Fears, Phobias and Fantasies: Understanding mental health and mental illness by Prof. Patricia Casey (Currach Books, €22.99) This is an excellent and humane book written by a leading psychiatrist, now professor emeritus of psychiatry at University College Dublin (UCD) and active as a consultant psychiatrist. It is aimed at patients and their families, those who…

The Oratory of Light: Poems in the Spirit of St Columba by James Harpur (Wild Goose Publications, £7.99; for further information contact.iona.books.com) A while ago poet Gabriel Fitzmaurice writing in these pages passed on a remark of John F. Deane “that the new Christianity [of today] is to be a daring adventure requiring a new…

Reading Seosamh Ó Dufaigh’s magnificent book, and his discussions of the difficulty of researching the first centuries of Christianity in Ireland I wondered if a solution to the problems they present might not be partially found already. We have of course Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints (Four Courts Press, 2011, still available at €65.00/£55.00), a fine…

Christ and His Cousin: Renaissance Rediscoveries, curated by Dr Aoife Brady (Continues to 8 May 2022; Hugh Lane Room; free admission – no booking required) Currently the National Gallery is running a small but very interesting show in one of their smaller exhibition spaces focused on images of the child Jesus and his cousin St John…

Books Reviews 1975-2021: Reviews of works by distinguished biographers, historians, philosophers and writers by J. Anthony Gaughan (Kingdom Books, €24.00/£20.00) Fr Tony Gaughan, himself the author of many books ranging over philosophy, local and national history, and Irish social life since the middle ages, is one of this paper’s most popular reviewers. This compilation of…

Sacred Space for Lent 2022 (Messenger Publications, €4.95/£4.50) The Sacred Space website, a mission of the Irish Jesuits, continues to be one of the most popular prayer sites, accessed worldwide, continuing some would say the ancient ambition of the earliest Christians in this country to spread the word directly to people. Sacred Space for Lent…

Just before Christmas the international press carried worrying stories about the renovation and future use of Notre Dame de Paris, one of the most important and pre-eminent churches, not just in Europe, but in the world. Middle Ages It has had, since the Middle Ages, a special place also too in the life and imagination,…

The Spirit of Catholicism,  by Vivian Boland OP (Bloomsbury, £16.99/€18.50) by Frank Litton As somebody who spent a good part of his career teaching organisation analysis, helping students understand organisations and the problems of organising, I have wondered why we pay so little attention to the Church as an organisation, subject to the failings that…

Periodicals and Journalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland 2: A Variety of Voices,  edited Mark O’Brien and Felix M. Larkin (Four Courts Press, €50.00) This new book complements an earlier volume on periodicals and journalism, also edited by Mark O’Brien and Felix Larkin, which was published back in 2014. The two volumes, taken together, offer a comprehensive overview…

Returning Light: 30 Years of Life on Skellig Michael by Robert L. Harris (Harper Collins Ireland, €13.99 / £14.99) This is a tale about a remarkable location, a remarkable monastery and a remarkable person. The remarkable location consists of two huge pinnacles of rock reaching skywards from the sea-bed of the North Atlantic 11 and…