About Being Normal: My life in Abnormal Circumstances by Desmond Fennell (Somerville Press, €20.20 / £17.00) This memoir provides an interesting account of the life and writings of Desmond Fennell, who has long been a striking voice in modern Ireland. Fennell was born in Belfast in 1929. After attending the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School and…
Joe Carroll Nothing Is Written In Stone: The Notebooks of Justin Keating Edited by Barbara Hussey and Anna Kealy (Lilliput Press, €20.00) Justin Keating intended to write a autobiography, but died in 2009 on the eve of his 80th birthday leaving eight handwritten notebooks. His second wife, Barbara Hussey, and Anna Kealy have done their…
Going In Style (12A) What else can Hollywood do with the elderly? It’s made them into dolts. It’s made them into geniuses. It’s even, for goodness sake, put them into space (in Space Cowboys). Now, in a re-make of a 1979 movie, they’ve turned them into bank robbers. Enter Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan…
The new census figures released last week have caused a stir, and among the aspects heavily reported have been those related to religion. I’ve noticed a concentration (even satisfaction in some quarters?) on the drop (since 2011) in the percentage of the population identifying as Catholic (from 84% to 78%) along with the 10% figure…
Patrick Claffey The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, edited by Douglas Abrams (Hutchinson, £12.99) A few years ago, taking a taxi into Nassau St to teach a module at Trinity College, the Dublin driver asked me what I taught. That afternoon, I told him, I was to give a lecture…
Time with the Master: Reflections on the Life of Jesus by Seamus Devitt CSsR (Messenger Publications, €7.95) Though Christmas seems to dominate the annual round, Easter Sunday has always been for Chrstians the central feast day of the year. As we celebrate next Sunday this little book by Fr Devitt will remind many people that…
Youghal Celebrates 1916 ed. Kieran Groeger (Youghal Celebrates History, €10; address Mary’s College, Emmett Place, Youghal Co. Cork; email: ytta@eircom.net) This booklet marking Youghal’s contribution to the 1916 celebrations includes a number of interesting articles, one of them relating to Sir Roger Casement. Patrick Cockburn writes about a link between his grandfather, Jack Arbuthnot, a…
The World of Books On January 20, 1947, The Times of London carried a short report: “NEW YORK. At 10.15 a.m. yesterday Mayor O’Dwyer, of New York, received a telegram from Mr John McCann, Lord Mayor of Dublin, which read as follows: ‘Poet Eoghan Roe Ward dying. Bananas may save life. Is it possible send…
A Dark Song (16) Grieving mum seeks atonement for murdered sonMost horror films seem to populate their casts with masochists. They summon up demons to plague them. They run repeatedly into the face of danger. They seem geared towards inflicting the greatest amount of punishment on themselves for the least possible gain. Sophia Howard (Catherine…
Felix M. Larkin The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, 1900-18 by Conor Mulvagh (Manchester University Press, £75.00) The centenary commemoration of the 1916 Rising last year was marred by the curious incident of the banners on the facade of the Bank of Ireland building in College Green. These banners were a minimalist attempt to commemorate…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan