Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin, £23.00 / €27.50); also The First Thanksgiving, a single chapter extract from the original book, is also available separately from Penguin booklet. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. These books give a popular historical account of the Pilgrim Fathers, which broadens out the…
Ireland and the Crusades, edited by Edward Coleman, Paul Duffy & Tadgh O’Keefe (Four Courts Press, €49.50 / £41.50) I cannot be the only one who has wondered over the years about medieval Crusaders from Ireland. Across Western Europe, from Scotland to Sicily, the adventures and misadventures of these knights of the Red Cross…
Praying with the Bible: An Ignatian Guide, by Nikolas Sintobin (Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95) This book, written in a very accessible style, provides lessons in reading the scriptures from an Ignatian point of view and should find a wide readership. At the very start of the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius announces that the first step has to…
“With Angels and Archangels”: Sharing the Worship of Heaven. Bible, Poetry Liturgy and Devotion in the Middle Ages, by John Blakesley (Gracewing, £15.99 / €19.25) For mainstream theologians this sort of liturgical poetry is a rather narrow interest. It addresses not central issues in relation to the understanding and presentation of the Eucharist, but simply…
The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda, by Andrew Fleming (Birlinn, £25.00 / €30.00) The life and culture of our own offshore islands here in Ireland has long played an important part in creating our ideas about what Irish culture as whole is. The books of the islands themselves…
Currently visitors can enjoy two exhibitions related by the materials used at the Coach House Gallery, adjacent to the always interesting Chester Beatty Library and Gallery, in the extensive grounds of Dublin Castle. These are entitled respectively Roots: A dialogue in textile and poetry and Beyond Chaos: Textile Journey Collective. The first show mounted by “Contemporary Textile Art “…
Hienrich Zimmer, along with other Germans over the last two centuries such Rudolf Thurneysen, Kuno Meyer and Ludwig Bieler, was one of the scholars who did so much to establish the foundations of modern studies into the Celtic languages of Europe. Their publications were not only respected in their own day, they still remain essential…
Living the Camino Back Home, by Brendan McManus SJ and Katherine O’Flynn FCJ (Messenger Publications, €9.95 / £8.95) Here is a book which can be seriously said to fill a pressing need. Books about the Camino and the experiences of those walking it, for their various reasons – which are not always quite as “religious”…
The formal reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, now fully restored after the disastrous fire on April 15 2019, will take place a month from now, on December 8. It will be an occasion with important lessons for all the world to learn from, but also one surrounded by controversy. With this important event…
We are all aware of the great importance of ancient Irish manuscripts to our knowledge of the past and the history of the peoples that have lived in Ireland. But the prominence of the Book of Kells has distorted this tradition. The Book of Kells is a liturgical set of the gospels, but the text is unimportant compared with…