I have mixed feelings about boxing as a sport – it can teach self-discipline, focus the energies of the young, enhance physical fitness, but there can be a brutality about it that is unnerving. Katie (RTÉ1, Tuesday) was an impressive documentary from Ross Whitaker that followed the career of Irish boxer Katie Taylor. It was full…
“Wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice,” declared the @GKCdaily Twitter account just last week, causing me to wonder whether the English author GK Chesterton ever said that. Sure, it sounds like something he would have said, but it also seems far too handy a quote for what some are dubbing ‘Veganuary’, and…
Green Book (PG) Dull would he be of soul who could fail to warm to the black and white communion of Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and Tony Lip (Viggo Mortenson) in this feelgood road movie. As a treatise on racism, though, it’s hackneyed. Likewise as a buddy-buddy feature, the tropes are overly familiar. I didn’t admire…
Aquinas and the Market: Towards a Humane Economy by Mary L. Hirschfeld (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, £35.95) Money: In ‘Sireacht: Longing for another Ireland series’ by Conor McCabe (Cork University Press, £9.95) Frank Litton I was speaking to one of our eminent economists recently. He reported on a meeting of the American Economic Association. He found the…
The Book of Common Prayer: The texts of 1549. 1559, and 1662 edited with an introduction and Notes by Brian Cummings (Oxford World Classics, £10.99) Though its influence over English life and writing since the reign of the Tudors has been immense, almost as great as the King James Bible itself, the Book of Common Prayer, the…
The World of Books by the books editor With Twelfth Night, the Epiphany, Old Christmas and the Christmas of the Eastern Churches behind us wherever we are, the holiday season is truly past. The Christmas trees have come down, along with the lights, tinsel and holly, the cards received have been packed away as…
The Martins of Lisieux by Michael O’Connell (St Thérèse National Office, 56 Angier Street, Dublin 2, €5.00; contact Pat Sweeney at 086-819-8186) This brochure is a work of pietas by a devotee of St Thérèse. The beautifully illustrated booklet is in two parts, the first concerns the grave of the saint, the second the burial place of the…
Pat O’Kelly While pianist Finghin Collins pursues a busy international career he also finds time to act as artistic director of both the late September New Ross Piano Festival and Music for Galway. The latter spreads itself across ‘the season’ and enshrines a Midwinter Festival in January. Although Collins’ brainchild, his Galway committee actively…
Sometimes a programme arrives with mighty hype and fails to live up to the high expectations, then sometimes you just about stumble upon a modest show that exceeds the low expectations. RTÉ’s War of Independence drama Resistance (RTÉ1, Sunday nights) was preceded by much hype. Now two episodes in, it is better than I expected.…
Irish Parliamentarians: deputies and senators, 1918-2018 by Anthony White (Institute of Public Administration, €60.00) Felix M. Larkin It is axiomatic that we get the politicians we deserve. We elect them, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves. However, while our politicians generally get a bad press, we in Ireland have been reasonably well served by them.…
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello