Roderic O’Connor and the Moderns: Between Paris and Pont-Aven exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland curated by Jonathan Benington with Brendan Rooney, 18 July-28 October. Catalogue price €19.95. Today the small town of Pont-Aven in Brittany is a busy tourist centre, a place living off its artistic past. Here in the last decade of…
Last week I was writing about some new TV dramas and this week I’ll have a look at some reruns and revivals. Anne With an E (based on the children’s novel Anne of Green Gables) is back on Netflix for a second series and judging by the first few episodes it’s still maintaining the high…
L’Apparition Vincent Lindon is one of my favourite French actors. He’s always reminded me of Miley from Glenroe. In a country where we expect to find more clean-cut heroes, he has more the look of a character actor than a leading man with his lived-in face. You feel he’s been out digging fields all…
The Quiet Revolution of Pope Francis: A Synodal Catholic Church in Ireland? by Gerry O’Hanlon SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95) Peter Hegarty “It is through the clash of ideas in public debate that truth emerges,” Gerry O’Hanlon observes in a favourable overview of the reforms undertaken and envisaged by Pope Francis. He writes of the slow emergence of…
Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright (William Collins, £14.99) Peter Hegarty Albright’s striking title emphasises her concern about the rise of strongmen around the world: ‘Some may view this book and its title as alarmist. Good. We should be awake to the assault on democratic values that has gathered strength in many countries abroad and that is dividing…
The Preacher and the Prelate: The Achill Mission Colony and the Battle for Souls in Famine Ireland by Patricia Byrne (Merrion Press, €14.99) It is strange how the same place can have different effects on different people and at different times. We recently reviewed a book on Achill Island as it appears today to a poet…
The World of Books by the Books Editor The Piri Re’is is an early 16th Century Ottoman map, which has attracted a great deal of interest, of all kinds, since it was rediscovered in Istanbul’s Topkapi Museum in 1929. Named for the admiral who had it made, it shows the coasts of the Atlantic and…
Last week saw the beginning of several new TV drama series – maybe a coincidence or maybe to offer alternatives, both during and after the World Cup and Wimbledon. S.W.A.T. (Sky One, Sunday nights) was the least promising of the lot, a stereotypical US cop show with too much macho posturing, clichéd characters, stilted acting…
Pat O’Kelly A recent report, commissioned by RTÉ and undertaken by the BBC’s Helen Boaden in conjunction with consulting firm Mediatique, has recommended that, while the RTÉ Concert Orchestra should remain within the fold of the broadcaster, the National Symphony Orchestra should become an entity in its own, outside of RTÉ. The April report…
Heroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped to Build – And Can Help Rebuild – Western Civilization William J. Slattery (Ignatius Press, $24.95 / £18.82). In this ambitious book the author records the significant contribution made by priests to the arts, literature, philosophy and the sciences. He ranges across the centuries. Among those he lists are…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone