Yes, because when women go through sudden hormonal changes there is a high risk for menopause induced depression which is unlike any other depression and not widely understood.

Menopause and suicide are two different topics, but unfortunately, they do go together and that’s why we need to talk about this significant change of life. For a huge number of women around the world, menopause can push them to darker places than they could ever have imagined.

THREE STAGES OF MENOPAUSE

There are three stages of menopause of which menopause is the shortest. The whole process takes more or less 10 years.

Technically, menopause is…

Sexual health is to feel physical, emotional, mindful as well as social well-being in relation to one’s sexuality.

To feel this way, one has to respect bodily integrity, private life and personal integrity and freely define one’s own boundaries of same, plus one’s own sexuality, gender, when and how one wants to be sexually active, choose one’s own sexual partners, experience safe and pleasurable sexual adventures during the whole of one’s life and also have access to information, resources, services and support to achieve all of the above without fear of discrimination, coercion, exploitation or violence due to one’s sexuality…

Sexual health is public health

Ireland also needs to establish regional resource and knowledge centres for sexuality and relationship education.

Everyone needs sex education, not just children and young people. Parents often need to relearn to support their children in the early years. Many middle-aged people restart life after a separation or death of a partner. Older adults want to express their sexuality and remain intimate in their latter years.

We have to get comfortable and confident in teaching sex education for all ages and stages in life.

Ireland has had sex education since 1995, but it was already dated when it began. As we update it now, it is paramount to make sure it’s…

Gregor is already a bug when the story begins, from the very first line. It is not Gregor who changes in the story; it is his sister Grete. Metamorphosis is a feminist story.

Gregor becomes an insect because he is already an insect scurrying around living life according to other people’s demands. He feels like an insect, so he becomes one.

Gregor accepts his faith without screaming our shouting or hopping out the window, and the family seems to accept that he is a bug although most people kill bugs.

After the first reading, it reads like a suicide, assisted…

We are living in the middle of a communication revolution and change is the only thing we can trust. We have gone from handwriting to print to the internet, and we still don’t know the full effect of this communication revolution. Journalism is writing, but it’s also storytelling and a filter of reality.

Journalism is still about the five w questions and one h question.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? At times, one might feel the urge to add are you joking? And seriously? Or at least to oneself, is this real?

Journalism is a filter of reality. Journalists…

In January 7, 1922, the Irish Free State, was born. Two years later, the Department of Education was established and with it the Leaving Cert.

Our education system has remained the same for almost 100 years. When we don’t change, change will come for us. The pandemic has forced us to change everything, but what can we unlearn post covid? What has become clearer with the pandemic is the lack of knowledge about how technology is changing us.

There is a climate crisis in our schools. We are wasting human resources by forcing every student into the same mould. We…

OLD AGE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A SEXLESS DESTINATION

Yeats said Ireland “is no country for old men” and he was only 60 when he felt neglected.

Ireland has changed a lot, but old age is still a sexless place and ageism is an acceptable practice, but ageism is a cruel rejection. Ageism degrades and diminishes a person’s life based on age, and unlike any other form of prejudice, ageism will affect us all if we live long enough.

Do you want to become invisible as you age, do you want to be laughed at and ridiculed for signs of…

The Irish government thinks that schools are essential for young people’s mental health, but they ignore people whose mental health suffer in school and not just in a pandemic. School is a mental health problem and it has never been addressed in Ireland or elsewhere. Not everyone thrives in school, some people survive school. School is non-essential for many young people. If a young person is suicidal, mental health professional won’t believe or take seriously a young person’s statement that it is school life that’s getting them down, not life.

If a young person suffers from anxiety to the point…