Last Saturday I had a look at Life on the Rock, the youth-oriented show of US Catholic network EWTN. Though full of good material I felt it wouldn’t appeal that much to young Catholics, except for the most committed. The style is a bit stiff and there needs to be more young voices as well…
Faith after Doubts: Why your beliefs stopped working and what to do about it by Brian McLaren (Hodder and Stoughton, £14.99/€19.50) I was greatly impressed by this book, and at the start of my review I would like to make quite clear that this is a book that anyone who wishes to understand the nature of…
These days we hear a great deal about the decline of the classics, especially from those of a traditionalist and conservative outlook. And certainly the literature of the Greeks and Romans provided for centuries models of all kinds: of nobility, and authoritarian rule, of lyric poetry and epic, of morality and courage. In the last…
The World of Books by the Books Editor Any one of my generation who was taught from an early age by the good nuns will have somewhere tucked away in the back attic of their memories Hilaire Belloc’s poem Courtesy. Those ineffable lines: Of Courtesy it is much less Than Courage of Heart or Holiness.…
When I criticise media bias I often find myself tempted to distance myself from some person or cause lest people miss my point and assume I’m supporting them, whereas I’m just looking for more objectivity. Last Friday I listened to yet another soft and palsy interview with Alastair Campbell, former press secretary to Tony Blair,…
Living Words: A booklet for renewal of the Holy Spirit by Michael Hurley (Messenger Publications, €4.95) This booklet is the accompaniment as a sort of ‘workbook’ to Michael Hurley’s Inspiring Faith Communities. A programme of Evangelisation (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95) This, in essence, is a prayer book for daily use. It consists of a collection of scripture passages…
A good friend of mine, opera buff extraordinaire Paddy Brennan, recently sent me an email with an attachment – www.operainireland.wordpress.com/. It came with a ‘work in progress’ warning but, even so, the file contains a vast amount of information relating to opera in Dublin from 1928 to virtually the present day. The content is absolutely…
At the turn of the year The Irish Catholic, along with other long-established national newspapers, has customarily devoted space to items from the year end release of state documents from 30 years ago by our National Archives in Bishop Street, Dublin. This usually ran to a mini-supplement of six pages. But this year, because of the…
The Irish Polish Society Yearbook ed. Jaroslaw Plachecki , vol. VII 2020 (see contact details below for ordering a copy) Over the last couple of decades the Polish community has established a strong presence in Ireland – both commercially and socially. The many areas of life and history the two nations have in common are…
Paddy Cole: King of the Swingers by Paddy Cole with Tom Gilmore. Foreword by John McColgan (O’Brien Press, €19.99/ebook €9.99) It is amazing how ‘the little bit of religion’ creeps into strange places sometimes. These are the music-making memories of a leading figure in the music scene since the 1950s. Paddy Cole is a great tale…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello