Courtney McGrailBridie Gallagher: The Girl from Donegal
by Jim Livingstone, foreword by Daniel O’Donnell
(The Collins Press, €19.99)
Here is the story of one of Ireland’s greatest stars, written by her son, for many years her manager and musical director. He tells how a young girl from Donegal made her way in what has always been a highly competitive business, into international fame as a singer with a following of millions.
She belonged, of course, to the era before rock ‘n roll music, but there are many who will be delighted to have this book, written as it is from the loving intimacy of a son who really knows his mother. She passed away in January 1987, mourned widely. But as her son rightly points out she left a legacy of recorded songs that still delight her admirers. At the heart of her life was her quietly held Catholic faith, a straightforward devotion appropriate to her rearing and her life. This is a moving and entertaining tribune to a great artist in her field.
Your [imperfect] Holy Family: See the Good, Make It Better
by Robert J. Hater
(Franciscan Media, $14.99)
Fr Robert Hater is a retired academic theologian from Ohio, in the heart of Middle America. He has long been involved in Catholic evangelisation, and has written 25 books. Now, of course, circumstances facing families in the US are different enough from here in Ireland, but he is well aware of what one of his chapters calls ‘Changing Times, Shifting Cultures’.
We must live in the world as it is, but he shows we can do this by drawing at the same time on the lessons to be learnt from the Gospels. But this is a book grounded in personal experiences, well summed up in the epilogue, a parable about his loving mother and a red bird, which is very touching.
Earlier he writes: “We need to set aside time to appreciate the gift of family. These moments help us to understand how the journey towards God is on a family road. The simple human actions of wiping tears and repairing shoes are signposts that keep us headed in the right direction.”
When God Breaks In: Revival Can Happen Again
by Michael Green
(Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99)
Michael Green is an Anglican minister who has been a special adviser on evangelisation to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In this little book he discusses the paradox that as the society that surrounds us in Europe seems to be growing ever more secular, religious belief as a whole is rising all around the world.
Religion it seems has not gone away you know. He is inspired by the idea the darkest moments are just before dawn: there will come a new day, and with it a new day that he suggests we must be prepared for. He discusses the sense of revival from Pentecost onwards, writing about the Reformation (which resulted too in great and important changes in the Catholic Church), the 19th Century, the Welsh revival and other such moments in the Orient. What God has once done, he writes, God can do again.
For those Christians who all too often feel a sense of loss at times, here is a reviving message, like a draught of fresh water in a desert.