I’m aware that it’s been months since I last updated the blog, but I have been doing a bit of scribbling elsewhere, mainly for work and for the paper. There will be a day of retrospective column uploading happening soon. In the meantime I wrote this a couple of weeks back about consent. It was published in The Mayo News on Tuesday 16th November 2016. 

Many of you will have seen Louise O’Neill’s excellent documentary, “Asking For It” last week on RTE2 (Irish Times review of Asking for It here).  The documentary sees the acclaimed author explore the issues of consent and sexual assault in Ireland. O’Neill’s documentary is significant, in that it is probably the first time a conversation on consent has gone truly mainstream, and moved away from the feminist arena, where it has, of course, been talked about for decades.

Continue reading →