Peace festival in good spirits

A CENTRAL theme at this year's Festival of Spirituality and Peace is to treat others as you would have them treat you.

Known as the "golden rule", one keynote speaker at the three-week event will be Northern Ireland's Richard Moore who, aged just 10, was blinded after being shot in the face with a rubber bullet by a British soldier. He will be joined on the podium by Charles Inness, the man who fired that fateful shot.

Also on the billing is Archbishop Elias Chacour of Galilee, who will speak about conflict resolution in the Middle East, while broadcaster and writer Oliver MacTernan will join Ewan Aitken in considering the issue of why the great world religions so often seem to be the cause of war.

The tenth Festival of Spirituality and Peace runs from August 7 to 30.