Our regular reviewers provide some choices of what were the best, or at least for them, the most interesting, books of the year in 2018 ANTHONY REDMOND The well-known writer and educator, Fr Michael Paul Gallagher SJ, died from cancer in November 2015. Thomas G. Casey, an Irish Jesuit priest who knew Fr Gallagher,…
Matinee: Gandhi RTÉ1, Saturday, December 22, 12.55 pm (1982) Director. Richard Attenborough. Ben Kingsley, John Gielgud. Gandhi’s character is fully explained as a man of nonviolence. Through his patience, he is able to drive the British out of the subcontinent. Life On The Rock EWTN, Saturday, December 22, 3.30 pm Pat Kenny discusses the extraordinary…
The Belly of the Whale (15A) He dresses like a homeless person. He grunts as if he’s just climbed a mountain. His face bears the scars of 101 bad dawns. Yes, it’s Pat Shortt giving us the flipside of his comic persona in yet another of those down-at-heel roles that have become disarmingly familiar for him in recent years.…
I’m reluctant to praise a drama series based on the first episode – too often I’ve done this only to find the series deteriorating (dramatically or morally!) in or after the second episode. One interesting new drama, with some religious elements, is Mrs Wilson (BBC1, Tuesdays), two episodes in at the time of writing. This…
At Christmas it is nice to give people a book which they will enjoy on other occasions, a book that will provide not just interest and amusement, but also insights of lasting value. Here is a small selection of books currently in the shops which we think readers may want to give or would love…
At this time of the year the book shops are flooded with books for children and young adults, all hoping for great sales over the few weeks of the year when people go on a splurge of holiday related book buying. But like a puppy, a good book isn’t just for Christmas. On these pages…
Stand Up and Fight: When Munster Beat the All Blacks by Alan English (Yellow Jersey Press, €14.00 / £9.99) Presently the Irish team is enjoying first place in the pecking-order of world rugby. This has not resulted from a meteoric rise from rags to riches. For decades rugby has been played in Ireland to a high…
I have quite a few interesting interviews to pore over this week, with some new voices featuring and an older voice retiring. On last Thursday night’s Tonight Show (Virgin Media 1) I was impressed by writer and lecturer Dr David Thunder, who spoke of the media creating a narrative that served only the liberal side in…
Pat O’Kelly Not surprisingly, December reaps its usual crop of Handel’s Messiah even if the work relates to Christ’s Passion and Resurrection as much as to His Nativity. Messiah covers the Church’s year from advent to advent with Christ Triumphant as its magnificent coda. Along with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the choral group Resurgam,…
Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime by Bruno Latour (Polity Press, £12.99 pb) Frank Litton It was not so long ago that the path of history was clear. It was a story of progress towards more liberal, secular, democracies. Europe and the US where the modern world had been invented and from where it…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone