The Ideal Diplomat: Women and Irish foreign affairs, 1946-90 by Ann Marie O’Brien (Four Courts Press, €45.00/£40.00) Joe Carroll Josephine McNeill was the first woman to head an Irish diplomatic mission abroad when appointed Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the newly-opened legation in the Hague in 1949. Three years later in a letter to Seán Nunan,…

Mainly About Books by the Books Editor The slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ has rightly swept the world, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that it protests about the condition of racial harmony – or lack of it – in the United States today. Like so many movements of the moment, it reflects an…

As an occasional continuation of our series ‘Lockdown Reading’. This week we are publishing an appreciation of an important book once very well known, but now neglected… Realizations: Newman’s own selections of his sermons edited by Vincent Ferrer Blehl, with a preface by Muriel Spark (Liturgical Press, 2009 [originally published 1964]) Teresa
 Whitington These 13 sermons…

We Built Reality: How social sciences infiltrated culture, politics and power by Jason Blakely (Oxford University Press, £64.00pb/$99.00hb/ €23.00pb) Frank
 Litton In a world of uncertainty one thing is certain: Ireland has changed significantly over the last 50 years. The way to describe, or evaluate, that change is less certain. Jason Blakely’s well-informed and accessible account…

Sacred Space: The Prayerbook 2021  (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£15.49) The cover of the new edition of this always popular book shows a lighthouse at dusk, and out at sea a barely visible sailing ship in the distance. There came into my mind at once those lines from Newman, “lead, kindly light, amidst th’encircling gloom…”, which is…

Summer outings (No.6 in a six-part series) This book, edited from Tim White’s Irish diaries, was published in 1959, the year after the compilation of his separately published Arthurian novels appeared in one volume, The Once and Future King. This book became a major best seller here and in the Americas. It provided the source…

Herbert McCabe. Recollecting a fragmented legacy by Franco Manni, foreward by David B. Burrell (Cascade Books, £50.00/$26.98) Frank
 Litton One man in his time can touch many minds and souls. Anthony Kenny, Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, David B. Burrell, Brian Davies, Rowan Williams, Denys Turner, are among today’s most eminent philosophers and theologians. All have produced…

As an occasional continuation of our series ‘Lockdown Reading’, this week we are publishing an appreciation of a book once very well known, but now neglected… Seán 
Ryan Literature can generally be broken down to two forms – the easy-reading form encompassing the popular chic-lit, page-turner form, which high brows mightn’t even concede to be…

Summer outings (No.5 in a six-part series) Today Richard Hayward’s long series of books, over seven of them, all dealing with his journeys into the four provinces and into the mind and imaginations of his countrymen, north and south, are out of print and long forgotten. An Ulster man of many parts, he died in…

John Ferrall: Master of Sligo Workhouse, 1852-66 by Fergus O’Ferrall (Four Courts Press, €9.95/£6.95) This is a valuable account of the life and times of the master of a workhouse. It is a work of pietas. The author indicates that John Ferrall was the brother of his great-grandfather. To care for the sick and indigent, known…