Irish Women and the Vote: Becoming Citizens editors: Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward (Irish Academic Press, €19.99) Emily Keyes February 2018 marks the centenary of women over the age of 30 gaining the right to vote in Ireland and Britain, yet over 100 years and two feminist movements later, Irish women continue to struggle for equal…
Pat O’Kelly With conductor Fergus Sheil active as both artistic director of Wide Open Opera and Opera Theatre Company, it seemed a natural progression both companies would merge. And so they did. Formed last year, with generous beneficence from the Arts Council, the new company was launched under the banner of Irish National Opera.…
Silence under a stone a novel by Norma McMaster (Doubleday Ireland, €14.99) Ian d’Alton Written “out of my own life experience” (the author grew up in Cavan, and is a Church of Ireland minister) this novel is a sometimes difficult read. Not in the literary sense – its touch is sure, its construction works well and…
We’re well used to TV dramas scheduled for one episode per week, and in these days of box set binging (even if the ‘box’ is often virtual) it’s a nice kind of anticipation. Last week, however, ITV ran the new drama Trauma for three nights in a row. Tense and intriguing, with several unlikely plot…
There’s been a lot of debate in English Catholic journalism over the last week or two about a Cambridge lecture by Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich. The lecture itself, ‘Pope Francis’ revolution of mercy: Amoris Laetitia as a new paradigm of Catholicism’, conducted under the auspices of the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry, can…
Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity by Navid Kermani (Polity, £25.00) There is an old saying that “I never knew what my house looked like, as I had never been outside it”. This applies as well to religion: Christians cannot know what Christianity looks like because they never “go outside of it”. This book, by a distinguished…
You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living Henri Nouwen (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99) Anthony Redmond I have read quite a few of Henri Nouwen’s books and he never fails to move and inspire me. I never seem to tire of him. He was a profoundly spiritual, prayerful man, but he always struck me as lonely,…
Leabhar Urnaí an Timire níl aon eagarthóir ainmnithe (Foilseacháin Ábhar Spioradálta, €5) Tadhg Ó Dúshláine This slim volume of less than 50 pages will come as a godsend to the increasing number of teachers in Gaelscoileanna, under the trusteeship of the Church, charged with the transmission of the faith in a broken culture, where the rich heritage…
Gooch: The Autobiography by Colm Cooper (Transworld, €20.00) At the outset Cooper explains the origin of his nickname. It arose because when he was eight years old he had a passing resemblance to red-haired ‘Goochie’ dolls popular at that time. The real heroes in this book are Colm’s parents, Mike and Maureen. They began their…
The World of Books by the books editor The literary commemoration of the Great War takes many curious forms these days. But none can be more curious than the recent suggestion by Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, that a new renaissance of war poetry should be encouraged among modern soldiers. He had in…
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly
Peter Costello