Miniature Masterpieces: Cultural identity, artistic expression and a century of Irish stamps, by Stephen Ferguson (National Print Museum, €12.00; also available from the GPO Archives & Museum) The first Irish stamps of the Free State were standard British stamps, adorned with King George’s head, over-printed for Irish use temporarily in the new domain. But soon…
Michael Healy 1873-1941: A Túr Gloine’s Stained Glass Pioneer, by David Caron (Four Courts Press, €55.00 / £50.00) Back in October 1906, Robert Elliot in his pioneering book Art and Ireland lamented that so many churches in Ireland seemed to prefer to fill the windows of their churches with stained glass imported ready made from…
A Nation is Born: Ireland in Colour 1923-1938, edited by Michael B. Barry and John O’Byrne (Gill books, €26.99 / £25.99) The title of this book is a complete misnomer. But then that is the sort of thing that happens when a complex subject is popularised for Christmastime consumption. Ireland in 1923 did not see…
The current year celebrates a number of musical centenaries not least those of the deaths of France’s Gabriel Fauré and Dublin-born Charles Villiers Stanford who became a particularly potent figure in the musical life of the UK where he was professor of music at Cambridge from 1887 until his death. Now maybe best remembered for…
You know the way you sometimes get the impression that someone is trying to give you a hint, but you’re not quite sure. I felt that way when I saw two programmes flagged – about the last priests and nuns in Ireland – was this a nudge? Wishful thinking? An attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy? The…
Kerry from Maps and Charts, by Noel Kissane (Killiney Press, €30.00 / £24.00) Maps are nearly as old as mankind itself. They are treasured by historians, as they can provide important information in a variety of ways. The author of this book was a librarian at the National Library, a well informed and helpful scholar…
Every year it has been customary on these books pages to recall aspects of the accounts of the Nativity given in two of the Gospels. Each year, surprisingly enough, there always seems something new to say. This is as true this year as in all those earlier years; all 2,000 or so of them going…
Dirty Linen: The Troubles in my Home Place, Martin Doyle (Merrion Press, £24.99). Martin Doyle tells us in the introduction to this book that the Linen Triangle “stretched from Lisburn across the southern shore of Lough Neagh to Dungannon in Co. Tyrone and south to Newry, the heartland of a trade that was both agricultural…
In writing my selection of a ‘Book of the Year’ before Christmastide descended on us all, I ended up writing about what was for me was a special book of importance, but was not the one I first intended to celebrate. But because of that change of plan, always inherent in writing for a weekly…
It’s 1988 and we’re coming up to Christmas. Elderly Jew Sir Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins) is decluttering his study to please his wife Grete (Lena Olin). In the process he discovers a scrapbook from World War II. Flash back half a century. Nazism is about to sweep across Europe. The young Nicky (Johnny Flynn) is…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone