Tearing Down Walls: A Woman's Triumph is a brave and honest look back at the breakthroughs that have marked Mary Gardiner Jones' whole life. From breaking free of a forceful and domineering mother who saw only marriage in her daughter's future, dealing with the stigma and loss of an absent, alcoholic father, to confronting and overcoming workplace gender barriers that appeared at every step of her legal and governmental career. The book examines the psychological impact that her elitist background and work experiences had on her personal development, and describes her psychoanalysis and the...

Tearing Down Walls: A Woman's Triumph is a brave and honest look back at the breakthroughs that have marked Mary Gardiner Jones' whole life. From breaking free of a forceful and domineering mother who saw only marriage in her daughter's future, dealing with the stigma and loss of an absent, alcoholic father, to confronting and overcoming workplace gender barriers that appeared at every step of her legal and governmental career. The book examines the psychological impact that her elitist background and work experiences had on her personal development, and describes her psychoanalysis and the...

Is Ireland a republic? At its core the word 'republic' signifies the 'representation of democracy'. There are several interpretations which seem contradictory but all claim the status of 'republic' - there have been Catholic, Protestant, radical and conservative, small city-state and territorial republics. We might expect that an ideology that includes Machiavelli, Oliver Cromwell and Gerry Adams has to be pretty diverse - and it is. Similarly, what it means to be a republican is a contested matter. This is true in Ireland, where republicanism is usually associated with physical force...