| It has been another week of changeable weather, stunning on Wednesday after a mostly disappointing Easter. But there is more fine, indeed warm, weather ahead next week in Northern Ireland. Pope Francis's funeral is today. Alf McCreary recalls a man of faith and humanity and he also remembers covering the funeral of a predecessor, John Paul II, twenty years ago. And here I compare the difference in Ireland between the 1979 and 2018 papal visits. Phelim McAleer, from California, writes about how Catholic Irish America is increasingly right wing and pro Trump, yet the late pope himself seemed firmly on the political left. Talking about religion, Brian John Spencer here contrasts the respectful messages for the new Irish Muslim minority with the antipathy towards Protestants. It is just extraordinary, I write here, that Kneecap have toured the world in the menacing IRA imagery of a balaclava and it is all treated as a huge joke, with not a whisper of criticism outside our pages. Then suddenly they are in trouble when they appeared to sympathise with Palestinian terrorists. As a boy of 10 I knew all the Northern Ireland world cup heroes like Pat Jennings and Gerry Armstrong but only later did I become aware of the 1958 heroes like Derek Dougan, who was aged in his 40s by the 1980s (when, incidentally, Jennings turned 40!). Wolverhampton is marking a half century since he hung up his boots. Finally, happy 100th birthday to the Irish Guard World War II veteran Captain John Gough! Enjoy your weekend and your reading, Ben | 
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