My 17-year-old daughter got her first part time job recently and will be 18 years old soon. In many ways I’m still back a decade ago remembering a daughter who followed me everywhere, thought her mother was the best thing since sliced bread and loved jumping into my bed for a chat and cuddle. Before…
Mags Gargan talks to the new chief executive of the Irish Chaplaincy in London Sixty years ago, the Irish Bishops’ Conference sent nine Columbans to England to minister to the thousands of Irish emigrants there, mainly to those working in the construction and catering industries. This was how the Irish Chaplaincy in London began and…
Felix M. Larkin Ireland: The Autobiography – One hundred years in the life of the nation, told by its people ed. by John Bowman (Penguin Ireland, €25/£20) Shakespeare’s stage Irishman in Henry V, Captain Macmorris, famously asks “What ish my nation?” He answers his own question with these words: “Ish a villain, and a bastard,…
May is here and it’s a wonderful month for celebrating many different occasions. It’s the month of Mary Our Lady, the month of the Bealtine Festival and it’s also Local and Community History month. The Bealtine Festival celebrates arts and creativity as we age. And Local Community and History month encourages communities to explore their…
Inside the Monkey House: My Time as an Irish Prison Officer by John Cuffe (Collins Press, € 12.99) John Cuffe dealt with some of the most depraved and violent people in this country during his 30 years as a prison officer, between 1978 and 2007. During his long years in Arbour Hill, where the worst…
Living Stream of Catholicism: View of the Catholic Church Through the Centuries by Eamon Flanagan (St Pauls, £7.95) The author sets out to highlight the living stream of Catholicism throughout the centuries and this he achieves in prose and poetry. At the outset he divides world history into a number of segments which will be…
Lady Macbeth (18) People usually talk about Shakespeare’s ‘Big Four’ – Hamlet, Lear, Othello and Macbeth – as his pre-eminent works. I wouldn’t argue with that. If the first three have a fault it’s that few members of their casts can hold a candle to the main character. Not so with Macbeth. Lady Macbeth matches…
It was a week of high drama, in reality and in fiction. The absorbing crime drama Line of Duty came to the end of its fourth series on BBC 1 last Sunday night and what an impact! This show has been consistently the best crime drama that I’ve seen on TV in the last few…
Dorothy Day is alleged to have said: “Don’t call me a saint; I don’t want to be dismissed that easily!” A new biography on her by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy, Dorothy Day – The World will be saved by Beauty: An Intimate Portrait of my Grandmother, will, I believe, go a long way in preventing…
A succession of buses, ferries, trains and planes had led us to the promised land of Cork. At last, we had arrived home from England for the Easter holidays. A blast of unmistakably brisk Atlantic air greeted us as we stepped off the airplane. The breeze that comes in off the English channel at our…
Maria Byrne
Mags Gargan
Erin Fox
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Fr Ronald Rolheiser