For many years, Kenny’s Bookshop has been one of the features of Galway City.  Des Kenny describes here the beginnings of that mecca for bibliophiles – now only run on-line. Maureen Canning and Des Kenny met for the first time when she was attending University College, Galway.  Within a few years they married and opened…

The release of Dunkirk has been the focus for mixed reviews and divided opinions. Christopher Nolan’s movie with its clean-shaven, well-washed, un-muddied British  soldiers retreating with their weapons still in hand, though loved by critics, has been derided by veterans of WWII as a travesty. To see Dunkirk merely as an “heroic retreat” is to…

Nick Page is the author of some 70 popular books in the area of religion, written from a quirky Protestant point of view. This is suggested by his subtitle: “Commemorating 500 years of Popes, Protestants, reformers, radicals and other assorted irritants”. He begins by pointing out that the first historian of the Reformation, a servant…

Máire Ní Aogáin According to a saying attributed to Jim Larkin, “Christ is crucified every day on the streets of Dublin”.  This little book transfers this metaphor to the DART stations, linking these to the Stations of the Cross. The bilingual text draws on literature from each language to provide contemporary context for the Stations…

Joe Carroll Irish troops have been involved in United Nations peacekeeping missions for 60 years at a cost of 86 lives. It is an honourable record and the author,  a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Defence Forces, has played his part. In his new book  he writes about the Irish role in these missions and …

Rebuilding Confirmation by Christopher Wesley (Maria Press, $US 10.95PRP) This important little book is subtitled: ‘Because we need more than another graduation’. This will arouse echoes in the mind of pastors and parents, for there is certainly a great confusion it seems among Catholics about what Confirmation is. Rites of passage are very important, and Irish…