Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come by T. J. Clark (Thames & Hudson, £18.95) British-born writer T. J. Clark is a Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. His main field of interest has been 19th-Century French art, and such artists as Manet and Courbet, so this…
In this series some of our literary collaborators will be giving suggestions for lockdown reading, books of all kinds to enlighten us and raise our spirits. This week: Christopher Moriarty on Charles Darwin’s fundamental belief in a Creator as expressed in his epoch making study The Origin of Species (1859) Millions of Christians to this…
In a recent column, I wrote that I’m never ashamed to be Irish despite reservations about aspects of culture and government policies, but I was certainly proud when, last week, we got a seat on the UN Security Council. The issue was discussed when Samantha Power, former US ambassador to the UN, was interviewed on…
Relatively recently, I mentioned Charles Villiers Stanford in relation to his opera The Veiled Prophet. This spurred me on to delve further into the archives and discover more about the composer born in Dublin’s Herbert Street in 1852. His father, a well-to-do lawyer, John James, was a cellist and noted bass who sang the title…
The Arms Crisis of 1970: The plot that never was by Michael Heney (Head of Zeus, £20.00/€23.00) This important but controversial new book by Michael Heney, published recently in the midst of our present pandemic crisis, challenges the received historical interpretation of the attempt in 1970 to import arms for possible use in Northern Ireland. Rather…
On Marriage, On Birth, On Death (three titles in the series “How to Find God”) by Timothy and Kathy Keller (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99) In this time of peril and stress, when Covid-19 continues to spread across the benighted nations of Africa, many are faced very directly with question of what it is they believe and…
With the assistance of galleries around the world, the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome has mounted a magnificent, once-in-a-lifetime show, celebrating the youthful yet astonishingly mature genius of Raphael, who died in 1522 at the ridiculously early age of 37. Masterpieces which would have taken years of travelling to see, have been brought together. The…
In this series some of our literary collaborators will be giving suggestions for lockdown reading, books of all kinds to enlighten us and raise our spirits. This week Mary Kenny writes of John McGahern’s Amongst Women (1990), a novel of ordinary family life in provincial Ireland built around the life experiences of an embittered Republican…
I get a sense of the anticipation that’s growing with the prospect of public Masses being back from June 29. Some have wanted them sooner, others have urged caution, but unlike the anti-racism protestors the Church has shown great restraint and civic responsibility. Last Monday Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was interviewed on The Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk)…
Ida is a Pawel Pawlikowski film about an 18-year-old orphan girl raised in a convent. As she prepares to become a nun she learns she’s a Jew. Her parents were murdered during the Holocaust. She has to put doubts about her vocation behind her as her cynical aunt helps her explore her roots. Shot in…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Mary Kenny
Aubrey Malone