The World of Books Felix M. Larkin Even work on the scale of the new four-volume Cambridge History of Ireland (£350.00) cannot hope to be fully comprehensive. Nevertheless, the absence of a chapter on Irish newspapers in the History is quite remarkable. There is a chapter in volume four on broadcasting, but nothing specifically…
Pat O’Kelly Brainchild of the ubiquitous John O’Conor, the Dublin International Piano Competition celebrated its 30th birthday last month with the 11th of its triennial events held at both the RDS and National Concert Hall. The 2018 competition, with its €15,000 first prize, together with a series of recitals in Ireland and overseas including…
Achill: The Island poems by John F. Deane, paintings by John Behan (Currach Press, €19.99 /£14.99) John F. Deane is that rarity, a modern Irish poet deeply inspired in his poetry by what he calls in his introduction “the wonders of the Christian faith”. He himself was born on Achill Island in 1943, and his childhood…
Mystics: the beauty of prayer by Craig Larkin SM (Columba Press, €12.99) This is book was originally published two years ago in New Zealand under the title Inner Music: Living a Life in God. The title of the splendid new Irish edition gives a better idea perhaps of what the book contains – short essays on…
The Rivers of Dublin, new revised edition by Clair L. Sweeney, revised by Gerard O’Connell & Michael Curtis (Dublin City Council / Irish Academic Press, €24.99) There is a lovely saying, by an unidentified street poet, that has long echoed in my mind, as a description of the modern city: “The fields lie dreaming underneath.” No…
After criticising Damian Thompson’s execrable spectator.co.uk podcast about the referendum in a recent Web Watch, it seems only fair to point to a far better spectator.co.uk piece on the referendum this week. ‘What really happened in Ireland’s abortion referendum’, a ‘Coffee House’ column by Wicklow-born but London-based Melanie McDonagh is marked, as perhaps inevitable nowadays,…
Some of you will be glad I’m not going to spend a full column on the referendum but I have to say I write this part with a heavy heart, a sense of bereavement at having lost something special, a sense of dread for the little lives that will be lost under our shiny new…
Why We Go to Mass, a comic book by Fr. Pat Seaver & Hugh McMahon (€5.99 postage included; for copies contact Paul Flynn at Kyle House, Henry St, Limerick, tel: 061-313377) Having to sit on so many Sundays to sit beside families with their small children, even some of communion age, are running around the aisles,…
Edie (12A) “Too late for chips?” the 83-year-old Edie (Sheila Hancock) asks her cook in a fast food restaurant. “Never too late for you, Edie,” he replies in what becomes a lightbulb moment for her. This is a sweet little film about a self-professed ‘geriatric’ trying to roll back the years. It’s “never too late”…
Ireland’s Green Larder by Margaret Hickey (Unbound Publishing, £20 / €22; for copies contact support@unbound.com) Peter Hegarty Historically we haven’t been particular about our food in this country. Food writer Margaret Hickey tells us that our forebears feasted on squirrels, foxes, pigeons, and swans. We were once even partial to porpoise. Her engrossing book leaves the…
Peter Costello
Greg Daly
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone