Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O’Toole (Head of Zeus, £11.99) Peter Hegarty In writing his latest book, leading commentator Fintan O’Toole set himself a task: “What I have attempted here is simply one possible answer to the most obvious question: how did a great nation bring itself to the point of…
The Earls of Castlehaven: Lord Audleys of Cork and Kildare by Michael Christopher Keane (ISBN 9781527230026; obtainable from all branches of O’Mahonys Booksellers, €20.00, tel. +353 – 614-18155; or directly from the author at Farran, Ovens, Co. Cork). The subtitle to this book promises “War & Sex, Corruption & Land, from the battle of Kinsale…
The very first Web Watch I wrote highlighted an unusual site, thenewemangelization.com, about “drawing men to Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church” and running an interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, who claimed the Church has become too feminised, with “the goodness and importance” of men being obscured. Catholicism does tend to be practiced more assiduously…
When I was growing up, the ‘intellectuals’ argued that the true comic geniuses of the cinema were people like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. I always preferred Laurel & Hardy though – probably because I don’t think one should intellectualise comedy. They had a gift for improvisation that should be the envy of the so-called…
The New Year often sees the launch of new shows or at least new series of old ones. And so, I came across a couple of notables last week. The Big Questions returned for a new series last Sunday morning on BBC1, hosted as usual by Nicky Campbell. There’s been a redesign, which is fine,…
Fireside Miscellany: A collection of Irish Memories, Meanderings and History by Denis O’Higgins (available from Eason Monaghan and other outlets, €10.00) This is a collection of delightful short stories, such as we would expect to find in an issue of Ireland’s Own. They reveal that the author was born and raised on a small farm in…
Bright Wings, Dappled Things: Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ with photographs of Fr Francis Browne SJ, commentary by Jo O’Donovan RSM (Messenger Publications, €17.95) Desmond Egan This brightly produced book is aimed not at specialists but at ‘beginning readers’ and within such a modest aim, it is excellent. It offers a fine selection of Hopkins’s…
The Sunday Papers. A History of Ireland’s Weekly Press edited by Joe Breen and Mark O’Brien (Four Courts Press, €55.00) Joe Carroll This is a welcome scrutiny of Irish Sunday newspapers. It covers the whole of the last century and the first decade of this and, as the editors point out, shows how these weekly newspapers…
The World of Books by the books editor When I was a child the Christmas season and after was ‘the world of books’; books as gifts to give, books as presents to receive, books to own, to read with the family, books to read in bed at night. Books were an essential part of…
Pat O’Kelly While there is always an air of expectancy about January it can be a time to reminisce about the previous 12 months and recall some of the ‘highs’ as well as the ‘lows’. Deaths among the country’s musical fraternity included the multi-faceted composer/pianist/professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and friends Máire Larchet and Margaret…
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello