From Memory to Understanding: A Study of the Christian Brothers in Ireland 1922-1970, by Tom O’Donoghue (Gracewing, UK, 2026) This is an important book on the long history of the Christian Brothers. It attempts to tell the whole story about their creation, spread and effects here in Ireland and indeed abroad, from their foundation…
Solidarity: The Work of Recognition, by Rowan Williams (Bloomsbury Continuum, £20.00 / €24.00) This is an important book. It throws light on a central political problem of our time: how to find a balance between belonging and autonomy. We need belonging because we need a narrative that to give shape to our lives, we…
National Heritage Week is coming up at the end of the month, running from Friday, August 15 to Sunday, August 23. Actually, the events run for nine days, so it is a sort of Irish week with ‘a tilly for the cat’. National Heritage Week is now in its 26th year. According to the organisers,…
By now most people are probably aware of the famous – or rather infamous – curse alleged to have been placed on the Mayo football team by a priest outside Foxford when they were returning from their All-Ireland victory in 1951 and failed to show respect for a passing funeral. According to the legend, the…
There has been so much in the media over the last few months about the bad effects, on children in particular, of mobile phones and social media. Some would decry it as the latest moral panic, but I think there’s a lot to be concerned about. One of the best items on the problems was…
People often complain these days about a coarsening of public debate, but it’s not just happening on social media. I’ve noticed a tendency for bad language to become more common in mainstream media, both from interviewees and even worse from presenters. The practice has long been common in film and TV drama and if you…
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, ‘He’s about as funny as cancer.’ It’s used to describe dour individuals. The unique thing about the cancer film Sunny Dancer (15) is that it is indeed funny. The characters in it, all teenage sufferers from the disease, gather together at a Scottish summer camp where they interact in…
Passage to America: the story of Ulster’s emigrants Taking ship: Essays in transatlantic migration from Ulster, edited by Sophie Cooper, Patrick Fitzgerald and William Roulston (Ulster Historical Foundation, £11.99 / €13.99) Felix M. Larkin *** An Post has recently marked the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence with a stamp featuring a portrait…
Just when you think you can’t be shocked anymore by the terrible things that go on in the world, you get a double whammy. First off, on the News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) I heard about the awful stabbing of a woman in a church in Tramore, during the Rosary and just before…
Some books are remembered as much for their epigrams as themselves. One thinks of L.P. Hartley’s The Past Is Another Country; Tolstoy’s Happy families are all alike. I’d wager that what most people will remember from Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm (PG), as they probably did from the George Orwell book on which it’s based, is…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan