Recently I came across in my files this letter which I received in February 1985 from my classmate and much-treasured friend, Fr Peter Lemass. Peter set out at the end of 1984 to join the Columban mission in Chile. Before his departure he promised his classmates to keep us informed on his experiences and the…
Earlier in the year, I mentioned 2023 being the sesquicentenary of the birth of Sergey Rakhmaninov in Semyonovo in Russia. While anniversary performances of his music take place in a number of venues, there will be a major celebration on Friday May 26 when the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus end their 2022/23 series of…
The Oldest Books in the World: Philosophy in the Age of the Pyramids, by Bill Manley (Thames and Hudson, £25.00/€29.00) How could any literate person resist the appeal of a title like this? Here for once they will find their expectations brilliantly fulfilled. This is indeed a most interesting book, but more than that it…
I often think that it should be possible for there to be authority without authoritarianism, dogma without dogmatism or pomp without pomposity. Nine News (RTÉ One, Saturday) referred to the “pomp and ceremony” at the coronation of Britain’s King Charles III. It wasn’t short of either of those, but was it pompous? I’ve seen worse…
When Elizabeth II passed away at Balmoral, her beloved Scottish home, in September last, my first thought on her son’s coming Coronation, was “What are they going to do about the Stone of Scone?” This was the ancient inauguration stone of the Scottish nation. Having been removed from the royal site at the Moot Hill…
Somebody once described art as “Life with the dull bits cut out”. But sometimes the dull bits can be just as artistic – or more so. That’s the case with Lakelands (15), a beautifully modulated evocation of rural life in Cavan, what Eamon Dunphy likes to refer to as ‘unofficial Ireland’. It’s a part of…
Recently, 25 years of relative peace were celebrated in Northern Ireland, but recent events also show that it’s fragile, and there are legacies that linger and threaten to disturb it. A minority won’t let go of a Troubles frame of mind, but I’d suspect most want to move on to a time when sectarianism fades…
Recovering Politics, Civilisation, and the Soul: Essays on Pierre Manent and Roger Scruton, by Daniel J. Mahoney (St Augustine’s Press, paperback US$20.00; ebook) Frank Litton The Good Friday Agreement whose 25th anniversary we celebrate, or at the very least, acknowledge the enormous sigh of relief it occasioned, is taken as an example of politics at…
Uproar! Satire, Scandal and Printmakers in Georgian London, by Alice Loxton (Icon Books, £25.00). Felix M. Larkin When Martyn Turner skewers today’s politicians in his cartoons for The Irish Times, he is following in a rich tradition of visual satire that stretches back into the late 18th Century. The early years of such satire in…
Roman Imbroglio: Italy and the Irish During World War Two, by Isadore Ryan (Published by the author, available through Amazon, €24.99 / £22.19; contact isadore.ryan@gmail.com) Dermot Keogh This is a most welcome, widely-researched and original book. It covers untilled historical ground, introducing readers to a ‘new’ cast of Irish men and women religious and diocesan…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone