In place of religious services on Sunday Mornings, RTÉ 1 has been trying out a new format on an occasional basis. I’m a big fan of Life and Soul, and enjoyed the latest episode last Sunday morning. As usual the focus was on personal stories interspersed with prayers, bible readings and musical interludes. And it’s…
Nights in Armour by Samuel Thompson (Mercier Press, €14.99) With the question of Ulster back in the fore of European politics, this new novel reminds us of just what the condition were in the grim past of that province that wise leaders in the Republic and the EU, Northern Ireland and Britain should seek to…
Dining with the Durrells: Stories and Recipes from the Cookery Archives of Mrs Louise Durrell, by David Shimwell, foreword by Lee Durrell, afterword by Jacquie Durrell (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) My Family and other Animals was the late Gerald Durrell’s greatest success, an engaging mixture of an amusing family saga with an account of the…
Mainly About Books By the books editor Among the many institutions that derive from the 1920s that still survive to this day the Folklore Department of University College Dublin is the most interesting, and perhaps the most culturally significant. Its productions, such as a recent work on the folklore of our coast-wise fishing communities, often…
Newman at Littlemore by Bernard Bassett (Gracewing, £7.99) Next month John Henry Newman will be canonised, at long last many may feel. This occasion will see a flood of books to mark both the events, and to enlarge upon people’s ideas about the man and his career, adding to the large number of books and…
Every now and then there’s a high-profile TV programme that takes religion seriously. The occasions are rare enough but worth waiting for. I was certainly impressed by Inside the Vatican on BBC2 last Friday, a fine piece of documentary making from producer-director Silvia Sacco. It was low key, subtle, nuanced and even moving at times.…
The Kitchen (16) Two women in a kitchen spells trouble, as the saying goes. Here there are three. And it’s not the kind of kitchen you might be thinking of. No, this is 1979 in Hell’s Kitchen in New York, a stronghold of the Irish Mafia (The Murphia?). The men in these women’s lives have…
The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken (1770 – 1866) by Mary McNeill, (Irish Academic Press, €22.95 / £19.99) J. Anthony Gaughan This was first published in 1960. Ever since it has been valued by historians as an excellent biography of Mary Ann McCracken and a definitive account of the United Irishmen. Mary Ann was…
Discovering Thomas Moore: Ireland in 19th Century Europe Royal Irish Academy, Academy House, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2.An exhibition running to Monday, December 23, 2019; opening hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-4.30pm, no booking required. Booklet to accompany the exhibition by Sarah McCleave (Queen’s University / Erin Project / Royal Irish Academy), free. Thomas Moore, once deemed…
Downton Abbey (12A) For many moons now, people have been wondering when the Crawley family would hit the big screen. What better way to do it than with a plotline featuring a king and queen? Michael Engler’s film is based loosely on a royal visit to a Jacobean mansion called Wentworth Woodhouse that took place…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone