Monday 11 May 2009

An Irish reformation

The campaign against a blasphemy law in Ireland (see Down with that sort of thing! )is gathering pace rapidly, and the associated website at http://blasphemy.ie/ is well worth a look. Why not add a message of support while you’re there.
Atheist Ireland, the group behind it, has only been around since December 2008, and though I keep in touch with Irish humanists north and south of the border I hadn’t seen these guys before. There’s a website at http://atheist.ie/, again well worth a look, especially the blog.
The latter reveals a lively interest in the kind of topics favoured on here – e.g. free speech, censorship, religious privilege – and a robust, no nonsense stance. They definitely join my list of fellow spirits to keep an eye on and collaborate with should opportunities arise.
It’s great to see things are perking up in Ireland, as also demonstrated in the latest issue of Humanism Ireland, which dropped through my letterbox this morning. OK, got to declare an interest as this blog started life as a column in that mag’s predecessor, which continues in the current mag. That said, it’s a cracking wee mag which equals any Brit humanist publication: in fact the wide range of articles, topics and contributors is evidence of a real open door policy which I only wish those mags would try to emulate.
You can find out more at http://nireland.humanist.org.uk/publicat.html , though unfortunately the usual sample articles from the latest (and particularly informative) issue aren’t up on the site yet.

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