A world after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right, by Matthew Rose (Yale University Press, £20.00/€25.00) Frank Litton Samuel Francis was a well-respected voice in conservative circles in the United States. He won several national awards for his column in the right-leaning Washington Times. Until, that is, 1995 when he went too far in his…
Teresa Ball and Loreto Education: Convents and the Colonial World 1794 -1875 by Deirdre Raftery (Four Courts Press 2022) Frances Ball was born in Dublin on January 9, 1794. John Ball, her father, was a wealthy Dublin silk merchant. Although a convert, he was at that time one of the most prominent Catholic citizens of Dublin.…
Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Holly Ordway (Word on Fire Academic, €25.00 / £20.99) There is a widespread belief that JRR Tolkien, the famous Catholic author of The Lord of the Rings, was against all things modern. Whether it was industrialisation, morals or literature, the narrative goes that he gave credence to…
Journey’s End: The Truth about Life after Death by Colm Keane (Capel Island Press (€14.99 / £12.99) In classical times some Greek philosophers likened the soul to a butterfly erupting from the very different chrysalis. The implication was that the “next life” of the human soul is likewise so different that it cannot be imagined…
Travelling on Titanic with Father Browne by EE O’Donnell SJ, foreword by Dr Robert D. Ballard (Messenger Publications, €25.00 / 23.00) Published last week, to mark the 110th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic, this evocative collection shows Frank Browne’s photographs taken on the leg of the ship’s maiden voyage from England to Queenstown.…
Kansas-born mezzo Joyce DiDonato returned to the National Concert Hall (NCH) recently as part of its International Concert Series 2022. The impeccable instrumental ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro accompanied her again, this time directed by young Russian conductor and harpsichordist, Maxim Emelyanychev. Strangely-lit Entitled EDEN, the evening was a strangely-lit staged event where a circular centrepiece…
Usually there are loads of religious programmes on mainstream media over Easter. Mostly it’s biblical epics and religious services, but I’m always on the lookout for something different and creative. Walled City Passion (RTE One, Easter Sunday) certainly had those qualities. It imagined a peace festival in a certain walled city – Derry, but not…
From the first century Christians and others have been interested in visiting the Holy Land and seeing the places associated with the life and death of Jesus. This is especially so at the pivotal feasts of the year, at Christmas and now at Eastertide. In the early days this was a once-in-a-life time journey and…
The San Damiano Cross: An Icon of the Crucifixion by Madeleine Stewart (Conard Press, €12.00 / £10.50; ISBN 978-1-9161432-0-3; orders to conardicons.com) Madeline Stewart, who is an accredited expert on icons and their interpretation lives in Northern Ireland, but mentally she is a well-travelled global person through her explorations of icons of the Orthodox tradition.…
It’s great to see the idea of pilgrimage becoming more popular in recent years but sometimes it just becomes a secular or self-improvement exercise, with the spiritual side vague or side-lined. Pilgrimage: Road to the Scottish Isles (BBC One, Sunday) is the third outing in this series from BBC. The formula is the same –…
Ruadhán Jones
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan