The Vatican and the Women Deacons, by Phyllis Zagano (Orbis Books, US$20.00 / €18.90; distributed in Ireland and Britain by Norwich Books and Music, 13a Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich; also available online directly from the Maryknoll Society site.) The role of women in the Church is one of the pressing matters of the day,…
A Collection of Songs About Love, Composed and performed by Cormac Buckley and others (Living Water Worship, price unstated) This disc contains some thirteen songs composed and performed by Cormac Buckley, who gets by with a little help from his friends. It is an Irish example of a kind of music found in North…
Winter Past: The Spirit of Hope, by John O’Brien (Multyfarnham Friary, €15.00) Fr John O’Brien will be a familiar writer to many readers; he is one of the Franciscans down in Multyfarnham Friary who pursue their vocations in an energetic way. This little book is very typical of his work, and all the…
The recent visit of President Donald Trump to Ireland passed off quite well, given the often uncertain nature of the president’s reactions to people and events. This was especially so of his courtesy call on President Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin. But this call was marked by the presentation of various gifts to the visitor…
“A miserable thing to be a woman”: Mary-Anne Tyrrell (1821–94) and her landed estate, by Lesley Whiteside (Four Courts Press, €12.95) I approached this book with a great sense of anticipation having known of the Tyrrells of the Carbury area, from spending many happy weeks of my childhood right beside Grange Castle Edenderry, where…
Ireland’s First Sanitorium: The St. Ann’s Hill Hydro, County Cork, 1843-1953, by Sinéad McSweeney and Ronan Foley (Four Courts Press / Maynooth Studies in Local History, €12.95/11.95) Cork’s famous “Hydro” was one of the most ambitious and successful health spas of its era in Europe. When its doors closed in 1953 it had been…
Parnell’s Other Island: Charles Stewart Parnell’s life and times in late Victorian Britain, by Alan F. Parkinson (Eastwood Books, €25.00 / £21.50) The title of this book echoes that of George Bernard Shaw’s 1904 play John Bull’s Other Island, but with the conceit inverted. Whereas Shaw was referring to Ireland, Parnell’s other island was…
Changing to Be Faithful: Living Tradition in a Synodal Church, by Eamonn Conway, foreword by Cardinal Mario Grech (Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95) This is a book written to enlighten the ordinary reader in the whole Synodal process and what it means for the Church, now and into the near future. In reading…
The Bayeux Tapestry, by Sue Brunning, Lloyd de Beer, Michael Lewis and Naomi Speakman (British Museum Publications, £40.00 / €46.50) Today there opens in the exhibition galleries of the British Museum in London a much anticipated exhibition of the famous Bayeux Tapestry, a visual record of the Norman invasion of England in 1066 and the…
Faith and Football: Played for the Glory, by Marc Lyden-Smith, foreword by Cardinal Vincent Nichols (McCrimmon Publishing, £7.95 / €9.50; available on Amazon, or search mccrimmons.com/shop/books/faith) This is a delightful little book which will be greatly appreciated by sport lovers and especially football fans. It provides a comprehensive account of Sunderland Football Club in the North East…
Peter Costello