Battles that Changed History: Epic conflicts explored and explained by Phillip Parker, R.G. Grant & Andrew Humphreys, foreword by Sir Tony Robinson (Dorling Kindersley, £20.00) There is something deep in the male psyche that loves wars and tales of wars. Women with their very different view of the world are generally unmoved by tales of war,…
Mainly About Books by the books editor At this time of year a long queue snakes around the square in front of Trinity College’s Old Library, those in it waiting patiently to gain access to see the Book of Kells. Other ancient manuscripts are preserved in Ireland, some of which can be visited online.…
Bursting Out in Praise: Spirituality & Mental Health by Gavin Thomas Murphy (Messenger Publications, €4.95 / £4.50) The author has bipolar disorder, but he has put his own experience of this, and his own solutions to it in his own life, at the heart of this brochure, which many families may value for its non-technical language…
Films and TV programmes, when dealing with religious themes often go for the cultish, extreme or even twisted versions of Faith, but on good days it’s just the pleasantly offbeat. Last Saturday night’s film on BBC2 was all of the above. Stations of the Cross is a German film, serious, well made, but not easy…
A recent phone call from pianist Darina Gibson invited me to a recital in the NCH’s John Field Room being given by RTÉ NSO flautist Sinéad Farrell and herself. As their principally French programme looked enticing I gladly accepted the invitation. The evening began with Bach’s B minor Flute Sonata where the opening Andante found…
Lay of the Land: Reflections on life in rural Ireland by Fiona O’Connell (Red Stag, €12.99) Christopher Moriarty This collection of chatty articles is attractively illustrated by Caroline Barry with a pen-and-ink sketch at the head of every one of the one hundred plus short chapters. They are a selection from the author’s weekly articles…
Elsewhere: One Woman, One Rucksack, One Lifetime of Travel by Rosita Boland (Doubleday, €16.99) Barbara Pierce Elsewhere is a fascinating series of essays written about extraordinary journeys travelled by Rosita Boland over a period of about thirty years. She set off alone with only a 10kg bag, a passport and a black note book, no…
Bauhaus 100 – The Print Portfolios Continues to December 1, 2019 – NGI Print Gallery, admission free This year marks the centenary of the founding in Weimar Germany of Das Staatliche Bauhaus, better known as the Bauhaus, an institution which served to promote modernist architecture, making Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe international…
A lie can be halfway around the world, as the adage so often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain has it, before the truth has got its boots on. The internet has managed to make this depressing reality all the worse, and just as paper doesn’t refuse ink, so one thing screens cannot do is screen out…
International films are having a field day on our screens at the minute. Blinded by the Light takes up where Yesterday left off, giving us the story of a disaffected young Asian man becoming liberated by music. Bob Dylan once said that hearing Elvis Presley for the first time was like “busting out of jail”.…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone