Maybe we’ll look back on 2022 as the year of women in films. A documentary on Mother Teresa was recently released, as was one about Lyra McKee, the investigative journalist who was murdered by dissident republicans on Holy Thursday in 2019. Also a documentary on the poet and novelist Doireann Ní Ghriofa and the film…
I’m conflicted about the Kerry priest controversy. Certainly much of the media coverage was ill-informed and unnecessarily confrontational. The basics of what Fr Seán Sheehy said at those Masses in Listowell was orthodox Catholic teaching, which is by far the main thing, but the message could have been delivered in a more appealing, compassionate, sensitive…
by Christopher Moriarty Nature praising God: Towards a theology of the natural world by Dermot A. Lane (Messenger Publications, €14.95/£12.99) The word ‘nature’ in the title of this remarkable book refers to the universe with one important exception. The exception is humanity and the two are generally posed as being in opposition to each other.…
Leinster House: A House with Three Lives An exhibition at the Architectural Archive 45 Merrion Square Until November 25; admission free, 9am-5pm. In recent months anyone going down Kildare Street in central Dublin and passing the noble facade of Leinster House, one of the city’s finest public buildings, will have been able to read the…
Northern Ireland 1921–2021: Centenary Historical Perspectives Edited by Caoimhe Nic Dháibhead, Marie Coleman and Paul Bew (Ulster Historical Foundation, €19.99/£16.95) Ireland was never rigorously partitioned like Germany, Cyprus or Korea. Churches, sporting and cultural organisations continued to operate island-wide. Since the peace process and the Single European Market, any hard physical border is gone. Ireland’s…
Where the Light Fell: A Memoir by Philip Yancey (Hodder and Stoughton, £12.50/£10.99) Considering how influential they are, the forms of faith in the United States are very important, even when not to the taste of Europeans. The tropes of the Episcopalians, the bare style of the Congregationalists, these would be familiar, with echoes of…
The Song of Brigid’s Cloak by Catherine Ann Cullen Illustrated by Katya Swan (Beehive, €14.99/£14.99) There has been great interest in St Brigid of late among historians and writers. Some of these have been in their way controversial; but there is nothing controversial about this little book. It is altogether delightful. Award-winning children’s poet Catherine…
With Wexford Festival Opera drawing to its close – the final performance of Dvorák’s Armida takes place next Sunday November 6 at the town’s Theatre Royal – the spotlight moves to Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre and Irish National Opera’s co-production with the Swiss Nouval Opéra Fribourg of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, which runs between November 8 and…
As many programmes were gearing up for the Halloween horrors, it was great to watch a relaxing programme that celebrated the joys of autumn and the beauty of creation in general. It was the last episode of the current series of Gardeners’ World (BBC Two, Friday) and I was a good one. Regular presenter Carol…
Ireland’s Hidden Medicine: An exploration of Irish indigenous medicine from legend and myth to the present day by Rosarie Kingston (Aeon Books, €19.99/£16.99) This book will be compelling reading for those interested in folk medicine, also known as indigenous or traditional medicine. Such ideas are an important part of our heritage, for some of these ideas…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello