Brendan O’Regan: Irish Innovator, Visionary and Peacemaker by Brian O’Connell with Cian O’Carroll (Irish Academic Press, €34.99) Joe Carroll In the awful depression of the 1950s and early 1960s, Brendan O’Regan was a household name for his pioneering, job-creating work at Shannon Airport. What was happening at Shannon with its industrial zone, new town, duty-free shop,…
World of Books Some days I stand in front of the magazine racks in Easons and wonder if the great era of the general magazine is now over. Are they, so to speak, now dead in the water, killed off by television and the internet? Certainly they are not what they once were. The…
Saints for the Family by John Murray (Messenger Publications, €9.95) Inspiration from the Saints: Stories from the Lives of Catholic Holy Men and Women by Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh (Angelico Press, £12.50 / US$16.95) Fr John Murray is the busy parish priest of Downpatrick in Ulster. His name may well be familiar to readers both from his…
A Gospel of Hope by Walter Brueggemann (Hodder and Stoughton, £12.99) As we get ready to mark the end of the First World War, the Great War as it was then called, and the war to supposedly save civilisation, many will be recalling that the treaty that concluded that appalling conflict was the source, within a…
Homily Hints and Prayers: Daily Mass Reading by Silvester O’Flynn (Columba Books, €19.99) In the blurb of this quite large book there is a striking little phrase: “Where there is no priest available, this book would be an invaluable help to any group who gathers to pray with the day’s Mass Reading.” Now this may seem…
Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting by Laura Kelly Fanucci (Veritas, €12.99) Author Laura Fanucci, a hardworking American mother and theologian, places as an epigraph to her little book a saying of St Francis of Assisi: “It was easy to love God in all that was beautiful. The lessons of deeper knowledge, though, instructed me…
The Little Book of Dog Quotes edited by Aubrey Malone (Barzipan Publishing, £8.95) The world is divided, as we all know, into cat people and dog people. Being myself a dog person, I found this little book amusing. The world, according to P.G. Wodehouse, is divided into those who can stop a dog fight and those who…
Beyond the Breakwater: Memories of Home by Catherine Foley (Mercier Press, €14.99) In these essays and short stories Catherine Foley reveals a great deal about herself and her social environment. This collection is a delightful gathering, and its content is every bit as authentic as Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields. Catherine spent her early…
National Gallery of Ireland Print Gallery Drawing Dublin exhibition curated by Anne Hodge (Curator of Prints and Drawings) and Niamh MacNally (Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings) The three rooms of the Print Gallery in the NGI are currently devoted to a most interesting exhibition, one filled with unusual and little seen images of the…
Wisdom at the Crossroads: The Life and Thought of Michael Paul Gallagher SJ by Thomas G. Casey SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95) Anthony Redmond The well-known writer, educator and theologian, Fr Michael Paul Gallagher SJ died from cancer on November 6, 2015. He was a brilliant, kind gentleman in the true sense of the word. I had…
Peter Costello