Image & Vision: Reflecting with the Books of Kells by Rosemary Power (Veritas, €24.99/£22.00) Rosemary Power has written two earlier books on the world of Celtic Christianity, one of which deals with Colmcille and Iona. She also lectures widely on themes in this area of scholarship to non-academic audiences, thus passing on the latest aspects…

For me Rosemary Power’s book provoked thoughts on a very different topic. There are insights of interest on every page of the author’s exposition. Yet there are comments one might question. She describes the churches in the Middle East and North Africa as on the ‘fringe’ of Christendom. But this was surely not the case:…

The Irish Difference: A Tumultuous History of Ireland’s Breakup With Britain by Fergal Tobin (Atlantic Books, £18.99/€22.99) This book grew out of the author’s exasperation at how ignorance of Ireland was an important factor in the pro-Brexit vote, especially in England as distinct from the other parts of the United Kingdom. The “fabled British elite…should…

Living with Motor Neurone Disease: A complete guide edited by Dr Marie Murray, in collaboration with the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (Atrium/Cork University Press, €14.95/£12.95) Though first recognised back in the 19th Century, Motor Neurone Disease became more familiar a century later through the widely publicised experiences of the disease by such people as…

The town of Oberammergau (the district “above the river Ammer”) is situated in the Bavarian Alps of Southern Germany. It is best known world-wide for its decennial Passion Play. The 42nd Oberammergau presentation of the play opened on May 14, 2022 and performances will continue up to October 2, 2022. According to the local legend the staging…

Kilmichael: The Life and Afterlife of an Ambush by Eve Morrison (Irish Academic Press, €19.95/£16.95) Here in Ireland, we had a very economical revolution, with possibly no more than about 5,000 fatalities in the period from 1919 to 1923. By contrast Finland’s contemporaneous civil war, an outcrop of the Russian Revolution, a struggle between right…

Come Drink at the Fount: Introducing the Carmelite Authors by Edmond Cullinan TOC (Veritas, €12.99/£11.99) Edmond Cullinan, a native of Dungarvan, and a priest of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, is currently vice-rector of the Pontifical Irish College, Rome. He is a member of the Third Order of Carmel and is also involved in…

The World of Books The picture which illustrates this article represents an old story-teller and his young listener as engraved as a tail-piece by artist Thomas Bewick, and comes from Ritson’s Robin Hood (1795), a celebrated collection of the medieval materials about that notorious British bandit. It is a charming scene, which I like to…

Ireland’s Great Famine, Britain’s Great Failure William H. A. Williams (Anthem Press, £80.00/€94.00) It is impossible to write about certain matters, even in a scholarly context, without feelings of outrage. The Irish Famine of 1845-49, the subject of this new book by William H. A. Williams, an American historian who taught at University College Dublin…

The Joseph Tree by Isabel Chenot (Wiseblood Books, US $14.00; the publishers can be addressed at P.O. Box 870 Menomonee Falls, WI 53052, USA, or emailed at wisebloodbooks@gmail.com) Isabel Chenot writes beautifully about the transcendent power of nature in this poetry collection. It’s dedicated to a friend who lost her baby son. The poem documenting this is…