It amazes me sometimes how people who can’t possibly know the truth of an event get very dogmatic about it and take definitive positions. They fuel polarisation and aggravation, setting themselves up for a fall if things don’t turn out as they assumed, and that’s if we ever find out the truth. Last week Australian…
Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Allen Lane, €35) Robert Marshall “The evil that men do lives after them, / the good is oft interred with their bones…’ This apposite quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar comes to mind when reflecting on this magisterial book written by Diarmaid MacCulloch about the life of Thomas Cromwell (1485 c.-1540). MacCulloch is professor…
Ways to go Beyond and why they Work by Rupert Sheldrake (Coronet, £20.00/€23.00) Christopher Moriarty In his preface, Rupert Sheldrake introduces himself as a research worker who is making a substantial contribution to the human knowledge that he calls “mundane”. He means the facts relating to our material world, which can be ascertained by…
Mainly about Books by the Books Editor It has long amazed me the amount of abuse that creationists and many evangelicals heap upon the head of Charles Darwin. Much of what is said is simply wrongheaded, or relies on over simplistic interpretations of the Book of Genesis (one of the most challenging books of the Bible…
The most prominent religious affairs story in the media last week was the child abuse summit in Rome. Commentary varied from optimistic to cynical and all shades between. Some Catholics called for a review of Catholic teaching on sexuality, but I felt they needed to be more specific. That position could mean anything from scrapping…
Pat O’Kelly Besides organising its touring programme, Music Network, which stemmed from the now defunct Music Association of Ireland’s ‘Country Tours’, also administers the government-sponsored Music Capital Scheme. The recently announced 2019 fund of €270,250 will be dispensed towards “the purchase of musical instruments to both non-professional performing groups and to individual performing musicians”.…
Religion, Landscape & Settlement in Ireland, from Patrick to the Present by Kevin Whelan (Four Courts Press, €45.00) This book is one which will interest a wide range of readers. As it is already into a second printing it can be said to have scored a great success with many of them, and many more…
Last Stories by William Trevor (Viking, £14.99) Derek Hand The title of this posthumously published collection, Last Stories, signals that this is the final work from William Trevor who died in 2016. The title is doubly appropriate because the 10 pieces gathered here are imbued with a melancholy sense of things ending. Trevor as a writer…
Samizdat, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, was the name given to the clandestine copying and distribution of banned literature; in David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest, however, it means something very different, a captivating film, also called ‘the Entertainment’, that saps wills and paralyses viewers, leaving them unable to tear their eyes…
The only thing that’s likely to surprise you at this year’s Oscar ceremonies is the fact that for the first time since 1989 it won’t have a host, only presenters. Other than that you don’t need a crystal ball to forecast what’s going to happen. The favourites in all the main categories are so odds-on…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone