I finished last week’s column with a brief mention of Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on the theme of AI. Subsequently the document was well noted and received in the media. On Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1) Tuesday of last week, I liked Audrey Carville’s introduction on the Pope’s call for the ‘disarming’ of AI…
The last time we saw a ‘good’ thief in a film was Channing Tatum in Roofman. Leo Woodall looks somewhat like Tatum in Daniel Roher’s Tuner (15). He has the same attractively lazy style of acting as him as well, and even wears a similar tracksuit. The ‘double life’ plot of the film has similarities…
There are two parts in this book. The first part is a history of the Newell family. The second is a collection of short stories written by Máirtín Ó Tnúthail, one of the most distinguished members of that family, under the nomme de plume ‘Dermot L. Martyn’. These were written in the decades after World…
Some weeks ago, a weekend paper carried a large notice of an art auction due to be held on May 25 in Dublin. One of the pictures caught my wife’s eye: it was a familiar yet different image, a version in water colour of the large oil painting ‘Mass in a Connemara Cottage’ by Aloysius…
It’s good to see a high-profile drama series that takes religion seriously and doesn’t fall into too many lazy stereotypes. In Falling (Channel 4, Tuesdays and Wednesdays) Keeley Hawes excels as Sr Anna, who entered the convent at age 16 against the wishes of her mother. Twenty years later, a chance encounter with a young…
The biggest film date of the year is coming up. It’s June 1, the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth. A hundred years on we’re still talking about her, watching her films, seeing documentaries about her on TV and discussing in bars and homes whether she was a good actress or just chewing gum for the…
How is Catholicism to remain relevant in an increasingly secular society? That is the question which the French priest-writer Jean Sulivan (1913-1980) grappled with in his writings, and it lies at the heart of this study of Sulivan by the distinguished Franco-Irish scholar, Eamon Maher. Jean Sulivan was the pseudonym of Joseph Lemarchand, a native…
Our history is full of untold and almost unknown lives. Twenty-five years ago, while researching a book on the Royal Irish Constabulary, I first got to know something about Tom Hughes (b. February 1, 1891). He was one of the constables in Listowel barracks in June 1920 when the British government declared Munster to be…
In his brief life Donal Walsh came to the attention of the nation through an appearance on The Saturday Night Show. Donal was, as he said himself, a sports mad Kerry boy, who was struck by cancer, not once but twice, the second time mortally. He was quite a normal boy, so one is not…
I was reading a book in Eason’s one day some years ago when I got the distinct impression the words were familiar to me. After a few minutes I realised why. They were my own ones. But someone else’s name was on the cover. Plagiarism is as rampant in the music business as in literature.…
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello