Ernest Hemingway died 60 years ago this year. I recently watched the film of his famous novel A Farewell to Arms which was based on his wounding on an Italian battlefield during World War I. “I felt my soul leaving my body,” was how he described the incident. Hemingway was in love with Pauline Pfeiffer,…
The Birth of Jesus the Jew: Midrash and the Infancy Gospels by Peter Keenan (Columba Books, €14.99/£12.99) Peter Keenan is a man with a mission. He styles himself “a post-holocaust Christian”, and believes that the outlook of all Christians of every persuasion should be shaped by the fact of the Shoah. This has a bearing…
A Man of his Times: The Papers of Robert FitzGerald, 17th Knight of Kerry by Adrian FitzGerald (Kingdom Books) This is a valuable collection of the correspondence of Robert FitzGerald (1716-1781), knight of Kerry. The knights of Kerry belong to an early branch of the mighty Geraldines. There is uncertainty as to exactly how or…
Chaplains: Ministers of Hope ed by Alan Hilliard, with a foreword by Bishop Eamonn Walsh (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) Unheard Voices: Reflections of a prison chaplain by Imelda Wickham PBVM, foreword by Peter McVerry SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95) Our attitudes to chaplains may well depend on our own experiences. One of my brothers, who lived in…
While Covid-19 continues to cast doubts over live music performances, some promoters are battling on. One such has a three-week tour of the country by piano supremo, Finghin Collins, currently in hand. Mr Collins actually began his serpentine journeying on November 13 at Tullynally Castle in Co. Westmeath overlooking Lough Derravaragh, the legendary lake of…
It’s interesting how the concept of justice is used so liberally these days – everything from ‘climate justice’, a relatively new concept, through ‘social justice warriors’ whose methods don’t always taste of justice, to genuine justice tempered by mercy. The phrase ‘crying out for justice’ was used in a timely interview on Times Radio Breakfast…
The Letters of John McGahern edited by Frank Shovlin (Faber & Faber, €29.99 / £27.92) Derek Hand John McGahern made very clear his unease with the act of letter writing, declaring to his friend the artist Paddy Swift, “I don’t like writing letters… it is so easy to be anything except honest here: surely the…
Midnight in London: The Anglo-Irish Treaty Crisis, 1921 by Colum Kenny (Eastwood Books, €9.99) Scholars and others continue to mull over the minutiae of the negotiations that led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in the early hours of the morning on December 6, 1921. Even now a hundred years later, there is a great deal…
Finding Peace compiled by Sister Stan (Columba Books, €16.99 / £14.50) A reader opening this book is likely to turn first out of curiosity to those entries by public figures such as the party leaders of the Government and opposition: this is worth reading, and recalling perhaps on future occasions, such as at the time of…
Joy in the Good: Rekindling an Inner Fire by Joachim Hartmann SJ and Annette Clara Unkelhäußer (Messenger Publication, €12.95 / £11.20) On first picking up this book I was taken by a sentence in the blurb: “We overlook the rich and complementary relationship between silence and communication. In silence we can rediscover the gift of…
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan