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…
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…
‘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…
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…
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…
Brendan O’Regan rounds up “a flurry of election activity” and “broken pro-life promises” There was a flurry of election activity on Thursday of last week to squeeze in as much political commentary as possible before the moratorium kicked in at 2pm that day. On Newstalk’s Breakfast that morning, comedian Oliver Callan was particularly hilarious doing…
The Forest (15A) Horror films aren’t my preferred genre. You can be brave in a cinema seat in the middle of the day with a bag of popcorn in your hand but when you’re out at the coal shed that night and a squawking cat upsets a bin-lid you’re liable to jump a foot in…
“Give me the child, and I will mould the man”, Grace Bozzino at quadrapheme.com quotes St Francis Xavier as having said. “If that’s the case,” she points out, “then parents have some fairly important questions to ask. To whom are we giving our children? What sort of men – and women –will be returned to…
Aubrey Malone
Greg Daly
Brendan O’Regan