There is so much aggravational division in the world. Some of it due to identity politics, but a related problem is labelling – instead of seeing people as complex individuals, made in the image of God, we prefer to label people. This is particularly problematic when it comes to children – sometimes doing it for…
On April 9 1945, one of the truly remarkable human beings of modern times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was executed at Flossenbürg, a concentration camp situated in Upper Bavaria. In the Gregorian calendar, April 9 is the anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus (probably 30 CE). Bonheoffer would have known this, walking to the scaffold. His last…
Understandably the North of Ireland gets in the limelight when programme makers turn their attention to St Patrick’s Day. Catherine Fulvio’s St Patrick’s Way (RTÉ One, Thursday and Friday) saw the well-known TV chef take the St Patrick’s pilgrimage route from Navan Fort in Armagh to Downpatrick in Co. Down. She was a cheerful and…
An Taibhse (The Ghost, 15A) Is this Ireland’s answer to The Shining? An attempt to reprise the success of Kneecap? An imaginative horror film it has a man and his daughter working as caretakers in a spooky Georgian mansion during a harsh post-Famine winter. What’s next on the national landscape – a gaeilgeoir version of…
Jesus and the Powers. Christian political witness in a age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies, by Tom Wright & Michael F. Bird, (SPCK, £12.99 / €15.50) Politics are changing. In this imperfect world change is inevitable. There is the normal change that comes with the adjustments we make as circumstances shift, new problems appear,…
Mike Cronin and Mark Duncan, Revolutionary Times: Ireland 1913-23: Forging of a Nation, (Merrion Press 2024) This book will be a delightful read for professional historians, amateur historians and members of the reading public who are interested in our recent history. At the outset the authors explain how it came to be published. It has…
Irish Eccentrics, by Aubrey Malone (Penniless Press, £7.99 ) Daft as Brush: Eccentricities of the famous and infamous, by Aubrey Malone (Penniless Press, £7.99) In the days of gloom and doom we all need something light-hearted to relieve the depressing ambience around us. In these two books, Aubrey Malone, the film critic of The Irish Catholic,…
A Dictionary of Irish Saints, Second Edition, by Pádraig Ó Riain (Four Courts Press, €65.00 / £55.00) This is a new edition of an important, indeed for some purposes, essential book, which was warmly welcomed by The Irish Catholic when it was first published back in 2011. At that time I wrote that this was…
Last week saw the beginning of Lent, and the onset of the season usually sparks some interesting religious content in the media. On Songs of Praise (BBC One, Sunday) for the first Sunday in Lent Sean Fletcher presented a special edition on the Lord’s Prayer, from an Anglican theological college – Ripon College, Cuddesdon. This…
Irish National Opera (INO) returns to An Bord Gais Energy Theatre for four performances of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman on March 23, 25, 27 and 29. As it has been a while since any of the composer’s operas have been seen here these performances by INO are welcome. The Flying Dutchman is the earliest of…
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello