Age is Just a Number: Make the Best of Every Decade, by Francis Brennan (Gill Books, €19.99 / £17.99) Francis Brennan is not a young man, and yet he has conquered our attention on television and become a bestselling author. One can’t help wondering if he has some secret which might be of interest…
All My Wild Mothers: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden, by Victoria Bennett (Two Roads / Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99 / €19.99) Mens sana in corpo sans (a healthy mind in a healthy body) is an old saying, but its truth is borne out by this very evocative book. Most books…
With very little publicity, significant in itself, the ‘Safe Access Zones’ Bill passed in the Dáil last week. The only coverage I came across was on Newstalk Breakfast (Wednesday). It was unfortunately a short item, though the coverage was welcome and I thought presenter Shane Coleman (pictured right) was even-handed – increasingly Newstalk is the…
My Campaign in Ireland Part II: My Connection with the Catholic University, by John Henry Newman, with an introduction and notes by Paul Shrimpton [Newman Millennium Edition, volume XVII] (Gracewing, £35.00 / €40.00) For Catholics it may be enough that John Henry Newman is now canonised. But this in a way is a limitation on…
Ronnie O’Sullivan is generally regarded as the greatest snooker player of all time. In the just-released documentary about his life, Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Reason (Amazon Prime) we’re brought into the complexities of his life and game. At times he appears so good he’s on a different planet to his colleagues. He can do…
Dr Thomas O’Loughlin Anyone who sees a loaf of bread and slices it knows that there is something very basic about this foodstuff and this action of dividing it. Bread, so the saying goes, is “the staff of life”. But bread comes to us as loaves, and when we cut them up there is an…
An exhibition at both the RDS and the RIA Though many people may be unfamiliar with the libraries of the Royal Dublin Society or of the Royal Irish Academy, both founded in the mid-18th Century, these hallowed institutions are currently mounting in succession a small but very interesting exhibition relating to the Dublin Great Industrial…
A Love Surpassing Knowledge: The Spirituality of Edward King, by Michael Marshall, with a foreword by Archbishop Stephen Cottrell (Gracewing, £14.99) Gracewing for over 30 years has been providing books that explore aspects of Catholicism. But now they are broad minded enough editorially to find Catholicism outside the Catholic Church. Victorian Britain was the era…
In the last few weeks, I’ve been welcoming new religious programmes on RTÉ – this week I’m lamenting the departure of one of them. Life and Soul (RTÉ One, Sunday) had a very short run but it ended well with a particularly uplifting episode. ‘Unbroken’ told the inspiring story of Tiglin. Fiachna Ó Braonáin (of…
Despite having already written about the Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year competition I am not making any excuses for continuing to spotlight young artists. This time I am drawing attention to the 2023 Top Security ‘Frank Maher Classical Music Awards’ held recently in the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin’s Kildare Street. The…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone