Sir John Lavery is the sort of painter that people think they have a very clear and exact impression of, based largely on his early society portraits and the many important pieces he produced during Ireland’s revolutionary period, which ended with an image of his wife leaning on a harp gracing the new currency notes of the emergent Irish state.
We live in a strange world in which it is possible for a young person to have an extraordinarily intimate relationship with someone of the other side of the world, and still know nothing of the old lady next door, and never speak to her. Screen to screen is the order of the day, person to person more difficult.
This title was pointed out before Christmas last year, as I recall, as a delightfully entertaining introduction to some of the great heroes and ordinary characters of the Bible, told in a story telling style with a particular appeal to modern young readers.
Lydia: A Story, by Paula Gooder (Hodder and Stoughton, £9.99 /€11.99) Lydia is a person who appears briefly in the account of St Paul’s second missionary journey. She was a seller of purple cloth – in the 1st Century a luxury item – an apparently insignificant person in life. But in a longer perspective she…
The Vanishing: The Twilight of Christianity in the Middle East, by Janine di Giovanni (Bloomsbury, £10.99 /€12.99) The author of this most moving book, now a senior Fellow and professor at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, has been described “as one our generation’s finest correspondents”. This book alone illustrates her skill, insight and compassion.…
Journey to the Light: Daily Readings through Advent and Christmas, by John Mann, foreword by Bishop Brendan Leahy (Messenger Publications, €12.95 /£11.95) Advent and Christmas 2023, from the website of Sacred Space (Messenger Publications, €7.95 / £6.95) Every year it has been customary for everyone to complain about Christmas “coming too soon”, as a…
This is a fine, solid, beautifully produced book, running to some 250 pages which will delight any one in any way interested in the history of Ireland’s capital as expressed in maps over the centuries.
This unusual exhibition at the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA), which has another week to run, is well worth catching, and the names of those mounting it should be noted for a sight of their future work.
Ignatius Loyola Christian Mystic, by Brian O’Leary (Messenger Books €19.95/ £18.95) Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises have been explored by readers since they were written, and have proved over the centuries to be immensely influential. The idea of ‘composition of place’ can even be traced, so I believe, in the earliest impulses to write…
A Quiet Space: A short history of the Sanctuary, by Sr Stan Kennedy and Sr Síle Wall (Veritas, €16.99/ £14.90) This little book is a short history guide to the Sanctuary, founded by the redoubtable Sr Stan and her associates. She herself writes: “Over 23 years ago, we had a vision for the Sanctuary.…