The days the news seems to have, on an almost daily basis, some medical story in prominence: the saga of the Children’s Hospital, crowded Emergency Departments, patients on trolleys for days on end, a lack of beds nationwide, unnecessary operations on children, failures to treat others… It seems to go and on. What perhaps we…
This is a book which I suspect anyone who takes an interest in Irish literary history will have heard of, if not already read. It has a small place in Joycean mythology as a passage in it (see ch. XVII) describes a visit made quite by chance in September 1902 by the author and a…
Religion, Landscape & Settlement in Ireland, Kevin Whelan (Four Courts Press, €24.95 / £39.99) The cover of Kevin Whelan’s new book, which shows early Christian beehive cells on the Skelligs, might give the hesitating purchaser the impression that he deals in detail with developments from the introduction of Christianity to Ireland. But in fact the text…
Christ Alive: Reflections from the Shadows of Life into the Light of God, John Deane-O’Keefe (Resource Publications, Eugene, Oregon USA, £19.50; available through Amazon) This is an unusual book. The note on the author tells us that John Deane -O’’Keefe is a church pastor, prison and hospital chaplain, and forensic criminologist. This suggests a rare…
Michaelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, Ross King (Pimlico, £9.99) Quite by chance I was reading this book at the time the Conclave began. I thought it would be interesting to make the decorations of the Sistine Chapel the focus of some reflections on the election of the Pope. But like the rest of the world I…
Fr Alan Hilliard may well be familiar to many readers who are out of bed early enough through his contributions to RTÉ’s ‘A Word in Edgeways’, 3 minute long broadcasts at 6.15am in the mornings from which the pieces in this new book of his derive. Having got up that early he spends much of…
H.M.S TARA, by Richard Burnell, edited by Gareth Rowlands (Holyhead Maritime Museum, £7.95 / €9.50 approx.) The RMS Leinster, an Irish ship operating as a mail-boat, was torpedoed by a German U-boat on October 10, 1918, while outward bound for Holyhead. She sank some 4 nautical miles off the Kish Lightship. The exact number…
Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone: The Art of Friendship, by Niamh MacNally & Brendan Rooney, with texts by Sarah McAulife & Joseph McBrinn (National Gallery, €45.00 / £39.00) In 1924 the young Irish artists Evie Hone and her friend Mainie Jellett held their one and only joint exhibition in the gallery of the Society…
Pope Francis was a quite unique figure, a pastor whose achievements and teachings will come to be more and more appreciated in the decades, even centuries to come. Through him the Catholic Church, perhaps even the wider realm of Christianity as a whole, in all its varieties, may find a new and fitting direction, replete…
Killester: From Medieval Manor to Garden Suburb, by Joseph Brady and Ruth McManus, (Four Courts Press for Dublin City Council, €17.95 / £14.95) This book is one in a series being created under the auspices of Dublin City Council entitled ‘Shaping the Suburbs’ – the old city, say within the circle of the two canals, having…