The Restructuring of Irish Dioceses edited by Eugene Duffy (Dominican Publications, €20.00 / £17.50) This book, the publishers explain, “provides a timely and thought-provoking exploration of the challenges facing the Catholic Church. The boundaries of Ireland’s 26 dioceses, unchanged since the 12th century, no longer reflect the distribution of the Catholic population.” But such demographic change…
The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalisation Began by Valerie Hansen (Viking / Penguin, £20.00 / €23.50) Having been reared on the idea, common enough in the 19th century and later, that the year 1000 was rife with fears of an imminent Day of Judgement, I was a little surprised to read…
The Return of the White Canons: The Modern Norbertines in Britain by Aidan Nichols (Gracewing, £12.99 / €14.99) Aidan Nichols is a Dominican friar, with a special interest in ecumenism, who has an established reputation as a writer on Catholic theology and culture. His latest book concerns the revival of the White Canons, the Canons Regular…
Jerusalem Through the Ages: From its Beginnings to the Crusades by Jodi Magness (Oxford University Press, £30.99/€36.50) Author Jodi Magness is a distinguished archaeologist at the height of her career who specialises in ancient Palestine from its beginnings up the Middle Ages. Over several years she had to be persuaded to write this book, but many…
Brando – The Fun Side by Aubrey Malone (Bear Manor Media, €32.95) Famously we are advised by Monty Python to look on the bright side of life. And so we ought to. But the bright side of Marlon Brando? He made his first impact as an actor playing a sullen angry young man in films that…
Dublin from 1970 to 1990: The city transformed by Joseph Brady (Four Court Press, review of Joe Brady, €24.95 / £18.50) This new book by Joseph Brady marks the conclusion of a series devoted to the development of Dublin city, or perhaps we might say the Dublin region, since circa 900 AD, Joseph Brady is a…
The History of the Church of Christ by Pierre Daniel-Rops (Cluny Media, in ten volumes, priced from $US 27.95/€25.50) Back in the post-war decades in Ireland, for many Catholics two authors stood out. One was the Jesuit Fr Frederick Copleston with his volumes of A History of Philosophy, which was perhaps a little too academic for…
“You Will Dye at Midnight”: Threatening Letters in Victorian Ireland by Donal P. McCracken (Eastwood, €20.00) The news media these days are filled with reports of threats of death and violence being made, not just against celebrities, politicians, media stars, bishops, and such like, but against even internet users careless enough to expose themselves to comment…
A Life in Medicine, from Asclepius to Beckett by Eoin O’Brien, foreword by John Banville (Lilliput Press, €25.00 / £21.00) Irish literature is filled with examples of leading medical men, who were also creative and bold litterateurs. One thinks of Sir William Wilde, Oliver St John Gogarty, J. B. Lyons and many others. As a medical…
Synodality and the Recovery of Vatican II: A new way for Catholics edited by Stephen J. McKinney, Thomas O’Loughlin & Beáta Tóth (Messenger Publications, €25.00) As the title suggests this is a book with a studied purpose, but whose intentions have been caught up with by the passage of events in a way the editors could not have expected.…