

There was an interesting article in the Guardian today about one of the less discussed aspects of miscarriage: the language employed about it by the NHS. “How dare they call my lost baby a “product of conception”’ was the headline for Katy Lindemann’s moving piece about her miscarriage, where she describes how “a baby” –

Nikki Haley would make a disastrous president

The most astonishing thing about Nikki Haley’s resignation as US ambassador to the United Nations is that she leaves on a tide of goodwill, with the demeanour of a woman with a job well done. It says a good deal about the calibre of coverage that the only aspects of interest in her tenure was whether

When a dictionary definition becomes hate speech

So, when does a dictionary definition count as hate speech? When it’s the dictionary definition of a woman – ‘woman/noun/adult human female’ – and it’s on a poster in Liverpool during the Labour Party conference, that’s when, silly. Admittedly, the idea, courtesy of a female blogger, Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, to put the definition up on

The myth of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Syria

To be honest, it’s hard to think of a report by a select committee that is so well-meaning as the one issued today by the Foreign Affairs Committee, headed by Tom Tugendhat, or one that’s more misguided. The gist is that Britain’s non-intervention in Syria has been disastrous for Syria itself and for its neighbours,

Pope Francis asks forgiveness for ‘abuses’ in Ireland

Well, he’s said it. At the exuberant closing mass in driving rain of his visit to Ireland, the Pope has asked, off script, forgiveness for the wrongs committed by the church. Specifically he asked forgiveness for ‘the abuses in Ireland; abuses of power, conscience, and sexual abuses perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in

Adventures with robots

Imagine a world where we’re all hooked to our individual electronic devices, which feed us our music, communicate with our friends and know our needs; imagine a tech company that dominates an entire city, where your social pecking order is reflected in the devices you possess. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. It’s all there