St Patrick in his Own Words by Joseph Duffy with a new foreword by the author (Veritas, €12.99) This is not exactly a new book, but a reissue of a book for which there will be a noted demand, by both academics and general readers. It contains, with an appropriate introduction and notes, all the surviving…

The Glory and the Burden: the American Presidency from FDR to Trump by Robert Schmuhl (University of Notre Dame Press, $25 /£20.35) Felix
 M. Larkin   Robert Schmuhl, professor emeritus of American Studies and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, is well known in Ireland for his contributions to Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1.…

A School on a Mission: 140 years of the CBC on Wakefield Street by Lingard Goulding (Christian Brothers’ College, Adelaide SA, Aus$80.00/€40.00; copies through Veritas and Books Upstairs) Charles
 Edward
 Lysaght   The author of this book, Lingard Goulding, was headmaster of Headfort School in Kells, a preparatory school founded around 1950 to prepare boys for…

Ireland’s Revolutionary Diplomat: A Biography of Leopold Kerney by Barry Whelan (University of Notre Dame Press, US$50.00 / €54.95) Joe 
Carroll   Leopold Kerney has not been treated well by some Irish historians over his controversial meetings with a top level Nazi official and a German intelligence agent in Madrid during a critical phase of World…

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs (Oxford University Press, £20.00) Frank
 Litton   “Every age has its own outlook. It is generally good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.” We, therefore, need books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our…

Cad Fúinne, Mar Sin?/ 
What of us, then?  by Colm Ó Tórna (Foilsithe ag Teangscéal/ Áisínteacht Dáilúcháin Leabhar, €10.00/€13.50 post paid; from An Siopa Leabhar, 6 Sráid Fhearchair, Dublin 2; email: siopa@cnag.ie) At the outset the author provides a depressing, albeit accurate, description of the prevailing culture.  He states that its true nature was revealed in…

Mainly About Books by the books editor   St Patrick is seen by many as the Apostle of Ireland – “the man who brought Christianity to or ancestors”. But one has to wonder: the process seems to have been so smooth, so easy, so without conflict, one has to ask was this the beginning of…

So Everyone Can Hear: Communicating Church in a Digital Culture by Mark Crosby (SPCK, £9.99) These days the Sunday homilies, with the occasional pastoral letter from an archbishop or bishop, are not quite enough. With the clamour for attention online the need for all the churches to make their message heard in the din of current…

Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light, an exhibition Beit Wing (Rooms 6-10), National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square Dublin 2 Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light by Gabriele Finaldi and others, published to accompany the exhibition (National Gallery Company London /distributed by Yale University Press, £30.00/€35.00)   This exhibition is the first ever mounted in Ireland, so…

Are we Bodies or Souls? by Richard Swinburne (Oxford University Press, £14.99) Christopher Moriarty   The author, Emeritus Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford, has an impressive number of previous titles. Like this one, some end with question marks and include Is There a God? and Was Jesus God?…