As the saying goes, tempus fugit and with the arrival of September a new season has begun for a number of musical institutions not least the National Concert Hall, National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra and Music for Galway among a plethora of others. The NSO’s 2023/24 events got under way on September 9 with…
Sacred Space: The Prayerbook (Messenger Publications, €14.95/£12.95) A sure sign that the year is beginning to draw to an end is the early appearance of Sacred Space: The Prayerbook, the manual derived from the astonishing, globally popular online prayer site. This book has been appearing for many years and is always a sure-fire option for many as…
It’s the time of year for new programmes and the return of old shows. The most high-profile return was The Late Late Show (RTÉ One, Fridays). The pre-publicity was mighty, but some just said ‘meh’ and were bored. I’d say a huge audience tuned in just to see how the new host, Patrick Kielty, would…
Gabriel Fitzmaurice Choice/Rogha: A selection of poems by Desmond Egan, translated into Irish by Michael Hartnett (Goldsmith Press, €20.00/ £17.50) Desmond Egan is one of our greatest poets, certainly our greatest Catholic poet which, among other things, means that he contains multitudes. Michael Hartnett, a poet of equal stature, is a gifted translator from the…
Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are close friends in South Korea during their youth in Celine Song’s heartbreaking film Past Lives (PG). Their paths divide when, at the age of twelve, Nora’s parents move to New York. Twelve years later, Hae locates Nora, managing to connect with her through Skype. He learns…
Thomas O’Loughlin While the image of ‘the pilgrim People of God’ has been central to formal understanding of the church since Vatican II – an event now more than two generations ago – its impact on the pew-level ecclesiology has been marginal. It was intended to be a biblically rich vision to replace the political…
In the broad Church that is Catholicism, there are so many strands of interest, even within the ambit of orthodoxy – some are big into ecology, some into life issues, some into social justice. When it comes to prayer and ritual there is also so much variety, so it ill behoves one tribe to snipe…
Frank Litton Note by the Books Editor: The publication of a cheaper paperback, mass market edition of this highly praised title prompts us to reprint what our regular reviewer wrote when it was first published a few years ago, as the book will be found immensely readable and enlightening by ordinary readers, by students,…
The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak (Thames and Hudson, £20.00/ €23.50) The strange world of Slavic myths is usually beyond the imaginative reach of those of us brought up in Western Europe. However, many years ago now, when I was at college in the USA, I had a regular place I sat…
Last month I ventured again to the Salzburg festival. It may seem odd that I didn’t hear a note of Mozart in his home city but my package of four operas and an orchestral concert by the visiting Berlin Philharmonic excluded him. The operas in my portfolio were Verdi’s Macbeth and Falstaff, Berlioz’ The Trojans,…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone