St Patrick’s day sees the arrival of great numbers of visitors from abroad, many of them part of, or deeply interested in the Irish diaspora.   This seems an appropriate moment then to visit the EPIC presentation down on Customs House in the Dublin Financial Centre. EPIC stands for Irish Emigration Museum, by the way. This is…

The latest partnered exhibition at the National Gallery, featuring as it does the works of a series of great artists, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer and a few others, is a remarkable show, not so much for its bravura accomplishments of style and setting, but for its concentration on the wonderful landscapes of the human face through…

This is an original book. Whereas most books for young readers try to involve them in word and meaning, this is a book without words. But it still manages to speak volumes. Significantly it is dedicated by creator Tatyana Feeney to her own father, so the pages must carry for her a hidden level of…

Even for those who, as they say these days, ‘are not religious’, reading the New Testament is an experience which few set themselves to have. I also believe people should, in this day and age, have some acquaintance with the Torah and the Quran, and try to understand what they mean to Jews and Muslims,…

Recently Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP was in Dublin to give the annual Patrick Finn Lecture at St Mary’s, Haddington Road. It was an opportunity which many took to hear one of the more influential Catholic theologians of today. It was judged by those who attended to have been a great success.  Those who might wish…

In the politics of recent times the German Chancellor stands out for her major efforts to sustain the unity of Europe. This may well be because her own life grew out of an experience of what happens when nations are divided.  When, in the aftermath of World War II, Germany – an historical unity only…

Robert Nash, SJ (1902-89) was a popular and well-known spiritual writer, here in Ireland, a man with an international reputation in the decades before Vatican II. Apart from publishing numerous books, he spent his life conducting retreats for religious and leading parish missions. This, his last book, is an excellent summary of his Ignatian Spirituality…

  They say (and rightly) that all history is at heart local history. In the past people in Ireland did not think first of ‘national identity’ at all. Asked where they were from they would begin with the townland on which they resided, where indeed they may have been born, followed by the barony and…

  One would have thought that every possible literary item from the present pope’s early years would have been brought to our notice. But this seems not to be the case, for here is a book, brought to us from those days in Argentina which will arouse great interest.   How it came to be written…