Come and See for Yourself: Dublin’s Sacred Spaces edited by Dublin Interfaith Forum (Free of charge) Dublin is an increasingly multicultural city in which faiths new to Ireland are now to be found. The Interfaith Forum of Dublin City Council has just published a little pamphlet (free at your local public library) on Dublin’s sacred spaces. In…
Sing Street (PG) The Christian Brothers come in for the inevitable bashing in this coming-of-age tale. There seem to be only two of them running Synge Street School in the film. (Its title is a pun on this.) The first (Des Keogh) is a caricature, the second (Don Wycherley) rules with an iron fist. Many…
“It was impressive to see the huge amount of voluntary effort to support the refugees’, writes Brendan O’Regan, even though “The faith element was…over simplistically” I’ve long been a fan of reporter Valerie Cox’s work for RTÉ Radio and last Sunday night she made a very effective jump to television on the Exodus – A…
Recap: Inside Ireland’s Financial Crisis by Kevin Cardiff (The Liffey Press, €19.95) Every person in Ireland was affected in one way or another by the banking and financial services meltdown in 2008-2011. Kevin Cardiff, general secretary of the Department of Finance since 2010, was a key figure in the group charged with dealing with this grave…
Into Extra Time: Living through the final stages of cancer and jottings along the way by Michael Paul Gallagher SJ (Darton, Longman & Todd/Messenger Publications, £9.99/€12.99) Anthony Redmond When the well-known Jesuit writer, lecturer and theologian, Fr Michael Paul Gallagher, was told in January of last year that he had cancer he began to write this book…
Years of Turbulence: the Irish Revolution and its Aftermath ed. by Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan (UCD Press, €40.00) Joe Carroll As the centenary of the Easter Rising approaches, historians have been busy tapping newly revealed sources and archives for new angles on this landmark event and its aftermath up to the end of the Civil War…
The recent deaths of Umberto Eco and Harper Lee throw into contrast the modern literatures of Europe and the United States in an interesting way. Umberto Eco (84) made his name overnight as a novelist with the publications in 1980 of The Name of the Rose, a sort of medieval Sherlock Holmes tale, which carried…
Truth (15A) Placed beside Oliver Stone’s coruscating indictment of the Bush regime in W. (Dubya) and Michael Moore’s in Fahrenheit 9/11, this Watergate-style investigation into the manner in which he’s alleged to have dodged the Vietnam draft by joining the Texas National Guard between 1968 and 1974 – and then going AWOL – seems an…
‘Fascinating’, ‘puzzling’ and ‘disturbing’ viewing ‘on the crime front’ this week, writes Brendan O’Regan A podcast has been described as ‘radio on demand’ or ‘essentially a radio show that you can get on the internet’. Serial is one of the most popular podcasts in the world and last week I listened to it from my…
My Indian Journal: Exploring Interfaith Connections by Catherine McCann (ISPCK, €8.00; ISBN 978-81-8465-529-2; available from Veritas, Dubray and Easons) They say that there are two ways to get to know the heart of a country: either make a brief intense visit, or spend a lifetime there. Anything in between may well leave one confused about the…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello