Dream Horse (PG) In these dark times we need a ‘pick me up’ film to revive our spirits – this is it. They say nobody can celebrate like the Irish. Is that because we win less things than the bigger nations? As such it means more. After seeing this wistful elegy to an affectionate…
The Jewel in the Mess by Alan Abernethy (Columba Books, €12.99 / £12.99) Out of danger comes hope: this is the theme of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor’s new book. He has suffered in recent years from depression and well as prostate cancer. But in these dark hours he has recovered a…
This August a new feature film, Fatima, is due in cinemas. It stars Harvey Keitel and the trailers look really interesting. Readers may well remember the 1952 version, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, starring Gilbert Roland. I saw it years ago and was impressed. The 13th Day (EWTN, Sunday) from 2009 was another…
The Autobiography of William Carleton with a foreword by Benedict Kiely (The White Row Press, 1996; other editions are now available on line). This is the unfinished autobiography of William Carleton. Although it ends well short of when he died on January 30, 1869, together with his other writings, it is an important source for the…
Dark Enchantment by Dorothy Macardle (Tramp Press, Recovered Voices Series, No.6) Teresa Whitington Dorothy Macardle has been primarily associated with her 1937 partisan history The Irish Republic, written at Eamon de Valera’s request to give an account of the independence struggle from the anti-treaty side. In so far as the novelist Dorothy Macardle is known,…
A Quiet Tide by Marianne Lee (New Island Books, €14.95) Felix M. Larkin Ellen Hutchins (1785-1815) is described in the Dictionary of Irish Biography as “one of the earliest Irish women scientists…an avid collector of plants, especially the mosses, bryophytes, fungi and lichens around the family home on Bantry Bay”. Though she never published anything…
Regular readers will know how unhappy I am with media treatment of controversial social issues. I find so many presenters pushing their own viewpoints and being unwilling or unable to ask the hard questions of those promoting a supposedly liberal viewpoint, while being well able and willing to grill those of a conservative leaning. I’ve…
Mozart’s two Piano Quartets date from the mid 1780s – a period that also brought, among many other things, five of his major piano concerti, two important string quartets and his opera Le nozze di Figaro. While there were earlier incursions by less well-remembered figures into the piano quartet arena, it took Mozart to raise…
A History of Silence: From the Renaissance to the Present Day by Alain Corbin (Polity Press, £14.99) When Silence Speaks: The Life and Spirituality of Elisabeth Leseur by Jennifer Moorcroft (Gracewing, €20.00) Silence, they say, is golden. But all too often we read about strenuous objections being made to the ringing of church bells in rural parts,…
The Lost Gaeltacht: the Land Commission Migration – Clonbur, County Galway to Allenstown, County Meath by Martin O’Halloran (Homefarm Publishing, €29.00. Available online from Mayo Books) Ian d’Alton On March 29, 1940, two buses left Clonbur village, sandwiched between Loughs Mask and Corrib, Co. Galway. They carried 24 apprehensive families to a hopeful new life in…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello