Peace-building and Catholic Social Teaching by Theodora Hawksley (University of Notre Dame Press, US$42.00, paperback/US$100.00,hardback; €50.00, paperback/€80.00, hardback) Dr Theodora Hawksley is associated with the Jesuits in Britain and specialises in peace studies, black theologies and other explorations of the essential connections between Catholic social teaching and the realities of the world we live today. This…
“The show must go on.” Notwithstanding the pandemic, the Oscar ceremonies are taking place next Sunday – and not by Zoom as previously thought. They’ll be held at two venues in LA, the familiar Dolby Theatre and outdoors at Union Station. Because of the time difference, in Ireland we’ll have to wait until the news…
It’s sad I know, but one of my hobbies is collecting confession scenes from film and TV drama. I added a new one to my collection last week. ‘That’ confession scene in Fair City (RTÉ One) caused a bit of a stir. Unfortunately, I came across the controversy first and caught up with the offending…
Robots, Ethics and the Future of Jobs by Fr Seán McDonagh SSC, with a foreword by Karlin Lillington (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) The Russian quasi-mystic and film director Andrei Tarkovsky was reputedly terrified about the implications of robots. He thought The Terminator, though by his own account a mediocre film, pushed “the frontier of cinema as art” for…
From Whence I Came: The Kennedy Legacy, Ireland and America edited by Brian Murphy and Donnacha Ó Beacháin (Merrion Press, €19.95/£17.95) Joe Carroll One would think that there is little new to be explored in the Kennedy-Ireland relationship 60 years after John F. Kennedy’s election as the first Catholic President of the United States and its…
St Patrick’s Day and Easter coming so closely together this year, set my mind running back over what we know about the earliest years of Christianity in Ireland, more especially around Dublin. Despite the assurance with which many people speak about this period, there are many mysteries about the events of the process of ‘national…
A phone call from my good friend and pianist, Alison Young, on Easter Monday evening told me of the death of the doyenne of our musicians, Veronica Dunne, some hours previously. The news was unexpected as despite her 93 years Ronnie, as she was affectionately known, was still teaching until relatively recently. Her passing brought…
With Covid-19 dominating the news and current affairs programming it is usually only very bad news that knocks it off the top spot. And so it was last Friday, especially in the British media, when news was announced of the death of Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. It was wall-to-wall coverage in a way…
Night’s Bright Darkness by Sally Read (Ignatius Press, £14.99/€18) It’s hard to resist a good conversion story. They have a ready-made narrative to exploit, one typically filled with twists and turns, and the ending is a happy one. When luminous talent is combined with an already pleasing narrative form, it’s bound to entrance. That is exactly…
A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur by Gayatri Devi with Santha Rama Rau (Rupa & C, New Delhi, 2008; copies of other editions are available second-hand online from €10.00 approximately) These extraordinary memoirs of an eminent Indian princess, who achieved great electoral success in later life, present a fascinating account of India…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Ruadhán Jones