Category: Reviews

Perhaps predictably, the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision to legalise same-sex marriage throughout the US has dominated online Catholic discourse in recent weeks.  Firstthings.com has published a fascinating online symposium on the decision and its implications, and Ross Douthat argues on nytimes.com that the judgment is profoundly ironic, with the court having embraced…

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The silly season is here and film-makers are doing their best to drag you in from the sun. Here are some of the more high profile releases now showing in your local cinema: Faith of Our Fathers (PG) In 1969 in Vietnam, a man with a great faith went into battle with a religious sceptic…

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Ronsard’s rose garden is a pure delight Stratford-upon-Avon, especially in summer, is one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions:  the crowds come not to see the Royal Shakespeare Company at the theatre, but the birth place of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. The theatre with its celebrated productions is a truly vital place –…

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If you’re in or around the City of Tribes between July 7 and 12 you should check out the Galway Film Fleadh. Now in its 27th year, Ireland’s leading film festival has a gala line-up this time. The highlight, for me, has to be the Garret Daly/Martina McGlynn feature A Nightingale Falling (Town Hall, July 9). I saw this on RTÉ…

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Conspirators: A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground by Shane Kenna (Mercier Press, €14.99) A remarkable rogue’s gallery of revolutionaries, members of the IRB and Fenian movements, some of whom developed into democratic leaders. But it is as well to remember that not all the Fenians were heroes by any means. Money and murder left…

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