Recently Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP was in Dublin to give the annual Patrick Finn Lecture at St Mary’s, Haddington Road. It was an opportunity which many took to hear one of the more influential Catholic theologians of today. It was judged by those who attended to have been a great success. Those who might wish…
Last weekend saw the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and it’s depressing to see that peace doesn’t seem to be anywhere close. On Witness (RTÉ Radio 1, Friday) Ksenia Trofymchuk from a Protestant theological college in Ukraine pointed out that Ukrainians were somewhat used to war since earlier Russian incursions in 2014.…
Two recent performances at the NCH gave me considerable satisfaction. The first, with the NSO conducted by Dubliner Killian Farrell, currently general music director of the state theatre in Meiningen, had Finghin Collins as the brilliant interpreter of Stanford’s 2nd Piano Concerto – a piece demanding verve and virtuosity supplied with breathtaking dash by Mr…
In the politics of recent times the German Chancellor stands out for her major efforts to sustain the unity of Europe. This may well be because her own life grew out of an experience of what happens when nations are divided. When, in the aftermath of World War II, Germany – an historical unity only…
Robert Nash, SJ (1902-89) was a popular and well-known spiritual writer, here in Ireland, a man with an international reputation in the decades before Vatican II. Apart from publishing numerous books, he spent his life conducting retreats for religious and leading parish missions. This, his last book, is an excellent summary of his Ignatian Spirituality…
They say (and rightly) that all history is at heart local history. In the past people in Ireland did not think first of ‘national identity’ at all. Asked where they were from they would begin with the townland on which they resided, where indeed they may have been born, followed by the barony and…
So, the referendum debates go on. The media coverage is increasing, though I’m not so sure it’s that enlightening. Today with Claire Byrne (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday) gave plenty of time to it and was well balanced, though it became overly fractious. Minister Thomas Byrne struggled to define ‘durable relationships’. He said it would be…
One would have thought that every possible literary item from the present pope’s early years would have been brought to our notice. But this seems not to be the case, for here is a book, brought to us from those days in Argentina which will arouse great interest. How it came to be written…
Bob Dylan’s career ran chronologically alongside that of another iconic singer with the same Christian name. Bob Marley is less well known to most people than Dylan but Bob Marley: One Love (12A), a biographical drama of the Jamaican singer-songwriter, may change that. The casting of Kingsley Ben-Adir in the title role received the blessing…
Pastoral care for Loneliness: A New Apostolate, by Matthew Fforde (Gracewing, £9.99) Sometimes a reviewer has to ask themselves, following the changing events of the days, whether some books deserve to be noticed again, to prevent them getting lost in the flood tide of new books which seem so often to carry away good books,…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone