A Personal Perspective on Irish PEN by J Anthony Gaughan (Kingdom Books, €15.00) PEN was an international association of writers founded in London in 1921 – the initials stood for ‘Poets, Essayists and Novelists’, but in fact many kinds of writers are now members. The club, as its members thought of it, was intended to…
Relatively soon after the re-unification of Germany in 1990 I made my first visit to Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony. Although part of a group I extricated myself to attend two performances at the city’s famous Semper Opera House – Wagner’s Tannhäuser, which had its première in the Semper in 1845 and…
Fall and Rise: the story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff (HarperCollins, £25.00) Felix M. Larkin Not very often do I read a book that I know will live forever in my memory. This is one such book. It tells the stories of a few of the victims of the terrorist attacks in America on September…
Some weeks ago I was lucky enough to be present in England’s New Forest for my god-daughter’s first profession as a Dominican sister. Her community, the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, is a remarkable group of women – warm, supportive, fun, energetic, contemplative and evangelical – and very much a case study in G.K. Chesterton’s…
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.…
Peter Costello
Greg Daly
Brendan O’Regan