Widows (15A) Almost every line in this film is gold. And almost every character, no matter how small, is exquisitely drawn. A kind of distaff Goodfellas, it takes off when Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson as, surprise, surprise, a villain) gets killed during a heist. Or does he? The money is burned. Or is it? These…
With the abuse crisis continuing to rock the Church at its highest levels, some thoughtful material is starting to be produced online grappling with the issues of abuse and concealment. Commonwealmagazine.org has published one of the most insightful and impassioned pieces in James Heaney’s article ‘Our myth, their lie’. “Ten years ago, I believed a…
A Flavour of Kylemore Abbey by the Sisters of the Community (Columba Books, €24.99) When this book came to hand, I turned over the pages to see what made this cook book different from all the others that flood the market. My attention was immediately taken by a recipe for Frangipane Mince Pies, the last one in the…
Living With The Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples by Neil MacGregor (Allen Lane, £30) Patrick Claffey Neil MacGregor, the distinguished British art historian and museum director, is currently the creator of the Humboldt Forum, a new centre for world culture in Berlin. Many will have seen exhibitions or read his books, including A History of the World…
From Partition to Brexit: The Irish Government and Northern Ireland by Donnacha ó Beacháin (Manchester University Press, £75.00 hb / £22.99 pb) Peter Hegarty Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Associate Professor of Politics at the School of Law and Government at DCU, begins and ends his book with discussions of the Ulster question’s affronts to democracy. Partition, he tells us, was an…
The World of Books by the books editor This weekend the world will mark, in different ways, the centenary of the armistice that brought the fighting in the Great War, otherwise ‘the war to end all wars’, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918. These commemorations of the…
The Liberties by Maurice Curtis (Currach Press, €14.99) The Back of the Hack: Growing Up in the Liberties by Kathleen Clifford (A & A Farmar, €15.00) Some years ago author Maurice Curtis brought out a history of the Liberties, that district of Dublin to the south west that once lay outside the city walls, and where over…
The plight of refugees in Latin America has been getting lots of coverage of late as a caravan of immigrants heads through Mexico to the US border. Last Friday night’s Unreported Word (Channel 4), subtitled ‘Venezuela’s Lost Children’ focused on some personal stories of teens crossing from Venezuela to Colombia in the hope of a…
Pat O’Kelly November is a month of remembrance maybe made more poignant this year with the commemoration of the ending of World War I. Two concerts, tomorrow (November 9) in the National Concert Hall and on Saturday (November 10) in Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, will focus not only on the horrors of war but…
Who Do I Think I Am?: A Memoir by Homan Potterton (Merrion Press, €24.99) The former director of the National Gallery of Ireland, now living in retirement in the France, scored something of a literary success with Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled, his memoir of his years of growth in Anglo-Irish Meath. This was perhaps a feat…
Aubrey Malone
Greg Daly
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan