A Breath of Fresh Éire by Olga Balaeva (Beehive, €14.99/£12.99) Author and photographer Olga Balaeva is a new kind of Irish writer, representative of the emerging culture of a future island. Born in Moscow she is alive in several languages including Gaelic. She has already Ireland as gaeilge “a user friendly guide to the language”…
You won’t see a better action film all year than this aerial drama. It’s an unashamed ode to machismo and is dripping with characters from innumerable other like-minded vehicles but in the end it wins you over with its charm. I normally have problems with Tom Cruise in films like this. I’ve never bought into…
Dramas based on true stories can be fascinating, but mixing fiction and history can produce odd results. So it is with The Terror: Infamy (BBC Two, Fridays). The first series is still on repeat on RTÉ Two, Sunday nights, and is an absorbing but very grim story on the ill-fated expedition of Sir John Franklin…
Peace Apart: Lasting Impressions of C.S. Lewis by Bishop Fintan Monahan (Veritas, €9.99/£8.99) This little book is the third in a series in which Fintan Monahan, the bishop of Killaloe, is evoking writers who have been important to him, and whom he wishes to encourage others to take up and read. The previous two books…
The poem (Page 36) was written a quarter century ago, at another time of conflict, but the new war in Eastern Europe has made it relevant again. Poster created by Brian Bourke. A limited edition, signed and numbered, in size A3 poster form, is available from Goldsmith Press, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, W12 X260; price €150 post free. …
The Monastic Heart, 50 Simple Practices for a Contemplative and Fulfilling Life by Sister Joan Chittister (Hodder & Stoughton, £22.99/€27.00) The kind of peace of mind and heart which poets and sages write about proves elusive for many of us these days. We need to remind ourselves, or perhaps for many of us, to actually…
Up to last week I’d never heard of a Mariathon before. Well, it’s a worthy fundraising drive by Radio Maria Ireland as I discovered when I dipped in to a few shows on the station during the week. It’s a great service for Catholic listeners and is widely accessible by Saorview, YouTube and its own…
The NSO’s concert at the National Concert Hall tomorrow evening – Friday 20 – brings together two pianist/composers whose lives were intrinsically linked following their first meeting in Düsseldorf in 1853. The senior, by 14 years, was Leipziger Clara Schumann married to composer Robert Schumann; the other was Hamburg-born Johannes Brahms. Robert and Clara were…
The images from Moscow of the marking of Victory Day, with which the news is filled at time of writing, brought into my mind a fleeting thought that President Putin might like to know more about the evolutionary significance of the extinct Giant Irish Elk. That it has become extinct is only a part of…
Alberto Giacometti: Marvellous Reality, a bilingual catalogue edited by Émelie Bouvard and others (Grimaldi Forum, Monaco/Fondation Giacometti, Paris, €35.00) Exhibition Giacometti from Life, curators: Sean Rainbird and Janet McLean (National Gallery of Ireland); Catherine Grenier and Thierry Pautot (Fondation Giacometti), continues to September 4 2022, Beit Wing (Rooms 6–10). (Intending visitors need to book an exhibition ticket on-line.) It…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan