Comments on the margin By the book’s editor Changes are coming to Saudi Arabia, some of which may have interesting outcomes for all those interested in the past, present and possibly future of Christianity in the region. As is well known, the central desert of Arabia, where the capital Riyadh is located, is only part…
June brings its quota of music festivals. Among these Dublin International Chamber Music brought a number of home and visiting artists to its various locations while the current Pipeworks Organ and Choral Festival opened at the National Concert Hall last Tuesday and continues at selected venues until Sunday next June 25 at St Michael’s Church…
Spectral Mansions: The Making of a Dublin Tenement, 1800-1914, by Timothy Murtagh (Four Courts Press for Dublin City Council with aid from the Heritage Council, €30.00/ £26.00) To those familiar only with the ever-rebuilding Dublin of today, there is in this book a strangely prophetic cartoon from a Dublin comic paper of July 1914, captioned…
Kerry Memories, by Bertha Beatty, edited by Pádraig de Brún (North Kerry Literary Trust, Listowel, €15.00; copies from the Kerry Writers Museum, 24 The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry, V31 RD93; Tel: 068 22212; kerrywritersmuseum@gmail.com.) Local memories are always a delight to read. They are of human interest, of course, but also always a revelation of…
The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State, by Anna M. Grzymała-Busse (Princeton University Press, €98.00/ £84.00; also in paperback) They read the roots of the European state in a positive way, and as an endorsement, so to speak, of Augustinian City of God. But that is not quite what the author had in…
Iver (Liam Carney) has motor neurone disease. He wants to die. Maria (Maureen Beattie) is the carer entrusted with the task of ending his life. As she’s about to do so, a visitor arrives. Leon (Barry Ward) has had a heroin problem in the past. Now recovered, he’s trying to get a music career going.…
This week I’m reflecting on themes of reason, artificial intelligence (AI) and journalism – all related for sure. Sunday Morning Live (BBC One, Sunday) is back for its 14th series, and the main discussion for the first episode was the power and intrusiveness of the press, issues highlighted by Prince Harry’s ongoing civil action against…
The significance of the date, for those not perhaps as steeped in national lore as others, is that it marks the birth of Arthur Griffith in 1871. He died, as many more will remember, on August 12, 1922, of sudden heart failure; to be closely followed 10 days later by the death in action of…
The Pope at War – The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini and Hitler by David I. Kertzer (Oxford University Press, €29.00/£25.99) Dermot Keogh The decision in 2019 of Pope Francis to open the Vatican archives for World War II and beyond, becoming operational on March 2, 2020, is a significant milestone on the long…
Index, A History of the – A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age, by Denis Duncan (Allen Lane/ Penguin Books, €15.50/ £10.99) Dennis Duncan, who lectures in English at the University College London, is a man of many parts and a writer of diverse, bookish interests. His most entertaining book, which deals as…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan