Crash Centre, by David McLoghlin – (Salmon Poetry, €12.00 / £10.00; contact info@salmonpoetry.com) Poet and Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh fellow, David McLoghlin returned to Ireland in 2020 after ten years in Brooklyn. He had taught at NYU and at the Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the south Bronx. Now in his early fifties, he is probably…
Since the recovery of a lost Caravaggio of the very greatest importance in the dining room of a Jesuit residence in Dublin, a work of art now safely enshrined in the National Gallery, there has been a continuing interest in Caravaggio across Ireland. A portrait of created by Caravaggio has just gone on show in…
Newman and His Critics, by Edward Short – (Gracewing, £35.00 pb / £65.00 hb) This large and very detailed book, running to some 600 pages, is one of three which the author has written on John Henry Newman. He has already published Newman and His Contemporaries and Newman and His Family. Those earlier volumes are now again available to make…
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin, £23.00 / €27.50); also The First Thanksgiving, a single chapter extract from the original book, is also available separately from Penguin booklet. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. These books give a popular historical account of the Pilgrim Fathers, which broadens out the…
Southern Irish Protestant – Histories, Lives & Literatures, by Ian d’Alton (Eastwood / Wordwell, €25.00 / £22.95) Robert Marshall Ian d’Alton was born in Dublin, moving to Cork at the outset of his teenage years. He graduated from University College Cork. There he read history under Oliver MacDonagh before going up to Peterhouse…
Ireland and the Crusades, edited by Edward Coleman, Paul Duffy & Tadgh O’Keefe (Four Courts Press, €49.50 / £41.50) I cannot be the only one who has wondered over the years about medieval Crusaders from Ireland. Across Western Europe, from Scotland to Sicily, the adventures and misadventures of these knights of the Red Cross…
Praying with the Bible: An Ignatian Guide, by Nikolas Sintobin (Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95) This book, written in a very accessible style, provides lessons in reading the scriptures from an Ignatian point of view and should find a wide readership. At the very start of the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius announces that the first step has to…
“With Angels and Archangels”: Sharing the Worship of Heaven. Bible, Poetry Liturgy and Devotion in the Middle Ages, by John Blakesley (Gracewing, £15.99 / €19.25) For mainstream theologians this sort of liturgical poetry is a rather narrow interest. It addresses not central issues in relation to the understanding and presentation of the Eucharist, but simply…
The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda, by Andrew Fleming (Birlinn, £25.00 / €30.00) The life and culture of our own offshore islands here in Ireland has long played an important part in creating our ideas about what Irish culture as whole is. The books of the islands themselves…
Currently visitors can enjoy two exhibitions related by the materials used at the Coach House Gallery, adjacent to the always interesting Chester Beatty Library and Gallery, in the extensive grounds of Dublin Castle. These are entitled respectively Roots: A dialogue in textile and poetry and Beyond Chaos: Textile Journey Collective. The first show mounted by “Contemporary Textile Art “…
Peter Costello