Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: Suffragette and Sinn Féiner, Her Memoirs and Political Writings by Margaret Ward (University College Dublin Press, €35) Sonja Tiernan The memoirs and political writings of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is an extensive and valuable collection that makes for a thoroughly engaging read. Publication of this book provides a tremendous primary resource to…
No Stone Unturned (PG) The euphoria experienced by six people in a bar in the village of Loughlinisland, Co. Down, shortly after Ray Houghton scored an unforgettable goal against Italy in a World Cup match on June 18, 1994, was short-lived. Soon afterwards three UVF men burst through the door and mowed them down mercilessly. The atrocity…
First Confession: A Sort of Memoir by Chris Patten (Allen Lane, £14.99) I have just finished reading with very great interest this most absorbing memoir of a modern politician of a special kind. Chris Patten was a Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s and John Major’s governments, and was the Director of Elections for his party in the…
A few Sundays ago one of the readings at Mass was about welcoming the stranger. The exhortation came back to me when I was watching Ireland’s Refugee Hotel, a TV3/BBC co-production shown last Thursday on TV3 and last Tuesday on BBC 1. The focus was on the small town of Ballaghaderreen in Co. Roscommon, where Muslim…
The Great Famine in Tralee and North Kerry by Bryan MacMahon (Mercier Press , €35) The Great Famine, or ‘Black ‘45’ as it is known in the oral tradition, was a seminal event in the modern history of Ireland. It initiated the great emigration to the ‘New World’. Regrettably it also grafted on to the folk…
60 at Roscrea: Celebrating the Roscrea Conference at Mt St Joseph Abbey, 1987-2017 edited by George Cunningham (The Roscrea People; 300 copies numbered and signed; nos 1-150 h/b, €40, and 150 Card covers, nos 151-300, €20; p/p €5 within Ireland.) Terry Barry Ireland is truly lucky for a small island to have so many excellent local…
Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art Exhibition curated by Marie Bourke, with essays by Patrick Duffy and others, edited by Claire Crowley (National Gallery of Ireland, €15.95) Thanks to RTÉ we know that ‘The Meeting on the Turret Stairs’ is Ireland’s favourite painting. Yet experience tells us, too, that many who admire it are…
John Hearne: Architect of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland by Eugene Broderick (Irish Academic Press, €29.99) A study of all constitutions promulgated since the French Revolution in 1789, by the Chicago Law School, found that the average constitution lasted a mere 17 years, before it was replaced. By that measure, the Irish Constitution, which will be…
Centenary / Comoradh Cead Bliain: Ireland remembers 1916 / Tugann Eire 1916 chun cuimhne edited by Ronan McGreevy (Government Publications, €25) Felix M. Larkin Most people take the view that the centenary commemoration of the 1916 Rising was a “Goldilocks moment”. Whereas the 50th anniversary events in 1966 were too hot, and those for the…
Mors Britannica: Lifestyle & Death-Style in Britain Today by Douglas J. Davies (Oxford University Press, £30.00) Death: The Graveside Companion edited by Joanna Ebenstein (Thames & Hudson, £29.95) Halloween, or rather the Eve of All Saints, has passed once again, and again with perhaps less religious observance than in past centuries. Halloween seems to date only from…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello