Recently our local amateur drama group was courageous enough to mount a production of Dion Boucicault’s Victorian melodrama The Colleen Bawn. I don’t use the word Victorian casually, for this was one of the Queen’s favourite plays; she had drawings she had done of the scenes in her personal art collection. She loved the theatre,…
The Naked Hermit: A journey to the heart of Celtic Britain by Nick Mayhew-Smith (SPCK, £19.99) Readers may recall a six-part television series Britain’s Holiest Places from about seven years ago. This was presented by Nick Mayhew-Smith who had written the book that inspired the programmes of the series. Here, however, he deals with a…
Contemplating the Camino – An Ignatian Guide by Brendan McManus SJ (Messenger Publications, €4.95 / £4.50) This little pamphlet is intended not as a guide to the actual trails from France across the north of Spain, so much as an aid to the inner, mystical path of which it is an exemplar. The author takes…
Deeper into the Mess: Praying through Tough Times by Brendan MacManus SJ and Jim Deeds (Messenger Publications, €9.95 / £8.95) This little book is the follow up to the authors’ earlier title Finding God in the Mess. It answers the question readers might have posed: having found God in the mess of life, what do…
Angels: A Visible and Invisible History by Peter Stanford (Hodder & Stoughton, £20.00) “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”: when Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father on the parapet of Elsinore he appeals to the angels to preserve him, which is quite in keeping with the Catholic cast of Shakespeare’s imagination, poised as he…
Live While You Can: A memoir of faith, hope and the power of acceptance by Fr Tony Coote (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99 / £13.99) Dancing to my Death with the Love Called Cancer by Daniel O’Leary (Columba Books, €16.99 / £14.99) It has often been said that in polite western society death is the…
Mainly About Books By the books editor The other day there came into my hands a unique book, quite unknown I think to readers outside Italy. It is called Monte Cassino under Fire: War Diaries from the Abbey, by Eusebio Grossetti and Martino Matronola, edited by Faustino Avagliano (Abbazia di Montecassino, 2018). My father…
The Badly Behaved Bible: Thinking again about the story of Scripture by Nick Page (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) This is a book which many people really need, but do not realise that they do. Anyone truly interested in the power of the Scriptures should read it. I suspect that for many people it may have a…
The History and Heritage of St James’s Hospital Dublin by Davis Coakley & Mary Coakley (Four Courts Press, €40.00) These days the site at St James’s Hospital has become a controversial place due to the development scheme for the National Children’s hospital, which has in recent times been taking up so much space in the newspapers.…
Shaping Ireland: Landscapes in Irish Art National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, Dublin Beit Wing Rooms 6-10, Exhibition runs to July 7 These days, when everyone is so conscious of the world around them and with environmental matters, it will come as a surprise to many to discover that the admiration of landscape is quite…