The Hopkins Festival will be opened tomorrow by the British Ambassador, H.E. Robin Barnett in Newbridge College Theatre, Co. Kildare (at 7.30pm). Directed by poet Desmond Egan, who founded it 30 years ago, it celebrates the life and work of the Jesuit poet Gerald Manley Hopkins, now recognised as one of the great literary figures…
Category: Reviews
The national power of the parish pump
Independents in Irish Party Democracy by Liam Weeks (Manchester University Press, £80) Michael O’Leary once dismissed them as “local lunatics”, but UCC political scientist Liam Weeks takes a more favourable view of our independent TDs, in a thorough and well-informed book. He begins in Kerry on count night in February 2016 when independents and brothers Michael…
Were the ‘Blue Men’ the first Muslims in Ireland?
Writing recently about the Dublin connections of the romance of Tristan and Isolde I had no room to mention that one of the paintings decorating the frieze of the foyer of the City Hall is of Tristan asking for the hand of Isolde (who stands nearby) on behalf of King Mark of Cornwall. Also standing…
Gothic tale of sublimated longing in remote Virginia
Colin Farrell takes the role Clint Eastwood essayed in Don Siegel’s 1971 version of this civil war story based on Thomas Cullinan’s acclaimed novel A Painted Devil. This time Sofia Coppola directs, replacing Siegel’s misogynistic psychodrama with sensitivity and sultry elegance. Farrell is John McBurney, an injured Yankee soldier who’s deserted his post. He’s taken…
Pilgrimage, forgiveness and arguing semantics
When on holidays to France one of my favourite places is Mont Saint Michel, so I was glad to see it featured on last Sunday’s Songs of Praise (BBC 1). Now a World Heritage Site, its modest origins were in the 8th Century and later it became a Benedictine monastery from the 10th Century. Most…
All for God’s greater glory
In the hallway of Clongowes Wood Castle there stands a white marble statue of St Ignatius Loyola. To the mind of at least one small boy it had a pale ghostly appearance, little suggesting a living person, and certainly not the vivid vitality of Ignatius himself. In his book Brendan Comerford aims to reveal the…
Conflict and war in a border county
The pledge of the Ulster Covenant to resist Home Rule by all means was signed by 5,360 Monaghan men, which was about 60% of the Protestant population of the county. As in Belfast the Ulster Volunteer Force was also established in Monaghan in January 1913. By May, part of the Larne shipment of arms had…
Nightscape with poet: visions of beauty and poetry
Seamus Cashman “I walk ever so slowly to gate and stile. / Poetry is shrinking almost to its bones”, announces the poet, a cry I know I must protest at – having just read the preceding 67 poems in Angel Hill – only to find reassurance two pages and four poems later with the gorgeous…
Youthful web-spinner shines in riotous actioner
School can be boring when you’d prefer to save the world than read books, right? So Peter Parker (Tom Holland) aka Spider-man, tends to be somewhat distracted in class, knowing just what he could do if the occasion called for it. Billionaire playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) – his mentor – tries to persuade…
Some programmes more than a bit off
A few items last week were more than a bit off. On Tuesday of last week on Today with Sean O’Rourke, Cormac Ó hEadhra spoke to former US Navy Seal Robert O’Neill, the man who claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden. Needless to say I’m no Bin Laden fan, but the clinical description of…