Bishop of Down and Connor Alan McGuckian has appealed to Belfast City Hall to remain a civic space that should “unite rather than divide” in a letter to all 60 members of Belfast City Council. The letter, written personally by Bishop McGuckian, comes ahead of the decision by the City Council to illuminate City Hall…
A Collection of Songs About Love, Composed and performed by Cormac Buckley and others (Living Water Worship, price unstated) This disc contains some thirteen songs composed and performed by Cormac Buckley, who gets by with a little help from his friends. It is an Irish example of a kind of music found in North…
Winter Past: The Spirit of Hope, by John O’Brien (Multyfarnham Friary, €15.00) Fr John O’Brien will be a familiar writer to many readers; he is one of the Franciscans down in Multyfarnham Friary who pursue their vocations in an energetic way. This little book is very typical of his work, and all the…
The recent visit of President Donald Trump to Ireland passed off quite well, given the often uncertain nature of the president’s reactions to people and events. This was especially so of his courtesy call on President Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin. But this call was marked by the presentation of various gifts to the visitor…
“A miserable thing to be a woman”: Mary-Anne Tyrrell (1821–94) and her landed estate, by Lesley Whiteside (Four Courts Press, €12.95) I approached this book with a great sense of anticipation having known of the Tyrrells of the Carbury area, from spending many happy weeks of my childhood right beside Grange Castle Edenderry, where…
A woman drives a truck along a deserted road. There’s a dog in the middle of it. She’s unsure of what to do. Is it friendly? Injured? She gets out. We flash back to a week before. The dog is in a plane with its master, James Belmont (Brad Pitt). Then tragedy strikes. He gets…
We have seen it so many times – a law gets liberalised to the extent that parliamentarians or the public will accept, and then, despite assurances, safeguards gradually get chipped away. The ongoing effort to remove the three-day wait to access abortion ‘services’ attracted a little attention last week, but not enough, considering the life…
Is that your final answer?” Spend enough time watching daytime TV – as I did recently while recovering from surgery – and you realise that on most game shows they almost always give you one more chance. You don’t have to lock in your answer right away. There’s time to reconsider, reverse, change direction, have…
Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you The Gospel Matt 21:28 [Jesus said:] “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ Matt 21:29 He answered,…
On September 24, the Catholic Church will beatify Venerable Fulton J. Sheen in St Louis. For many Catholics, particularly in the United States, it will be the long-awaited recognition of one of the most recognisable Catholic figures of the twentieth century. Yet Sheen should not be remembered merely as the famous bishop who appeared on…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Fr Dominik Domagala