Donegal Town, 1474-1974. Maynooth Studies in Local History, 182, by Matthew Potter (Four Courts Press, €12.95) For many years now, Four Courts Press has been publishing the Maynooth Studies in Local History and this volume is number 182 in the series. Readers will know them as short, focused and academically rigorous accounts of a wide…
Boyhood’s Fire: Na Fianna Éireann at War, 1916-1986, by James Durney, (Merrion Press, €18.99 / £17.99) The whole idea of “scouting” derives from the work of an arch-imperialist, Robert Baden Powell during the Boer War, who initiated the first groups. But others, very much anti-imperialist in Ireland, saw in the notion of boys and…
Utopia for Our Century: A Manifesto of Hope, by David Albertson and Jason Blakely (Yale University Press ($US 30.00 / £25.00 / €26.99) While in prison, awaiting his trial for high treason, St Thomas More wrote Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. More understood the fear that drives retreat and disengagement in times of political upheaval…
My Greatest Race, by Ciara Mageean, with Cliona Foley (Gill Books, €22.99 / £24.99) This book, telling the personal story of Ciara Mageean, is a sure-fire best seller to be read by all who are engaged with Irish sport in any ways, and especially the toll on mind, spirit and body that it can…
Never a week goes by these days but there is heated discussion in Dublin or elsewhere across the country on the matter of housing provision, especially of an affordable and accessible kind. This is by no means a new problem, as two small exhibitions now on in Dublin well illustrate. The first is a display…
The Vatican and the Women Deacons, by Phyllis Zagano (Orbis Books, US$20.00 / €18.90; distributed in Ireland and Britain by Norwich Books and Music, 13a Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich; also available online directly from the Maryknoll Society site.) The role of women in the Church is one of the pressing matters of the day,…
A Collection of Songs About Love, Composed and performed by Cormac Buckley and others (Living Water Worship, price unstated) This disc contains some thirteen songs composed and performed by Cormac Buckley, who gets by with a little help from his friends. It is an Irish example of a kind of music found in North…
Winter Past: The Spirit of Hope, by John O’Brien (Multyfarnham Friary, €15.00) Fr John O’Brien will be a familiar writer to many readers; he is one of the Franciscans down in Multyfarnham Friary who pursue their vocations in an energetic way. This little book is very typical of his work, and all the…
The recent visit of President Donald Trump to Ireland passed off quite well, given the often uncertain nature of the president’s reactions to people and events. This was especially so of his courtesy call on President Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin. But this call was marked by the presentation of various gifts to the visitor…
“A miserable thing to be a woman”: Mary-Anne Tyrrell (1821–94) and her landed estate, by Lesley Whiteside (Four Courts Press, €12.95) I approached this book with a great sense of anticipation having known of the Tyrrells of the Carbury area, from spending many happy weeks of my childhood right beside Grange Castle Edenderry, where…
Peter Costello