River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey Sister Helen Prejean (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) Helen Prejean is the well known author of that massive success as book, film, and even opera, Dead Man Walking (1993). She is one of the most powerful advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, not just in the US, but…
A History of Ireland in International Relations by Owen McGee (Irish Academic Press, €24.95/£21.99 In this book the author takes up the challenge of the late Garret FitzGerald to future historians that “the international economic context behind Irish political history” should be “fully integrated into the narrative of both the Irish state and its international relations”.…
Mainly About Books by the Books Editor In times of crisis it’s natural that people should look to their Faith for reassurance. During the days of the ‘mad cow disease’ (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) the prayer in time of plague associated with St Roch was much sought. Now, with a new kind of plague striking fear into…
A selection of books for Easter by the Books Editor This year, as Eastertide approaches, our society is faced with the uncertain outcome of what would once have been seen as a plague. These days we try in a way to tame it by calling it a “pandemic”: giving it a scientific name is…
The decadent society: How we became the victims of our success by Ross Douthat (Avid Readers Press / Simon & Schuster, $US27.00 / £20.95) Frank Litton ‘We live in a time of unprecedented change.” Do we, really? My Grandfather was born in 1875 and died in 1950. I reckon he experienced far more radical…
The Noble Martyr: A Spiritual Biography of St Philip Howard by Dudley Plunkett, with a foreword by the Duke of Norfolk (Gracewing, £9.99) This book is published at a very timely moment. With Hilary Mantel’s final novel in her Tudor trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, climbing up the best seller lists, it is good…
Murillo: The Prodigal Son Restored text by Aoife Brady and Muirne Lydon, with an introduction by Sean Rainbird (National Gallery of Ireland, €19.95) Murillo: the Prodigal Son Restored Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane Room (Room 31), runs to 30 August 2020. Free entry The National Gallery since its foundation has been…
The O’Donnells of Tyrconnell: A Hidden Legacy by Francis M. O’Donnell (Academica Press / Maunsel Irish Research Series, $US95.99/€89.99) There has been a burgeoning increase in the interest in genealogy in recent years. This has been driven by the access to information on families on the internet and such popular programmes on TV, such…
The other week we reviewed in these pages an interesting, indeed important, book about new development of church architecture in Germany and Ireland after World War II. Of course, after the massive destruction during World War II when a large swathe of Northern Europe, from Brittany to Byelorussia, from the port of Brest to the…
Cork Harbour by Cal McCarthy (Merrion Press, €29.95) Cal McCarthy’s important book on Cork Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world, is beautifully shaped into three sections: Military Development, Commercial Development and Migration. The period covered is from 1700 to 1918. Hence there are no references to the role of Spike Island as…
Peter Costello