The Hurley Maker’s Son: A Memoir by Patrick Deeley (Doubleday Ireland, €17.99) J. Anthony Gaughan Patrick Deeley was born in a small farm near Loughrea, Co. Galway, in 1953. He was educated locally and attended St Patrick’s Teacher Training College in Drumcondra in Dublin. Subsequently he served as a principal in a primary school in Ballyfermot.…
My First Holy Communion Keepsake Journal created by Avril O’Reilly (Lulu, available through Amazon, ISBN 978-1326480103 (girls), 978-1326542863 (boys), €20.00) With a “Special Record of first Holy Communion” Avril O’Reilly has had a delightful notion. She has prepared a keepsake of first Communion for girls. “This book,” she explains, “is designed to keep all the Communion…
Dear Pope Francis: The Pope Answers Letters from Children Around the World by Pope Francis in conversation with Antonio Spadaro SJ (Messenger Publications / Jesuits in Ireland, €14.99) It is not unusual for recent Popes to be associated with books for children. We had, for instance, a rather charming book about Pope Benedict’s cat – cats…
Zootropolis (PG) As we stand on the cusp of a new era in American politics – Donald Trump putting up walls to combat foreign forces and Hilary Clinton trying to break them down to embrace them – along comes an animated film about that very subject. Taking as its lift-off point the fact that modern…
There has been renewed talk lately about fixing the date of Easter, rather than continuing with it as a moveable feast. This is the sort of idea that the appeals to both the tidy minded and the sort of person who believes that Sunday trading is good for the economy, however damaging yet another day…
“Current trends dampen my enthusiasm for the 1916 commemorations, not least our worsening relationship with alcohol”, writes Brendan O’Regan Of all the 1916 related programmes, I was looking forward most to Insurrection, a repeat showing of RTÉ’s flagship programme from the 50th anniversary in 1966. Painstakingly restored from original video tape, it has been playing…
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…
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…
Few topics have drawn as much attention online of late than Donald Trump’s seemingly inexorable path towards becoming the Republican candidate in next year’s US presidential election. What Catholics think of this isn’t entirely clear. A solid place to look for data on the subject is fivethirtyeight.com, where last month Catholic blogger Leah Libresco pointed…
“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…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Greg Daly