Anyone wishing to understand the nature of Canada as a nation could well begin that exploration by first making a visit to our own National Museum in Dublin. There in Kildare Street there is to be seen among the select moments and events in our long island history, a lavish display dealing with the Irish…
Paul Durcan at 80edited by Niall McMonagle, with an introduction by Colm Tóibín (Harvill Secker, £16.99 / 19.99hb) Thomas McCarthy Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944 into a legal family with Co. Mayo connections. Educated at Gonzaga and UCC, he has become the leading poet of his generation, a former Ireland Professor of…
Laurence O’Toole, Dublin’s Own Special Saint The Latin Lives of St Laurence of Dublin edited with critical introduction by Maurice F. Roche (Four Courts Press, € 45) Catherine Swift St Laurence O’Toole is the patron saint of Dublin Archdiocese and, quite apart from the churches which are dedicated to him, such as North Wall,…
For a number of years now the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have performed one or other of Bach’s Passions on Good Friday afternoon at the National Concert Hall. This year brings something a little different in the form of Scottish composer James MacMillan’s setting of the passion section of the Gospel of St John.…
There is so much aggravational division in the world. Some of it due to identity politics, but a related problem is labelling – instead of seeing people as complex individuals, made in the image of God, we prefer to label people. This is particularly problematic when it comes to children – sometimes doing it for…
On April 9 1945, one of the truly remarkable human beings of modern times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was executed at Flossenbürg, a concentration camp situated in Upper Bavaria. In the Gregorian calendar, April 9 is the anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus (probably 30 CE). Bonheoffer would have known this, walking to the scaffold. His last…
Understandably the North of Ireland gets in the limelight when programme makers turn their attention to St Patrick’s Day. Catherine Fulvio’s St Patrick’s Way (RTÉ One, Thursday and Friday) saw the well-known TV chef take the St Patrick’s pilgrimage route from Navan Fort in Armagh to Downpatrick in Co. Down. She was a cheerful and…
An Taibhse (The Ghost, 15A) Is this Ireland’s answer to The Shining? An attempt to reprise the success of Kneecap? An imaginative horror film it has a man and his daughter working as caretakers in a spooky Georgian mansion during a harsh post-Famine winter. What’s next on the national landscape – a gaeilgeoir version of…
Jesus and the Powers. Christian political witness in a age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies, by Tom Wright & Michael F. Bird, (SPCK, £12.99 / €15.50) Politics are changing. In this imperfect world change is inevitable. There is the normal change that comes with the adjustments we make as circumstances shift, new problems appear,…
Mike Cronin and Mark Duncan,Revolutionary Times: Ireland 1913-23: Forging of a Nation,(Merrion Press 2024) This book will be a delightful read for professional historians, amateur historians and members of the reading public who are interested in our recent history. At the outset the authors explain how it came to be published. It has its origins…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone