With all the fractious controversies raging over Brexit, I like to listen to all sides of the debate, and there are certainly more than two! For the most part Irish commentary tends to range from mildly anti-Brexit to regarding those who voted to leave as stupid. But there are exceptions and we got relatively balanced…
“May have been the losing side,” says Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the cult sci-fi show Firefly about his part in a recent civil war. “Still not convinced it was the wrong one.” Over a year on from 2018’s referendum on repealing Ireland’s constitutional protections for unborn human beings, it’s clear that for many of those…
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs (Oxford University Press, £20.00) Frank Litton “Every age has its own outlook. It is generally good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.” We, therefore, need books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our…
Cad Fúinne, Mar Sin?/ What of us, then? by Colm Ó Tórna (Foilsithe ag Teangscéal/ Áisínteacht Dáilúcháin Leabhar, €10.00/€13.50 post paid; from An Siopa Leabhar, 6 Sráid Fhearchair, Dublin 2; email: siopa@cnag.ie) At the outset the author provides a depressing, albeit accurate, description of the prevailing culture. He states that its true nature was revealed in…
Mainly About Books by the books editor St Patrick is seen by many as the Apostle of Ireland – “the man who brought Christianity to or ancestors”. But one has to wonder: the process seems to have been so smooth, so easy, so without conflict, one has to ask was this the beginning of…
So Everyone Can Hear: Communicating Church in a Digital Culture by Mark Crosby (SPCK, £9.99) These days the Sunday homilies, with the occasional pastoral letter from an archbishop or bishop, are not quite enough. With the clamour for attention online the need for all the churches to make their message heard in the din of current…
I like films where conscience is taken seriously and all the more if the film making is of high quality. Hacksaw Ridge (Channel 5 Sunday, RTÉ2 Monday) left me conflicted. It has so much good stuff going for it, but I have serious reservations. Directed by Mel Gibson it tells the true story of US Army…
Ask anyone to name a few Mozart operas and they will, most likely, respond correctly with The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. There are of course several others not least Idomeneo, first produced in Munich on January 28, 1781. It had considerable success then and remains a marvellous, if overshadowed, piece.…
Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light, an exhibition Beit Wing (Rooms 6-10), National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square Dublin 2 Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light by Gabriele Finaldi and others, published to accompany the exhibition (National Gallery Company London /distributed by Yale University Press, £30.00/€35.00) This exhibition is the first ever mounted in Ireland, so…
Are we Bodies or Souls? by Richard Swinburne (Oxford University Press, £14.99) Christopher Moriarty The author, Emeritus Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford, has an impressive number of previous titles. Like this one, some end with question marks and include Is There a God? and Was Jesus God?…
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly
Peter Costello