The Belfast Jacobin: Samuel Neilson and the United Irishmen by Kenneth L. Dawson (Irish Academic Press, €22.99) Ian d’Alton This biography of one of the lesser-known founding members of the Society of United Irishmen is engaging, readable and impressively researched. The stories of United Irishmen like Tone, Drennan and Lord Edward Fitzgerald are well-known – but…
A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift by Dan Harvey (Merrion Press, €14.99) A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo by Dan Harvey (Merrion Press, €14.99) J. Anthony Gaughan These are interesting accounts by the same author of two very different battles, but which had one thing in common – the participation of Irish soldiers. Rorke’s Drift…
Czech Architectural Cubism by Zdenék Lukeš and Ester Havlová (Jaroslav Fregner Gallery, Prague, €10.00; on sale at IAA) The Irish Architectural Archive is currently running an exhibition, “Czech Architectural Cubism”, which should not be missed by anyone interested about how architecture, including indeed church architecture, might have developed in Ireland in the 1920s. Czechs…
Sam Maguire: The Man and The Cup by Kieran Connolly (Mercier Press, €12.99) As last week’s dramatic victory by Dublin over Mayo showed, the Sam Maguire Cup is much better known than the man after whom it was named and honours. This opportune account of Sam Maguire and noteworthy occasions and persons associated with…
Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally (Sceptre Books, £19.99) Pauric Travers Almost 50 years ago, schoolteacher and aspiring writer Thomas Keneally won his second Miles Franklin award for Three Cheers for the Paraclete, a novel set in the Irish-Australian Catholic community which explores the conflict between faith, obedience, freedom and authority. Half a century and…
In some circles, especially among young people, the contribution of the Catholic Church to science and the arts is a well-kept secret. Fr Andrew Pinsent of the Ian Ramsay Centre for Science and Religion, and Fr Marcus Holden from the Shrine of St Augustine in Ramsgate have done more than most to remedy this (e.g.…
Reese Witherspoon could probably have phoned in her performance in this romantic comedy about a woman with two precocious daughters trying to make a new start in life as an interior decorator as she approaches the big four-oh. It won’t tax your brain unduly but if you like Witherspoon, who tends to hoover up the…
Ever since Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church’s social teaching has commonly been seen as favouring a carefully qualified form of capitalism, of sorts perhaps best expressed in the Rhenish capitalisms of Christian democrat Germany and Holland, or even in social democrat societies. Catholic advocates of less restrained capitalist models, however, have long…
The Dublin Lockout 1913: New perspectives on Class War and its Legacy Conor McNamara and Padraig Yeates (Irish Academic Press, €24.99 pb/ €44.99hb) Tom Morrissey The Lockout centenary commemoration was a triumph of careful organisation, hard work and trade union support. In the process, James Larkin was glorified, his failings largely ignored. The Great Strike / Lockout…
Saint Brigid: Life, Legend, and Cult Noel Kissane (Four Courts Press, €24.99) Padraig Ó Riain In the Life he wrote for Brigid, Cogitosus, the earliest known Irish biographer of a saint, declared that because of her, Kildare’s authority extended “from sea to sea”, from one side of Ireland to the other. Judging by the dedications…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Greg Daly