Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh is an Irish journalist working in London.

The Church of England is wrong to rethink confession

God knows one tries, but there are times when it’s difficult to take the Church of England entirely seriously. And the news that it is considering doing away with the seal of confession, whereby clergy are absolutely prohibited from disclosing the sins penitents bring to them in confession, is just such an occasion, even if

The real Tolkien

To no one’s surprise, the Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian in Oxford, where J.R.R. spent so much of his time, has been a huge success. Were tickets on sale, it would be a sell-out, but the Bodleian has made it free. The visitors book is peppered with observations such as: ‘It made

Melanie McDonagh

Thank goodness liberals haven’t tried to spoil musicals

There was a standing ovation from the audience at The King and I at the London Palladium on Tuesday night, but then, audiences at musicals are invariably rather a sweet crowd, way less critical than opera goers. The musical’s heroine, Kelli O Hara, who plays the feisty feminist British governess, was in the papers yesterday declaring

Feminist children’s books

A friend of mine who commissions book reviews has added a sub-category to the list of titles coming up: ‘femtrend’, books about the female condition from a feminist perspective. ‘Grit lit is over,’ she says wearily, referring to edgy books about the marginalised. ‘Now publishers can’t get enough of the feminist trend about women who

How Balkan politics dominated the Switzerland-Serbia game

Enjoying the football? The politics of it, obviously. The Switzerland-Serbia game was a cracker in this context. The innocents in the BBC box obviously bought the fiction that this was a Swiss team though the two Swiss goals should have put paid to that notion. The hand gesture from Shaqiri when he scored his goal,

Corporate puritans want to kill off flirting

Quite a long time, five seconds, when you count it. And ever since Netflix reportedly warned its employees not to stare at a colleague for longer than that, the paradoxical effect is, inevitably, to make you stare and count. The company’s new guideline is, of course, all part of corporate America’s response to the #MeToo

In praise of Paul Dacre

Eamon de Valera used to say that if he wanted to know the true feelings of the people of Ireland he needed only to look into his own heart. You could say the same about Paul Dacre, shortly to step down as editor of the Daily Mail. When it comes to the sentiments of Middle

What really happened in Ireland’s abortion referendum

The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, had declared that there would not be celebrations if and when the Yes side won in yesterday’s referendum on liberalising the abortion laws. But there’s a decidedly celebratory aspect to his side, now it turns out that nearly 70 per cent of voters voted for change. ‘Democracy in action,’

Buried treasure | 17 May 2018

Imagine a French museum that’s second only to the Louvre when it comes to paintings, with an eye-watering collection of manuscripts. Add to that a grand château with a turbulent history going back to the 16th century. Plus period kitchens (one tragic chef committed suicide when it seemed that the delivery of fish for the

The Tories will regret backtracking on faith schools

The archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon, got it right: the Government has broken its manifesto promise on church schools – can we just drop the “faith schools” bit? As he said trenchantly: “In their general election manifesto the Conservative Party made a commitment to the Catholic community that the unfair rule effectively stopping the opening

The Irish question

The Irish referendum on abortion takes place in just under three weeks’ time, and while the polls suggest a hefty majority in favour, the narrative of inexorable change towards a more liberal Ireland sometimes goes off script. At a feminist forum last month, the anarchic grande dame of Irish republican feminism, Nell McCafferty, 74, brooded