This year marks the 1,500th anniversary of the birth of St Columcille according to tradition To commemorate this significant date in the history of Ireland and Scotland, a group of supporting institutions and authorities have come together to encourage a wide range of events of all kinds across Ulster and Alban, from Derry to Inverness, and to…
Thomas MacGreevy and the Rise of the Irish Avant Garde by Francis Hutton-Williams (Cork University Press, €39.00) I have long thought highly of Thomas MacGreevy, who managed to be both a Catholic poet, a Parisian friend of James Joyce, an apostle of modernism in Ireland – indeed in Europe – as well as head of our…
Though people complain about the health regulations due to Covid-19, the response by many of our cultural institutions has been wonderful. The leading art galleries – for instance – all have active sites which have virtual exhibitions of all kinds. The National Library of Ireland (NLI) and many others too are exploiting their collections to…
Miles to go before I sleep: Letters on hope, death and learning to live by Claire Gilbert (Hodder &Stoughton, £16.99) Out this month, Claire Gilbert’s unusual book which might have been a memoir of dying, becomes instead a celebration of living. It is a remarkable book, one which (as Rowan Williams is quoted as saying), is…
An Illustrated History of the Irish Revolution 1916-1923 by Michael B. Barry (Andalus Press, €24.95) This is another illustrated history from the pen and press of Michael B. Barry. He has chosen in this one to colourise the images of the past. This is a process which most historians are sceptical about. As I have said…
Mainly About Books by the Books Editor The other week, while writing about the long neglected topic of the thatched churches of Penal times, it struck me that this was an ideal subject for research, not only for local historians but by local people themselves. I had in the back of my mind the survey…
As Many as the Stars: a story of change for the children of China by Robert Glover with Theodore Brun (Hodder and Stoughton, £16.99) Author Robert Glover had had an adventurous and varied life: being a submariner when that was a dangerous vocation and then a footballer (before there was money in, one imagines). But then…
Women’s Ordination in the Catholic Church by John O’Brien (Cascade Books, $46.00hb $26.00/£20.00pb distributed by Books Depository and others, and available on Kindle) On January 11 Pope Francis, acting he said “after theological reflection”, issued a decree, Spiritus Domini (The Spirit of the Lord), which in the words of a press release “amended Canon Law to allow women…
Maureen O’Hara: The Biography by Aubrey Malone (University of Kentucky Press, £15.00pb) Sidney Lumet: The Actor’s Director by Aubrey Malone (MacFarlane & Company, £50.95hb/£36.00pb; also on kindle) Aubrey Malone, the film critic of The Irish Catholic, is an intensive historian of the movie-making business (as it is for most people), with a sharp critical eye also on the…
Mainly About Books by the Books Editor Only part of my week is spent working on these pages for The Irish Catholic. Other days are spent on research for other projects. Recently in the course of these, I lighted upon an article in now The Standard from 1936, the headline of which spoke of “the last of the…