The exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the painter Jack B. Yeats is one which everyone at all interested in Irish art – or indeed Irish culture in general – will want to see. The catalogue to accompany the show is also one to have.…
Voices from the Desert. The Lost Legacy of the Skelligs by Hugh MacMahon (Columba Books. €14.99/£12.99) Skellig Michael is one of the most famous heritage sites in Ireland, which the Office of Public Works has made great effort to render more accessible to visitors. Having appeared in one of the segments of the Star Wars series…
By the Books editor A little while ago, from a book picked up in my book-hunting rambles, I plucked a leaflet on Choosing pupils for The School around the Corner. This was once among the most popular programmes that Radió Éireann (as the single national station was then called) ever broadcast. Some reflections on it may…
Mission to a Suffering People: Irish Jesuits 1596-1696 by Thomas J. Morrissey SJ (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) The Jesuit historian T. J. Morrissey is well known for his books on the Irish trade union movement and on modern Church history, especially in Dublin. But he has also written widely about the more distant past. His new book…
A Life of Sir Horace Plunkett by Maurice Colbert (Copies can be purchased directly from the author at: 086 821 9584, or email mcolbert@live.ie Price: €20+postage) This book brings to mind that passage in Gulliver’s Travels, where that hardy sea man is in dialogue with the king of Brobdingnag about the virtues of their respective nations. “And he gave…
Saint Francis of Assisi and the wolf of Gubbio St Francis of Assisi, canonised in 1228, a mere century after his death, must be one of the most universally venerated saints in the world, a man widely respected beyond the Christian community. This is partly due to his special relationship with birds and animals. In…
Irish saints are, of course, not the only ones to have curious associations with birds and animals. Two remarkable instances are the lives of the Northumbrian St Cuthbert, and the even more remarkable legend of the Father of the Church, St Jerome. These are worth contrasting with our Irish saints. St Cuthbert and the otters…
St Kevin and the birds The little monasteries of early Christian Ireland derived their monastic ideals from the desert fathers of Egypt. But instead of some cave or remote hill top such as was to be found in the Libyan desert or in Sinai, they remained faithful to the notions of the ancient Celts, whose…
St Brendan and the sea beasts Brendan of Clonfert must be the most famous Irish saint after Patrick himself. Today, whereas most of the Irish saints listed in the in the reference books are hardly known, Brendan stands out, and this is entirely due to his fame as a sailor. He is always ‘Brendan the…
In the Shadow of Vesuvius: a Life of Pliny by Daisy Dunn (William Collins, £9.00 / €11.90) The Natural History by Pliny the Elder, translated with an introduction by John Healey (Penguin Classics, €15.99 / £9.99) The Letters of the Younger Pliny translated by Betty Radice (Penguin Classics, £9.99 / €9.42) A life of Pliny? Yes please, I said,…