Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster by Guy Beiner (Oxford University Press, £35.00) Ian d’Alton Troublesome memories, or memories of troubles? This fascinating book is about memory, and how the contemporary inevitably colours perceptions of the past. In that context, pinning down memory is always aiming at a moving…
Making their Mark: Irish Painter-Etchers 1880-1930 an exhibition curated by Anne Hodge (NGI) and Dr Angela Griffith (TCD) National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, Dublin – runs to 30 June 2019. Admission free. A current exhibition at the NGI explores an almost forgotten aspect of modern Irish art, the activities of a small but influential…
Buck Whaley: Ireland’s greatest adventurer by David Ryan (Merrion Press, €16.95 / £14.99) Andrew Carpenter This is a highly entertaining, well-written account of the life of one of 18th-Century Ireland’s most famous characters, Thomas ‘Buck’ Whaley. Born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish landowning family in 1765 – he was the heir of landowner, magistrate and former Member…
Saint Patrick: The Legends and History of Ireland’s Patron Saint by Roy Flechner (Princeton University Press, £22.00) The feast of Ireland’s national apostle is upon us, in all its curious modern forms. And here just in time for the world-wide celebrations is a new inquiry into the history and the legends that surround St Patrick. But…
Dublin: The Chaos Years by Neil Cotter (Penguin Ireland, €18) This is a refreshingly honest account of the interactions between the managers, players and fans of the Dublin senior football team from 1996 to 2010. It records the behind-the-scenes abuse, backchat, disloyalty and other challenges faced by the managers of that period. Pat O’Neill led the…
Mainly About Books by the books editor Travelling round the city as I do, largely by bus and tram, and graced with the benefit of not carrying any kind of phone or tablet, I have the leisure to observe other people’s interaction with their media devices. I find it very suggestive, and believe that…
The International Eucharistic Congresses: A Spiritual Odyssey: 1881-2016 by John Francis Allen (Gracewing, £20.00) When the Eucharistic Congresses were held in Ireland it was the public events that attracted the attention of the commentators at the time and of historians since. But as the author of this valuable book makes clear, the Congresses also have a scholarly…
The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: A Buttonhole in Heaven by Una Agnew (Veritas, €16.99) This is a new and enlarged edition of an important book first issued over a decade ago. For a work of literary criticism this is an unusual thing, but then for many readers what Sr Agnew has to say about the…
Falling for a Farmer by Maura McElhone (Mercier Press, €14.99) In this beautifully written memoir Maura McElhone presents a perceptive mirror both to life on the farm and life in 21st-Century Ireland. This she achieves in a romantic tale about herself and a farmer, named Jack. Maura, a native of Portstewart in Co. Derry, was educated…
Saint Patrick: An Ancient Saint for Modern Times by Edmond Grace SJ (Sacred Heart Messenger, €4.95) At this time of the year we Irish tend to think of St Patrick as ‘our saint’, but Edmund Grace begins his brief book with a very insightful encounter far from Ireland. In St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York he…
Peter Costello