It’s been a strange month for online Catholic news. July 1 saw Pope Francis informing Cardinal Gerhard Müller that he would not be renewing his tenure as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church’s doctrinal watchdog. Readers may recall his public disagreement with Irish child protection advocate Marie Collins in…
‘Blockbuster’ is the word that springs to mind as one surveys the raft of films being rolled out in the so-called ‘silly’ season to pique the interest of younger viewers enjoying a break from school. We recently saw films like Wonder Woman and Transformers: The Last Knight making their pitch for this lucrative target audience.…
Films from the 1960s tend to look very dated – what with garish colours and embarassing haircuts – but I find the film Man For All Seasons (RTÉ One, Saturday) still held up well. Paul Schofield, whose work was more on stage than on film, turns in an Oscar-winning performance as St Thomas More, in…
Felix M. Larkin The Fourth Estate: Journalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland By Mark O’Brien (Manchester University , £80) This book is about “the conditions under which journalism was practised” in Ireland in the 20th Century, with a focus on “how centres of power related to journalists” – to quote the author, Mark O’Brien, lecturer in journalism history…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello