The absence – or removal – of love is the theme of several films available from Amazon and other online outlets. Still Water is a beautifully made work about a prayerful blue-collar man played by Matt Damon. He travels from Oklahoma to Marseilles to try and free his daughter from prison. She’s been there for…
Crash Centre, by David McLoghlin – (Salmon Poetry, €12.00 / £10.00; contact info@salmonpoetry.com) Poet and Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh fellow, David McLoghlin returned to Ireland in 2020 after ten years in Brooklyn. He had taught at NYU and at the Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the south Bronx. Now in his early fifties, he is probably…
Since the recovery of a lost Caravaggio of the very greatest importance in the dining room of a Jesuit residence in Dublin, a work of art now safely enshrined in the National Gallery, there has been a continuing interest in Caravaggio across Ireland. A portrait of created by Caravaggio has just gone on show in…
Newman and His Critics, by Edward Short – (Gracewing, £35.00 pb / £65.00 hb) This large and very detailed book, running to some 600 pages, is one of three which the author has written on John Henry Newman. He has already published Newman and His Contemporaries and Newman and His Family. Those earlier volumes are now again available to make…
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin, £23.00 / €27.50); also The First Thanksgiving, a single chapter extract from the original book, is also available separately from Penguin booklet. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. These books give a popular historical account of the Pilgrim Fathers, which broadens out the…
Sometimes you expect a lot from a programme and are disappointed, sometimes you expect little and are pleasantly surprised, sometimes you want so badly a programme to be good and it lets you down. I had a variety of these feelings in relation to the three programmes under review this week. Our Divine Sparks (RTE…
A pope has died. The throne of the Holy See is vacant. A successor must be appointed. Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is Dean of the College of Cardinals. He’s chosen to oversee the selection process. He does so reluctantly as he’s struggling with his prayer life. Tensions rise in St Peter’s Basilica as various contenders…
Southern Irish Protestant – Histories, Lives & Literatures, by Ian d’Alton (Eastwood / Wordwell, €25.00 / £22.95) Robert Marshall Ian d’Alton was born in Dublin, moving to Cork at the outset of his teenage years. He graduated from University College Cork. There he read history under Oliver MacDonagh before going up to Peterhouse…
Ireland and the Crusades, edited by Edward Coleman, Paul Duffy & Tadgh O’Keefe (Four Courts Press, €49.50 / £41.50) I cannot be the only one who has wondered over the years about medieval Crusaders from Ireland. Across Western Europe, from Scotland to Sicily, the adventures and misadventures of these knights of the Red Cross…
Praying with the Bible: An Ignatian Guide, by Nikolas Sintobin (Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95) This book, written in a very accessible style, provides lessons in reading the scriptures from an Ignatian point of view and should find a wide readership. At the very start of the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius announces that the first step has to…
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan