The Chief: the Life of Lord Northcliffe by Andrew Roberts (Simon & Schuster, £25/€29.00) In Ulysses, James Joyce refers to “Harmsworth of the farthing press”. He thereby denigrates the great achievement of Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, in creating the first mass circulation newspaper in these islands – the Daily Mail, launched in London in 1896. It was…
Admirabile Signum: The Meaning and Importance of the Nativity Scene Pope Francis (Veritas/Liberia Editrice Vaticana, €5.99) Here we are just back at school and college, and the first book about Christmas is already in the shops. What can this mean? Just as surprising is the name of the author of this little pamphlet. It is…
Still Points: A Guide to living the Mindful Meditative Way by Bro. Richard OFM Cap (Hachette Books, €14.99/£12.99) Bro. Richard Hendrick is a Capuchin priest-friar working in Dublin. He wrote a long poem Lockdown which went viral. It was picked up by both the BBC and by CNN in North America. From there it went…
Leaves from the Cotton Tree, Celebrating Thirty Years of the Sierra Leone Ireland Partnership, with a foreword by Claire Buckley, Ambassador of Ireland to Sierra Leone, edited by Joseph Bockarie and seven others (SLIP, Kilt ale, Dunsany, Co. Meath, €15.00 + $5.00 p+p; email martindillon@slip.ie for payment details.) The cotton tree of the title stands…
Journey into Light: The Challenge and Enchantment of Catholic Christianity by Roderick Strange (Hodder & Stoughton, £10.99/€12.99 pb) A concern of some parents’ over the last decades is a feeling that somehow schools do not seem to impart religion, by which they mean Catholic culture, to their children in quite the way it was once…
How to Succeed in Secondary School: A Practical Guide by Tony Bellew (Orpen Press, €15.00/£13.00pb) These first weeks of September, what with the anxieties of students of all ages about going back to school, the stress and strain on teachers, parents, and indeed families is very real. Their worries are not just economic, but also…
Under pressure of space this week, the series on places of faith, having encompassed lesser known aspects of Northern Europe, crosses the Atlantic, moving from the shrines of the Old World in Germany to the shrines of the New World in South and North America, from very ancient places honouring Jesus and the Three Kings,…
Who stole the Papal Stone back in 1854…and why? I recently came on details of what might be called an American Catholic mystery, which I thought I might share with readers. I am always amazed at the enthusiasm with which Irish Catholics, and indeed many American Catholics, embrace American conservatives. I am all for brotherly…
The recent attack on Salman Rushdie, like the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in 2015, raises fundamental questions about the limits of free speech. There are no easy answers. Those of us who live in liberal democracies are predictably appalled by the very idea of restrictions, formal or otherwise, on our freedom of speech.…
The Norwegians and Dublin’s Christ Church When we Irish set off on a holiday, or related pilgrimage (to repeat myself slightly from the other week), we inevitably turn south. Because of this we often miss many interesting things. It seems our chilled Hyperborean hearts need a large supply of those “beaded bubbles winking at the…
Peter Costello