After Newman: A Eulogy for Anglo-Catholics 1845-1965, by Aidan Nichols OP (Gracewing, £20.00 / €22.99) Near our house, off Clyde Road, there used to be a convent of Anglican Nuns. They belonged to the Community of St Mary the Virgin, founded at Wantage in England in 1848. When my wife and I were young…
Leo XIV: The New Pope and Catholic Reform, by Christopher R. Altieri (Bloomsbury Continuum, £20.00 / €19.99) This book is among the very first to try to encompass what the advent of Leo XIV means in general terms. You can be sure many more will follow, but as author Altieri, a born-American with decades of…
Ireland: Mapping the Island, by Joseph Brady and Paul Ferguson (Birlinn, £30.00 / €34.99) These days we take maps, and the knowledge of the real world that they display, very much for granted. This was always the case as this marvellous compendium of Ireland’s history as evidenced in cartography reveals. The first printed map of…
Face to Face: The Theology of the Icon, by Aidan Hart (Gracewing, £9.95 / €11.50) The title is, of course, as allusion to the text of St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see as in a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then…
The Writings of Padraic Colum: “That Queer Thing, Genius”, edited by Pádraic Whyte and Keith O’Sullivan (Routledge Studies in Irish Literature, £135.00 / €156.00) There was a time, long, long ago, when Padraic Colum was one of the most quoted by heart poets in Ireland, a man whose words were happily on the lips of…
A Divine Calling: One Woman’s Life-Long Battle for Equality in the Catholic Church, by Soline Humbert, foreword by Mary McAleese (The Liffey Press, €19.95 / £17.95) This book arrived for review at about the same time that it was announced that Dame Sarah Mullally was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Her elevation brings into focus the…
Picasso’s long life of creative achievement Of all 20th century artists the work of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is perhaps the most easily recognised. But for the ordinary gallery goer getting to see his important works of art usually involves a great deal of travelling from Paris and Madrid to Moscow and Tokyo and other far-flung…
The Best-Loved Poems from the Irish, selected translations of Gabriel Fitzmaurice, introduction by Alan Titley (Mercier Press, €14.99) These days when there is clearly an official drive to make us all more conscious of the Irish language, there yet remain as great many people for whom ‘the Irish’ remains a closed world. Here in…
In these years of self-publishing many books reach a literary editor’s desk which would be of great interest to a limited audience, which have little appeal for a general publisher. Anything sent into The Irish Catholic will be considered for review; though the Books Editor cannot enter into correspondence about why a title might be turned away.…
The Gospel of Irish Music, by Julie McCabe-Johanning (Atlantic Papers, €16.49) Traditional Irish music is one of the most important identifiers of Irish culture that exists for many people. In its various forms, both highly commercial and warmly local, it has literally conquered the world. However, we do not think of it in association with…