As a nation we’ve improved road fatality statistics over the years, an improvement that’s all the more noteworthy considering the increase in traffic volumes. So I’m presuming it’s down to NCT testing, better roads, improved driver training, penalty points and hard hitting road safety campaigns. I know it has an impact when I see that…
En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule by Édouard Louis (published in English as The End of Eddy) The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland has become a staple of the international political agenda. It is a gathering of the great and good in the picturesque setting of the Alps and brings together the world of politics,…
Should young children be allowed in Church? Too many have commented on this question in recent times to skate through them here, but it’s been a big debate on the Catholic internet, with serious questions being raised about what actually happens at Mass, what we believe Mass is about and about whether a Church without…
There’s usually a positive response when people whose background becomes an obstacle to education manage to access it despite the challenges, and sometimes later in life. Last Friday night’s Nationwide (RTE 1) was quite uplifting, focusing as it did on the Trinity Access Programme (TAP). We heard from several people, young and older, who had…
If Beale Street Could Talk (15A) Anyone who saw Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight would have been impressed by the quiet charm Trevante Rhodes brought to the role of the character called Chiron. (As you may remember, three actors played him in various stages of his life). Stephan James reminded me a lot of him as Alonzo in Jenkins’ latest opus.…
Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World 1914-1945 by Ramachandra Guha London: Allen Lane, 2018, £40 Patrick Claffey SVD In 1911 the British authorities decided to move the capital of their Indian Empire from Calcutta to Delhi. They set about doing this by creating a new district that came to be known as New Delhi. The work…
Pat O’Kelly Following the departure of Kazakh musician Alan Buribayev when his extended contract expired in 2016, the RTÉ NSO has been without a principal conductor. In the ‘interregnum’ there have been a number of visiting artists on the podium not least Nathalie Stutzmann who has been principal guest conductor since 2017. Born in…
People say we have a toxic relationship with all sorts of things, but gambling has to be up there as one of the most serious scourges. TV drama Cleaning Up (UTV, Wednesdays and Virgin Media 1, Mondays) makes for uncomfortable viewing as Sam (Sheridan Smith) unravels due to her addiction to all sorts of gambling.…
Medieval Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela by Bernadette Cunningham (Four Court Press, €19.95) I never pass St James’s Gate in Dublin without thinking of that ancient city portal as the starting place of the medieval version of the Camino. It has long seemed to me those wishing to promote the way of St James here in Ireland…
A Century of Politics in the Kingdom: A County Kerry Compendium by Owen O’Shea and Gordon Revington (Merrion Press, €19.95) This is a comprehensive account of local politics and the democratic process in Co. Kerry across more than two centuries. It covers in fact the rise of modern democracy in Ireland, and its preservation, often against…
Brendan O’Regan
Michael Kelly
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello