A new deal on the State files annual release This year the reports on the State files’ annual release, which has become very much a fixture of the turnover between Christmas and the New Year, will take a different form as it appears in the pages of the papers and in other media. Rather than…
Thomas McCarthy Theo Dorgan’s Once Was A Boy (Dedalus Press, Dublin) is a memoir of childhood told through poems, many of them written in highly effective tercets. The book is a singular act of recovery, like the best memoir, of a near-inaccessible past through precise description and a child’s heightened awareness. This is a wonderful…
The Universe Provides: Finding Miracles and Inspiration in Unexpected Places, by Eddie Gilmore (Darton, Longman & Todd, £9.99) At the beginning of December and the coming of the Christmas season, Eddie Gilmore had only been a couple of weeks in Ireland. He came here to work at An Síol, the L’Arche residence down in Callan…
Lift Up Their Hearts: Visiting Older People, Guidelines and Resources, by Mary Threadgold RSC (Messenger Publications, €6.95) This little booklet presents the essence of the experience of many years that Sr Mary Threadgold has worked with patients of all kinds, especially the elderly. It falls into two parts, the first dealing with the skills to…
Imogen Stuart RHA has long been a fixture of the Irish art scene, and her works can be found in so many church and religious foundations, that many people will be familiar with her skills as a wood carver without knowing they are. Last week RTÉ One broadcast a film about her created by her…
The papers and the bookshop windows are full of Christmastime promotions. Everyone is spoilt for choice. So I thought I should act like an editor and provide details of what seems to be an essential selection which all will enjoy. Dear Gay: Letters to the Gay Byrne Show, a hand written history of modern…
This time of the year is for booksellers at least the busiest time for children’s books. Books always make an acceptable present. But for those buying them, mostly parents and grandparents, some care has to be taken. Don’t get carried away by the title hypes in the press or prominently displayed in bookshop windows (that…
All My Wild Mothers: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden, by Victoria Bennett (Two Roads / Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99 / €19.99) Mens sana in corpo sans (a healthy mind in a healthy body) is an old saying, but its truth is borne out by this very evocative book. Most books…
My Campaign in Ireland Part II: My Connection with the Catholic University, by John Henry Newman, with an introduction and notes by Paul Shrimpton [Newman Millennium Edition, volume XVII] (Gracewing, £35.00 / €40.00) For Catholics it may be enough that John Henry Newman is now canonised. But this in a way is a limitation on…
An exhibition at both the RDS and the RIA Though many people may be unfamiliar with the libraries of the Royal Dublin Society or of the Royal Irish Academy, both founded in the mid-18th Century, these hallowed institutions are currently mounting in succession a small but very interesting exhibition relating to the Dublin Great Industrial…