Today is an historic day. For the first time in the history of the jurisdiction the Seanad is sitting during the August break. Our leaders have an opportunity to heal a broken country.

But they won’t do it.

It’s time to face facts. Despite the fact that women make up almost one third of the population Ireland remains a profoundly misogynistic society. The horrifying reality of recent days make this clear.

Social media has been swamped in a vicious tidal wave of “Rose Shaming”, and pathetic young men have been getting their kicks by circulating photographs that clearly depict Daithí Ó Sé.

We will not be party to this. Though we have identified the Rose in question we have decided to respect her privacy.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long tradition of marital independence, but the time has come to take a stand. Her first reaction was to say No. Her first reaction was right.

As the Cardinals gather in Rome today to elect a new Pope, they will feel the weight of a responsibility beyond that which most of us will ever experience.

The Church, rocked by scandal after scandal finds itself further and further out of touch with daily life across the developed world. But the Cardinals know that the solemn task of the Church is to provide moral leadership, rather than to follow the changing social fashions of each decade.

This is a circle that lesser minds would be unable to square. For while the Church must remain true to its own teachings, a Church completely divorced from the realities of modern life can provide no leadership at all.

Here at Broadsheet we have always been proud of our long tradition of independence regarding Papal Conclaves. But we feel the time has come to make a stand before the white smoke billows forth and heralds a man who may not be prepared to make some of the bold decisions needed to save and preserve the faith.

A quick glance at the shopping trolley of any modern Irish family will tell you that 87% of Irish catholics no longer eat fish on a Friday. And yet the Church continues to alienate our young by continuing to preach the injunction on red meat on Fridays, despite this bar having no scriptural basis.

The time has come for a Pope with the courage to grasp this theological nettle and cast it into the dustbin of history. How many more vocations are lost because the young cannot eat, say a ham sandwich, on a Friday, and go to confession with a clear conscience?

It’s certainly “food for thought’ for the cardinals as they cast their votes.

In September 1992 the world changed for the better. Technology, so often the bane of modern civilisation, reached out a helping hand to both music fans and journalists.

A generation said goodbye to fragile vinyl records and unreliable audio cassettes when Sony released the first minidisc player.

At last teenagers could could “get down” to the music of their choice, without worrying about a tape breaking. Journalists could quickly and reliably record broadcast quality interviews on a device capable of fitting easily in a large pocket.

A new, and better day had dawned. And we forgot that every dawn is followed by a sunset.

Production of portable minidisc players ended in 2011. Now Sony have announced that they will cease making stereo systems with minidisc capabilities. A long night lies ahead.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long tradition of independence regarding audio formats. However we also feel that no MP3, WAV file or tweet can ever replace the magic of the minidisc.

So tonight we’ll pour a glass of wine, and bring back memories of the heady days of 1992 by listening to the music of Reef in the best way possible.

On a minidisc.

Despite the stormy weather currently battering Ireland it is possible to detect a growing optimism as the nation’s thoughts turn towards the historic month of February.

But while people may smile at strangers and help the elderly across the road, we at Broadsheet believe that the Irish have lost touch with the true meaning of February.

How many of you braved the wind and the rain this week to climb a mountain and pick reeds to make your St Brigid’s crosses? Very few, given the amount of cheap plastic Taiwanese crosses available in supermarkets. How many of you will slaughter your own pig and boil its heart for St Valentine’s day? None, thanks to Brussels.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long tradition of hagiological independence, but the time has come for us to make a stand on this vital issue.

Unless the festivals of Saints Brigid and Valentine are both celebrated properly and returned to their rightful place at the heart of February then this month will be little more than a wet September.

In recent years Ireland has changed.

Once a conservative, inward-looking culture, Ireland as a nation has thankfully matured, developed and blossomed.

Great advances have been made in the fields of women’s rights, gay rights, and so on. But we must remember not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of our old taboos were mere prejudice, but some were vital for our national health and dignity.

Here at Broadsheet we have always been proud of our long history of confectional independence. We made no comment when Marathon became Snickers. We were right not to. The rebranding of a chocolate bar is a matter for the markets, not for editorial comment.

However, when a bar of chocolate masquerades as a much-loved savoury snack, a line has been crossed. This is not simply a matter of Taytophobia on our part. Lives are at stake.

The Tayto brand is associated with crisps. Crisps, while high in salt, are low in sugar. Using this brand name on a low salt, high sugar snack like chocolate may cause confusion among the Type-2 Diabetic community.

Enough is enough. Time for Mr Tayto to go back where he belongs, on a bag of crisps.

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time. A time for family, friends and warmth. A time for giving. But this year a dark shadow hangs over all our hearts.

On Sunday Swansea defender Ashley Williams kicked a football at Robin Van Persie’s head in an act of outrageous brutality during a game of soccer.

Millions of sports fans around the world, many of them children, saw the ball collide with Van Persie in what can only be described as an incident most foul.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long standing neutrality on the question of Premier League managers’ post match interviews, but we feel the time has come to stand alongside Sir Alex Ferguson when he says that Van Persie is “lucky to be alive”.

In the fast paced world of modern media, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made.

Lord Justice Leveson’s report into the British media paints a grim picture of corruption, bullying, crime and an entire industry divorced from the very concept of morality.

However, sometimes the very speed of online publishing causes mistakes to be made innocently. While no website can be wholly free from error, all must correct their own mistakes, and must apologise in public for them.

An internal investigation has concluded that on December 4 Ewok posted a picture of a scone which, it was claimed, looked like Ireland. The scone did not, in fact, look like Ireland.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long-standing commitment to highlighting unspecified things that look recognisably like Ireland. We apologise for the annoyance and any navigational errors caused by our cartographically-inaccurate bun.

On this day one hundred years ago Albania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire. The Southeast European state has had a turbulent existence, to say the least, since then.

Albania was invaded in 1939 by Italy, and again in 1943 by the Nazis, but thankfully in 1944 Enver Hoxha’s Party of Labour established a People’s Republic, and Albania’s recovery began.

The return of capitalism to Albania in the nineties quickly led to poverty as people’s savings were wiped out by Ponzi schemes. Civil society collapsed, there was a surge in emigration and eventually an armed rising in 1997. In recent years the Albanian economy has recovered, and is now growing faster than any other in Europe.

Here at Broadsheet we are proud of our long tradition of neutrality on the question of new states joining the European Union, but we feel the time has come for us to make a stand.

We wish President Bujar Nishani success in his attempts to join the EU.

Happy Birthday, Albania.