Life is a Funny Business: A Very Personal Story by Alan Shatter (Poolbeg, €16.99) Peter Hegarty In a candid affecting book Alan Shatter takes us into the “deep recesses of my mind”. The deepest, darkest recess holds the memory of the cold December afternoon in 1965 when he returned home to find his mother Elaine dead on…
Lourdes: Oblates Youth Service recently return from a “brilliant pilgrimage” with 79 young volunteers.
Grave Matters: Death and Dying in Dublin from 1500 to the Present by Lisa Marie Griffith & Ciarán Wallace (Four Courts Press, €24.95) Peter Costello One of the stranger experiences of my childhood was a visit to the vaults of old St Michan’s where it was then possible not only to see the coffins of the…
Meath: Mullingar Eucharistic Adoration Committee from left John Menton, Margaret Hynes, Teresa Masterson, Fr Joseph Naikarakudy, Maeve Clifford, Eithne Cornally and Jerry Clifford.
I grew up in Co. Armagh – one of nine children: eight boys and a girl, which as anyone can imagine placed serious financial pressure on my parents growing up. This was especially true as I come from a working-class background and grew up on a council estate marked by all challenges you would expect…
The Belfast Jacobin: Samuel Neilson and the United Irishmen by Kenneth L. Dawson (Irish Academic Press, €22.99) Ian d’Alton This biography of one of the lesser-known founding members of the Society of United Irishmen is engaging, readable and impressively researched. The stories of United Irishmen like Tone, Drennan and Lord Edward Fitzgerald are well-known – but…
Scotland: Fr Francisco Liporace of Argentina of the Incarnate Word, with his Irish team: Fr Sean Bradley from Galway and Fr Nicholas Grace, Fr. Stephen Kennedy and Br. Paul Spaine from Dublin, on their recent parish mission at Barrhead in the Paisley diocese in Scotland, at St John the Evangelist RC Parish church.
A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift by Dan Harvey (Merrion Press, €14.99) A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo by Dan Harvey (Merrion Press, €14.99) J. Anthony Gaughan These are interesting accounts by the same author of two very different battles, but which had one thing in common – the participation of Irish soldiers. Rorke’s Drift…
Cavan: The John Paul II awards are presented to winners from the Diocese of Kilmore in Gowlan.
Peter Costello
Colm Fitzpatrick
Mags Gargan