Generous Heart: A Daily Prayer Book, by Donal Neary SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95 / £11.95) Opening this book on its arrival on my desk, brought back to my mind the memory of my Jesuit mentors, seizing a quarter hour or so to pace about the corridors or grounds of Gonzaga College, to read their…
When Chris Grant (Scott Eastwood) is killed in a car crash alongside his sister-in-law Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) in Regretting You (12A), it exposes the fact that they were having an affair. The revelation opens up a Pandora’s Box of reactions from Chris’ wife Morgan (Allison Williams), his daughter Clara (McKenna Grace) and Jenny’s husband Jonah…
I was pleased to find several positive examples of religion and spirituality in the media last week. A few weeks ago, I favourably reviewed Blue Lights (BBC One, Mondays) after seeing the first few episodes. It finished last Monday and must upgrade my rating to ‘outstanding’. It worked as gritty crime drama but it was…
Dublin’s Women Street Traders, 1882-1932: “Civic Evil” and civil disobedience, by Susan Marie Martin (Maynooth Studies in Local History / Four Courts Press, €11.65 / £10.25) The street traders of inner Dublin were affectionately known as “Shawlies” from their custom of wrapping themselves up against the dank weather in large black woollen shawls. They…
After Newman: A Eulogy for Anglo-Catholics 1845-1965, by Aidan Nichols OP (Gracewing, £20.00 / €22.99) Near our house, off Clyde Road, there used to be a convent of Anglican Nuns. They belonged to the Community of St Mary the Virgin, founded at Wantage in England in 1848. When my wife and I were young…
I could write a book on the Presidential Election, and no doubt some will. When it comes to news and the media I think radio wins – social media may be quicker but there are serious reliability issues, and TV can be less nimble. And so it was that when the count started RTÉ One…
Leo XIV: The New Pope and Catholic Reform, by Christopher R. Altieri (Bloomsbury Continuum, £20.00 / €19.99) This book is among the very first to try to encompass what the advent of Leo XIV means in general terms. You can be sure many more will follow, but as author Altieri, a born-American with decades of…
Ireland: Mapping the Island, by Joseph Brady and Paul Ferguson (Birlinn, £30.00 / €34.99) These days we take maps, and the knowledge of the real world that they display, very much for granted. This was always the case as this marvellous compendium of Ireland’s history as evidenced in cartography reveals. The first printed map of…
Across the Waves, by T. Ryle Dwyer (Mercier Press, €14.50) It is clear who is the heroine in this story. It is Margaret Harrigan, a heroine taken straight from the life of the author’s own family. T. Ryle Dwyer is well known throughout the south-west as a journalist and historian. It is quite a saga.…
Face to Face: The Theology of the Icon, by Aidan Hart (Gracewing, £9.95 / €11.50) The title is, of course, as allusion to the text of St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see as in a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan