Over the past number of years the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have focussed their Holy Week concert on religious themes. This event normally takes place on Good Friday afternoon not, in my view, the ideal time as it clashes with the sacred liturgy in many churches and there are those who would like to…
I’ve been catching up on a few TV drama series that have religious themes. The best of the lot is Kim’s Convenience (Netflix), a comedy about a Korean family running a convenience store in Toronto. The characters are believable and likeable, even the minor characters are very funny, particular the random customers, even if they…
One of the curious facts of 2,000 years of Christian history is the readiness with which Christians will dispute their traditions and the dates appropriate to them, especially in relation to the nature, date and place of Easter, the most important date in the whole Christian calendar that is celebrated this weekend. Historically, the…
Rev. Robert Marshall The opening paragraph of the editors’ introduction notes that “Ireland’s centuries old reputation as a land of saints and scholars (and sinners) is well established”. They continue that two decades into the 21st Century the island’s association with religious devotion is increasingly considered something of an historic artefact – a kind expression…
This I suspect is the sort of book that many families have been looking for, a compact, highly readable and adroitly written narrative of the Irish aboard. Author Bunbury makes vivid use of all the human parts of a 2,000-year-old history that academic historians resolutely leave out in favour of a more austere impersonal narrative.…
The devil – and angel – is in the detail. Great movies come from moments. Mother’s Instinct (15A) is threaded together like a labyrinthine tapestry of ominous vignettes where every slight movement or gesture becomes charged with an opaque threat. It’s a horror film that plays out like a symphony. Stanley Kubrick would have…
It is customary around this time of year for us to go all Celtic, with a focus on all things Irish, or even Oirish! I wouldn’t accuse the new series Ag Triall ar an Tobar (TG4, Thursday) of that latter charge. I felt it was an enjoyable exploration of Irish holy wells with the…
Every March since 1991 has been designated Irish-American Heritage Month in the United States. President Biden has continued the practice again this year, and a proclamation to this effect was signed by him on February 29th. America has not always been so sympathetic towards Irish immigrants and their descendants, as this book illustrates. Written…
This Sunday the whole world, it seems, will for a few hours become Irish, or at least recover enough of their nominal ‘Irishness’ to join in the fun. President Biden, in the name of the American people, will accept yet again a giant bowl of flourishing shamrock, and avow his Irish roots. Streets around the…
Frank Litton We learn two things from history. Assumptions quite different from those that frame our world shaped the actions of our predecessors. The second follows from this. World views do change. They are human constructions that endure for long periods. We might think of them as buildings, but if we do, they are buildings…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone