Our next talk which will be given by commentator and author, John Waters, and columnist and head of The Iona Institute, David Quinn.

John and David will discuss how ‘Official Ireland’ is ruthlessly pushing all consideration of God to the margins of Irish life. Christians are allowed no place in public debate, and God is rarely spoken of in public any more. So far as Irish public life is concerned, we have effectively ‘killed’ God. Except we cannot do that of course, so we do the next best thing; we pretend he is ‘dead’.

John and David will talk about the consequences of this, about how it has played out in Irish life over the last twenty-five years, and what we can do about it. David will draw on his forthcoming book, also called ‘How we kill God (and other tales of modern Ireland)’, which is a selection of his columns from 1994 to the present.

John was for many years a national newspaper columnist. He wrote for The Irish Times, The Irish Daily Mail and The Irish and Sunday Independents.

He is the author of numerous books including Jiving at the Crossroads; An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Ireland; Lapsed Agnostic ;  Beyond Consolation: or How We Became Too Clever for God… and Our Own Good; and Was it for this? Why Ireland lost the plot.

David is currently a columnist with The Sunday Times and The Irish Catholic. He has previously been a columnist with The Irish Independent and The Sunday Business Post.