The World of Books The news that President Trump is to withdraw the US from the Paris Accord on Climate Change may already be last month’s news, but a few comments of a cultural nature about the background might not be out of place. It is to be hoped that given his hectic schedule the…

Ian
D’Alton County Louth and the Irish revolution 1912-1923 edited by Donal Hall and Martin Maguire (Irish Academic Press, €19.99 pb, €39.99 hb). In this ‘decade’ of commemorating and remembering the formative period from 1912 to 1923 we are already buried in books. The centenary of the 1916rebellion has seen the emergence of literally hundreds of…

Encountering Jesus by Pat Collins CM (New Life, £10.99; orders@goodnewsbooks.co.uk; ISBN 978 1 90362312-1) The author will be known to many readers not only for his earlier books, but as one of those who helped in recent years to establish the Alpha Course in Ireland. He is a  founder member of  the New Springtime evangelising…

Death and the Irish: A Miscellany edited by Salvador Ryan ( Wordwell, €25.00) One of the minor masterpieces of modern Irish literature is Seamus O’Kelly’s long story The Weaver’s Grave, which recounts the animadversions of two old men asked to find the family burial place in the local Cloon na Morav in Connacht. The request comes…

The Catholics: The Church and its People in Britain and Ireland, from the Reformation and the Present Day by Roy Hattersly (Chatto & Windus, £ 25.00) Roy Hattersley, a former MP and Minister in Britain,  prefaces his congenial history with a fascinating autobiographical fragment in which he recalls the ease with which his father could translate…

Best-Loved Joyce written by James Joyce with an introduction by Bob Joyce. Edited by Jamie O’Connell (O’Brien Press, €12.99) Joyce Unplugged by Anthony J. Jordan (West Books, €15.00) Tomorrow, during the now ever-expanding festivities recalling the day in 1904 on which James Joyce’s Ulysses is set, will see a host of events of all kinds for…

Buried lives: The Protestants of Southern Ireland by Robin Bury (History Press, €20.00) In 1965, Michael Viney published an influential pamphlet, The Five Percent: A  Survey of Protestants in the Republic, reprinting a series of articles from The Irish Times. The title gave its name to a sociological anxiety: will the five percent shrink to four…

Martin Luther: An Ecumenical Perspective by Walter Kaspar, Translated from the German by William Madges (Paulist Press, 14.99) This is a brief but very significant pamphlet by an important theologian. Walter Kasper is a German cardinal and the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, whose continuing programme of reconciliation emerged from…

Declan Marmion Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident by Peter Stanford (Hodder & Stoughton, £20.00) When Martin Luther allegedly pinned his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517 he had little idea of the theological and political tumult he was about to unleash in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.…

Shouldering the Lamb: Reflections on an Icon by Richard Clarke (Dominican Publications, €12.00) This is the second book of Dr Richard Clarke, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh. It has already won praise from his episcopal neighbour, Archbishop Éamon Martin. Taking the almost universal image of Christ as a shepherd carrying a lamb to safety…