Sometimes when you watch a programme you find yourself not much the wiser after it. Or you wonder if you’re getting the full story, or a distorted story and you think you should find out more about the issue, but then life moves on and other priorities take precedence. This is how I felt after…
Whistlestop Tales: Around the World in 10 Bible Stories by Krish Kandiah and Miriam Kandiah (Hodder Faith / Young Explorers series, £10.99 / €12.99) This well-intentioned book for younger readers highlights an increasing problem in today’s culture. With the disappearance of the classics (Greek and Roman) from the curriculum, and the ever-narrowing perspectives of history being taught, young…
Author in Chief: The untold story of our presidents and the books they wrote by Craig Fehrman (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, $30) Felix M. Larkin All US presidents since Truman – including Truman – have written books, and many earlier presidents have also. These books generally fall into two categories: campaign books that…
Fatima, the Family and Church: Mary’s Message with Prayers and Devotions by Timothy Tindal Robertson and Donal Anthony Foley (Catholic Truth Society, £3.50 / €4.20) This booklet is by two writers who have between them decades of work in promoting Fatima. In 2013 Pope Francis decided to hold a Marian Day in the Year of Faith…
Last time around I mentioned the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and its Music Bursary as well as this year’s principal winner – Phoebe White whose cellist brother, Killian, received the award in 2018. But there are two smaller, yet significant, sections to the main bursary. One is the €5,000 Jago Award, the other being the…
The first time I heard of the town of Arundel in England it was in connection with the intriguing poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ by Philip Larkin. Unfortunately the tomb, in nearby Chichester, with its romantic husband and wife statues did not figure in last Sunday’s Songs of Praise (BBC One). We did learn about the…
London-Irish voices from our great Diaspora 1851 These days we hear a great deal about the Irish Diaspora. But all too often this means the life stories of those who did well in other parts of the world; the mass of emigrants become in a sense an amorphous cloud of exiled poverty. Now and again…
The O’Mahony Journal (No. 43, 2020) Nora M. Hickey (The O’Mahony Society who produces this annual can be contacted through Cristeoir D. F. O. O’Maony ‘Rosbrin’, 27 Woodlands, Montenotte, Co. Cork. email: dfomahoney@gmail.com Here in Ireland there are many people who are well-known, and enjoyed by all but who never rise to the honour of…
Writing this column is not a dangerous business, but some journalists do put their lives on the line in pursuit of their stories. Recently we had the shooting of Dutch journalist Peter R de Vries in the Netherlands and he’s still in critical condition at the time of writing. On Times Radio Breakfast last Saturday…
It seemed stranger than fiction. An Englishman living with a Welsh woman is suspected of killing a French woman on the west coast of Cork two days before Christmas in 1996. Sophie Toscan Du Plantier, as most people in Ireland must know by now, was a documentary film-maker whose love affair with our country ended…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone