The Harbour Within: A Book of Simple Spirituality by Sister Consilio (Hachette Books Ireland, €14.99 hb / €8.99pb) While working as a young nun in Athy Sr Consilio came in contact, through the local hospital, with “the men of the road”. These were men, often from a farming background, some ex-soldiers, who had been rendered…
Migraine: Not Just Another Headache ed. by Dr Marie Murray, compiled by Patrick Little & Audrey Craven (Currach Press, €12.99) In my time I have suffered from migraines. They are a very unlovely thing indeed, debilitating a person for days, or even weeks, on end. Recurrent and painful though they are, they are not fatal.…
Gregory O’Connor Rebellion and Revolution in Dublin: Voices from a Suburb, Rathfarnham, 1913-23 (South Dublin County Council, €15; available also from any South Dublin Library, or online from www.southdublinlibraries.ie/bookstore) This book consists of 13 essays by different authors on various aspects of the momentous events which occurred in the 10 years between the founding of…
The World of Books The old adage tells us we are what we eat. Whatever about that, it is certainly true that, intellectually at least, we are what we read. This being the case, I was not unnaturally curious about how books might have shaped the mind and imagination of the new president of the…
Séan Ryan The Silent Books: A Deaf Family and the Disappearing Australian-Irish Sign Language by Bernadette T. Wallis (Missionary Sisters of Service; available on Amazon.co.uk at £17.86 / Aus$30.00; www.missionarysisters.org.au) Ahearing child of parents who were both profoundly deaf, Sr Wallis has written an insightful history of her parents’ childhood, education and family life, and…
A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics: A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World by Daniel Levitin (Viking. £12.99 / €17) Exposure to misinformation is part of the human condition. Some – Levitin calls them ‘lying weasels’ – will bend the truth in order to persuade us to buy something or…
Markievicz: A Most Outrageous Rebel by Lindie Naughton (Merrion Press, €19.99 pb / €65hb ) This is a comprehensive account of the many lives of Constance Gore-Booth also known as Countess Markievicz, the defiant aristocratic hero of the poor of Dublin. She was born in London on February 4, 1868. Her father Sir Henry Gore-Booth…
Welcome to the world of alternative truth The row that erupted after President Trump’s inauguration between Team Trump and the media about the attendance at the inauguration has thrown up some interesting attitudes to what some of us I suppose are old fashioned enough to call ‘truth’. Pilate may have turned away with the philosophical…
Peter Hegarty Greenpeace Captain by Peter Willcox with Ronald B.Weiss (Sandstone Press, £9.99) In his memoir, seafarer Peter Willcox drolly recalls the 30 years he has devoted to creating ‘chaos and spectacle’ to heighten awareness of destruction of the environment. Activism is dangerous. He was on board the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour in July 1985…
Tired of all the Bad News by Fr Bryan Shortall (Columba, €12.99) This might be just the book for The Donald when he feels particularly hard done by. But Fr Bryan, a Capuchin, while accepting that we seem to live in a period suffused by negativity, not just in the news but in life, has…
Peter Costello