Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
The invisible arrow
WHY DID THEY ask me for an essay about stopping writing? And why did I say yes? Did I...
Magical thinking and the aged-care crisis
HOW DID AUSTRALIAN aged care reach its current nadir? Countless inquiries and reviews have probed this question; postmortem after...
Things of stone and wood and wool
FOLLOWING THE DEATH of her elderly father, a close friend of mine recently asked if I would read a...
Live long and prosper
THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS of ageing can be traced to its beginning four billion years ago in a gene circuit...
Joining forces
THESE ARE ANGRY times. The Earth itself is angry. Flames roar through the land, human tempers flare and the...
Killing time
The days of our lives are seventy years;And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,Yet their boast...
Contemporary loss
ONE OF THE most popular Irish broadcasters and writers of modern times was Nuala O’Faolain. Abruptly, in the middle...
One hundred years of sumbiotude
I AM A child of the Anthropocene, born in 1953. I have lived in a period of history also known...
In an unguarded moment
IT’S EARLY ON a Friday and the usual morning hustle of a school day is playing out in my...
System failure
WHEN I TURNED sixty last year, I entered a year’s worth of birthday celebrations with friends to mark the milestone....
Experiments in the art of living
A FEW YEARS ago, a pretty young woman approached me in the lunchroom of the building where I began...
Bold rage
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against...
