The Parnell Split in Westmeath: the bishop and the newspaper editor by Michael Nolan (Four Courts Press, €9.95) Felix 
M. 
Larkin   John Patrick Hayden established the Westmeath Examiner in Mullingar in 1882, and was its editor and proprietor for a record 72 years – until his death in 1954, aged 91. His father, and later his brother, owned the Roscommon Messenger,…

Kindling the Flame: 150 years of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation by Niamh Puirséil (Gill, €24.99) Daire
 Keogh   Media reports of  the planned retirement of Sheila Nunan as general secretary of the Irish National Teachers Organisation have naturally focussed both on her personal achievement, as first female leader of her union, and the enduring influence…

Defending Hope: Dispatches from the Front Lines in Palestine and Israel by Eoin Murray and James Mehigan (Veritas, €16.99) Geoff
 Day   ‘Hope is not the solution, nor the end goal: it is just the beginning’ writes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire in her introduction to this important book of essays from those at the front…

Chalk Dust by Noel Monahan (Salmon Poetry, €14.00) Seamus
 Cashman   In my first reading of this collection of some 56 poems (150 pages long!) by the Longford poet, dramatist, and former teacher, I found several poems taking me into imagination, back my own era of ‘chalk dust’. The first poem, ‘Still-Life Study’, a poem based on…

Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital Age by Michael Chertoff (Grove Press, £20) Peter
 Hegarty   When it comes to the protection of data “we are overdue to recast the rules of the road”, says Michael Chertoff, writing with the authority of a former US Secretary of Homeland Security. What he has to say has…

Smitten Soul: Illuminating the Dark, by Gabriel Fitzmaurice; with paintings by Brenda Fitzmaurice (Salmon Poetry, €12.00) Seamus 
Cashman “Am I going to Mass on Sundays?” Mary asks in a string of questions, and the poet remarks, “how the good are frightened of their Church”. The poem, from Gabriel Fitzmaurice’s latest collection, is called ‘Alzheimer’s Disease’ and it carries…

Kilkenny in Times of Revolution 1900 – 1923, by Eoin Swithin Walsh foreword by Diarmaid Ferriter  (Merrion Press, €19.99 pb) This is a comprehensive account of the revolutionary years in Kilkenny city and county from 1900 to 1923. As a narrative on the War of Independence and Civil War it is remarkable for its detail.…

The Family is Good News: Selections from Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) by Pope Francis, prepared for the Council for Marriage and the Family of the Irish Episcopal Conference (Veritas, €9.99) The Beatitudes of Pope Francis: A Manifesto for the Modern Christian by Aidan Donaldson (Veritas, €7.99) These two books inspired by Pope Francis provide the ordinary reader with…

Historian Dr Donal Corcoran describes his lifelong fascination with the Irishmen who served the Pope in defending the Papal States during the war of Italian unification in the 19th Century, which had lead him to do extended research on the subject for his newly published book.   As a child I was fascinated with two war medals that my grandfather…

I Will Not Serve: The priest who said NO to Hitler by David Rice (Red Stag / Mentor Books, €14.99) This is a true story of Fr Franz Reinisch who was beheaded for refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht. His refusal arose from his unwillingness to swear an unconditional oath of obedience to Adolf Hitler, its…