Just before Christmas the international press carried worrying stories about the renovation and future use of Notre Dame de Paris, one of the most important and pre-eminent churches, not just in Europe, but in the world. Middle Ages It has had, since the Middle Ages, a special place also too in the life and imagination,…
The popular author and publisher Colm Keane has died after a cancer diagnosis. Over recent decades he created some 29 books, many of which were highly successful. He touched an enormous number of people through the books he and his wife Una O’Hagan, published through the small publishing firm they founded and ran themselves. In…
by the books editor The World of Books The public fracas down in Ennistymon, Co. Clare over the erection of a statue representing the Púca of folklore has attracted a deal of amused comment around the country. Certainly the affair focused the attention of the nation on aspects of our own modern Irish culture which…
An exhibition curated by Niamh MacNally at the National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, to January 31, 2022 Print Gallery | Admission free (book your free entry ticket in advance) The National Gallery’s remarkable holding of watercolours by the English genius Joseph Mallord William Turner is shown only in January. In 1900, at the very end…
In his Master’s Footsteps: The Way of the Cross in the Company of St Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop and Martyr (St Paul’s Publishing, €5.50 / £4.60) This aid to making the Stations of the Cross has been written by Canon Benedict Fee, the parish priest of Clonoe, in Co. Tyrone. It is built around the example…
Stolen Moments by John Quinn (Veritas, €16.99 / £14.50) Over recent years John Quinn’s books have proved popular and for good reason. This new book is a sort of sequel to an earlier book Moments (which appeared back in 2011). In this book I can see why. These days I find I do not sleep quite as…
Rather than cover the signature of the Treaty on December 6, 1921 this year the pages devoted to the past will reflect upon the Dáil vote to accept the Treaty, the centenary of which falls tomorrow on January 7. This may well be, in the fuller retrospect of history, a far more important date, it…
The story is told, by the Victorian writer H.C. Adams, of a student in the 1870s who was asked by an academic in an early exam in divinity at Oxford, “What is the distance from Bethany to Jerusalem?” “A mile and a half,” was the immediate reply. “I think not sir,” re-joined the examiner: “the…
World of Books Selected by the Books Editor The December and January holiday season is the most important sales period of the year for many publishers and bookshops. The tables in the books-sellers are piled with books of all kinds, many on topics that would get better attention at another time of the year, such…
Books are among the most acceptable gifts we can give to others, especially children. Here is a small selection of what is now available, for young people of all ages, with a reminder too that Christmas is still a religious celebration, whatever the bizarre commercial activities that now surround it. Remember books are not just…