St Chinian University Comes of Age, by Paddy Masterson (Pegasus Press/Elliot Mackenzie Publishers, £10.99) Patrick Masterson served as president of University College Dublin from 1986 to 1993 and was president of the European University Institute in Florence from 1994 to 2002. His novels are the fruit of his first-hand and practical experience of how insignificant, first-world…
Faith and Fury: The Evangelical Campaign in Dingle and West Kerry 1825-45 by Bryan MacMahon (Wordwell, €20.00/£18.99) In these ecumenical times it is difficult to make sense of the distrust and hostility which existed between Catholics and Protestants in west Kerry between 1825 and 1845. Locally these years became known as the period of the second…
Peter J. Drumm, First Professor of Biochemistry at University College Cork by Ned Barrett (Clogher Historical Society, €15.00; Clogher Historical Society, St Macartan’s College, Mullaghmurphy, Monaghan; ; info@clogherhistory.ie) Peter J. Drumm was born in Drumod, Co. Monaghan, on October 24, 1898. He attended Derrygooney National School and was a boarder at St Macartan’s College in Monaghan Town from…
The First Irish Cities: an Eighteenth-Century Transformation by David Dickson (Yale University Press, £25.00/€32.00) In this study Prof. Dickson selects ten Irish cities and towns, subjects them to a forensic historical analysis and illustrates in meticulous detail their evolution throughout the 18th Century. The urban centres he selects are: Belfast, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny,…
The O’Mahony Journal (No. 43, 2020) Nora M. Hickey (The O’Mahony Society who produces this annual can be contacted through Cristeoir D. F. O. O’Maony ‘Rosbrin’, 27 Woodlands, Montenotte, Co. Cork. email: dfomahoney@gmail.com Here in Ireland there are many people who are well-known, and enjoyed by all but who never rise to the honour of…
An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean – Antarctic Survivor by Michael Smith (Gill Books, €19.99 / £12.50) Tom Crean was a hero of the legendary Polar expeditions of the early decades of the twentieth century. The explorer faced nature in all its raw energy in a way later travellers never did. Crean was born on a…
In Reasonable Hope: Philosophical Reflections on Ultimate Meaning by Patrick Masterson (Catholic University of America Press, $34.95pb/ £22.99; if required a case bound edition is available at £99.00) In this study Patrick Masterson poses the question: ‘What does it all ultimately mean?’ In effect he is asking what is the purpose of our lives? The response…
The Irish to the Rescue: The Tercentenary of the Polish Princess Clementina’s Escape by Richard K. Maher (Peter Lang, Oxford, €39.95) This is a collection of papers presented to a seminar to commemorate the rescue and escape of the Polish princess, Maria Clementina Sobieska from Innsbruck in August 1719. Maria Clementina was born on July 18,…
Saints, Scholars, Heroes by Fr Éamon Flanagan CM (Kolbe Publications; ISBN: 9-780952-962724; €7.00+postage) This is a collection of poems about people, places and events and much more besides. They are written from a Christian and communitarian perspective, are immensely personal and are imbued with a Catholic sensibility. Fr Éamon Flanagan celebrates in verse Fr Eamon O’Hara…
Rhyming History: The Irish War of Independence and the Ballads of Atrocity in the Valley of Knockanure by Gabriel Fitzmaurice (North Kerry Literary Trust , €15.00; can be ordered from the Kerry Writers’ Museum, info@kerrywritersmuseum.com, 24 The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry V31 RD93) G.K. Chesterton once famously rhymed: “The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that…