Sing in the Quiet Places of my Heart: The Life and Works of WM Letts (1882-1972), by Bairbre O’Hogan (South Dublin Libraries, €20.00 / £16.99); available through Alan Hanna and other retailers. J. Anthony Gaughan Winifred Letts is one of those many poets of the Irish Literary Revival, once widely admired, who lead a fugitive…
Category: Reviews
Celebrating Russian composer Shostakovich
The New Year 2025 and the following 2026 bring anniversaries appropriate to Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich who was born in St Petersburg in 1906 and died in Moscow in 1975. Commemorating these events two of his 15 symphonies have been slotted into the NCH January programmes. His 10th of 1953 had the National Youth Orchestra on…
The future of our past in the National Archives
Peter Costello
These days, due to change in the release of state papers at the British National Archives at Kew outside London and at the Northern Ireland Records Office in Belfast, the former fifty years closure periods for files has been reduced to 30 years, so that the Irish side of the story can be told in…
Humanity beams through our screens this Christmas
Brendan O’Regan
There were so many programmes of interest on over the Christmas period –too many repeats as usual, but a few that are worthy of mention. So This is Christmas (RTÉ One) was certainly something different. It was an unobtrusive fly on the wall style film, a series of vignettes of various people preparing for…
The curious case of Gerry Adams’ tickets
Brandon ScottI don’t think young people truly grasp the controversy and hysteria that Sinn Fein provoked in certain parts of the UK and indeed Ireland. During its most acute stage, the voices of the leaders of the Sinn Fein party were censored in both Ireland and the UK as a result of a broadcasting ban and…
A good man’s labours for peace in Northern Ireland…. and the wider world
In Good Time: A Memoir, by Martin O’Brien (Red Stripe Press, €15.99 / £14.79). J. Anthony Gaughan The Good Friday Agreement is a pair of Agreements signed on April 10 (Good Friday) 1998 which ended most of the urban warfare and violence of the previous thirty years in Northern Ireland. It is made…
An Honours List for Ireland?
Since the founding of the state in 1922 the question of a sort of Order of Merit, a Legion d’Honneur, or even a Presidential Medal of Freedom (a successor to the Presidential Medal of Honour) in the USA, has been much debated. The Constitution does not allow the awarding of any title of nobility, and…
Echoes of the past from the National Archives 2024 A son of Israel as Dublin’s Lord Mayor
The sudden decision of the government of Israel to close its embassy in Ballsbridge because of, so the government in Jerusalem claimed, the outright “anti-Semitism” of the Irish government brings archive files relating to Robert Briscoe (dating from 1944 and 1955) in the latest release into focus, which suggest that the Netanyahu government’s grasp…
The return of William Butler Yeats – with a note on Joyce’s bones
The poet and Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats died on 28 January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap Martin, on the French Riviera. In ill health for some years he had been staying there to enjoy the mild warm winter weather for several years. He had said to his family that if he died he might…
Review of the Year
Being highly exposed to the media as I am, in the line of duty of course, there are so many highs and lows – material that is depressingly grim or uplifting and inspiring. I thought it would be good to start on a positive note. In broad strokes, there have been engaging documentaries, well-crafted and…