A Collection of Songs About Love, Composed and performed by Cormac Buckley and others (Living Water Worship, price unstated) This disc contains some thirteen songs composed and performed by Cormac Buckley, who gets by with a little help from his friends. It is an Irish example of a kind of music found in North…
Winter Past: The Spirit of Hope, by John O’Brien (Multyfarnham Friary, €15.00) Fr John O’Brien will be a familiar writer to many readers; he is one of the Franciscans down in Multyfarnham Friary who pursue their vocations in an energetic way. This little book is very typical of his work, and all the…
The recent visit of President Donald Trump to Ireland passed off quite well, given the often uncertain nature of the president’s reactions to people and events. This was especially so of his courtesy call on President Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin. But this call was marked by the presentation of various gifts to the visitor…
“A miserable thing to be a woman”: Mary-Anne Tyrrell (1821–94) and her landed estate, by Lesley Whiteside (Four Courts Press, €12.95) I approached this book with a great sense of anticipation having known of the Tyrrells of the Carbury area, from spending many happy weeks of my childhood right beside Grange Castle Edenderry, where…
A woman drives a truck along a deserted road. There’s a dog in the middle of it. She’s unsure of what to do. Is it friendly? Injured? She gets out. We flash back to a week before. The dog is in a plane with its master, James Belmont (Brad Pitt). Then tragedy strikes. He gets…
We have seen it so many times – a law gets liberalised to the extent that parliamentarians or the public will accept, and then, despite assurances, safeguards gradually get chipped away. The ongoing effort to remove the three-day wait to access abortion ‘services’ attracted a little attention last week, but not enough, considering the life…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when Andrew Scott is on the screen you’re not looking at anyone else. He has the presence of a Brando, a De Niro, an Al Pacino. And in Pressure (12A), he has their signature tune of being a simmering volcano to boot. I’m using a meteorological metaphor to…
In last week’s edition I had a special article about the media and the 9/11 attacks. Films are still being made about the tragedy. Colm Flynn’s excellent new programme Hope after 9/11 – Stories of Faith and Courage (EWTN, Saturday), explored the role played by religious faith, mainly through inspiring personal stories. The story of…
Ireland’s First Sanitorium: The St. Ann’s Hill Hydro, County Cork, 1843-1953, by Sinéad McSweeney and Ronan Foley (Four Courts Press / Maynooth Studies in Local History, €12.95/11.95) Cork’s famous “Hydro” was one of the most ambitious and successful health spas of its era in Europe. When its doors closed in 1953 it had been…
Parnell’s Other Island: Charles Stewart Parnell’s life and times in late Victorian Britain, by Alan F. Parkinson (Eastwood Books, €25.00 / £21.50) The title of this book echoes that of George Bernard Shaw’s 1904 play John Bull’s Other Island, but with the conceit inverted. Whereas Shaw was referring to Ireland, Parnell’s other island was…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan