Homily Hints and Prayers: Daily Mass Reading by Silvester O’Flynn (Columba Books, €19.99) In the blurb of this quite large book there is a striking little phrase: “Where there is no priest available, this book would be an invaluable help to any group who gathers to pray with the day’s Mass Reading.” Now this may seem…
Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting by Laura Kelly Fanucci (Veritas, €12.99) Author Laura Fanucci, a hardworking American mother and theologian, places as an epigraph to her little book a saying of St Francis of Assisi: “It was easy to love God in all that was beautiful. The lessons of deeper knowledge, though, instructed me…
I find it useful to tune in to Catholic news sources from abroad to get a broader view on the Catholic world, and to avoid being confined to the prevailing narrative of the secular media at home. EWTN News Nightly is particularly useful. Last Friday’s episode, for example, covered a wide range of issues. First up…
Before the establishment of the Varangian Guard, when the Byzantine Emperors took to taking Vikings into their service to act as bodyguards, there were the Excubitors. In the mid-5th Century, before the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed, the Eastern or ‘Byzantine’ Emperors established an imperial guard known as ‘Sentinels’ or ‘Excubitors’. With the old…
The Happy Prince (15A) Rupert Everett has been fascinated by Oscar Wilde for most of his life. He’s acted in many of his plays on Broadway and played his alter ego in films like The Importance of Being Ernest and An Ideal Husband. He also played Wilde himself in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss on the West…
The Little Book of Dog Quotes edited by Aubrey Malone (Barzipan Publishing, £8.95) The world is divided, as we all know, into cat people and dog people. Being myself a dog person, I found this little book amusing. The world, according to P.G. Wodehouse, is divided into those who can stop a dog fight and those who…
Beyond the Breakwater: Memories of Home by Catherine Foley (Mercier Press, €14.99) In these essays and short stories Catherine Foley reveals a great deal about herself and her social environment. This collection is a delightful gathering, and its content is every bit as authentic as Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields. Catherine spent her early…
National Gallery of Ireland Print Gallery Drawing Dublin exhibition curated by Anne Hodge (Curator of Prints and Drawings) and Niamh MacNally (Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings) The three rooms of the Print Gallery in the NGI are currently devoted to a most interesting exhibition, one filled with unusual and little seen images of the…
Wisdom at the Crossroads: The Life and Thought of Michael Paul Gallagher SJ by Thomas G. Casey SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95) Anthony Redmond The well-known writer, educator and theologian, Fr Michael Paul Gallagher SJ died from cancer on November 6, 2015. He was a brilliant, kind gentleman in the true sense of the word. I had…
I was in the need of some good news stories last week, something to lift the spirits and restore some pride in the country. Nationwide (RTÉ1) provided the goods as it often does, in its own low key way, and with unfailing respect for its subjects. On Monday night they had a special show on the…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly
Aubrey Malone