Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Hodder & Stoughton, €23.99/£25.00) Dr Lucy Worsley has become very much a fixture on our small screens, with a distinct penchant for dressing up in period costumes, which to some leaves an impression of history as mere fancy dress with a modern accent, rather than the…
Neil Jordan: Works for the Page, by Val Nolan Jr. (Cork University Press, €39.00 / £35.00) Neil Jordan’s career as an artist has been a curious one. He started, as so many writers do, by publishing a slim book with a short-lived and long vanished Irish publisher. But then a period of time working for…
When the inimitable Sam Goldwyn was asked once what was wrong with the American film industry he famously replied, “We need some new cliches”. Writer/director Martin McDonagh, in his ambition to be the Irish Quentin Tarantino, has spent the last number of years providing us with his version of these. He’s unpicked stage-Irishry with some…
The media’s obsession with the ‘far right’ tends to give the far left a free pass, which just might be the whole purpose. I’m three episodes into The Walk-In (UTV, Mondays), a gripping true-life drama about efforts to expose the far right group National Action in the UK. Stephen Graham plays campaigning journalist Matthew Collins,…
Turner: The Sun is God, Exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, mounted in association with the Tate Gallery London; runs to 6 February 2023; Beit Wing, Rooms 6-10; tickets €5 (entry free on Wednesdays, 9.15-11.30 am) Curated by Niamh MacNally and David Blayney Brown Many years ago the English painter John Piper remarked that…
Ireland’s Call: Navigating Brexit, by Stephen Collins (Red Stripe Press / Orpen Press, €19.99 / £19.99) This new book by the Irish Times political columnist is a splendid account of how Brexit was hatched and has become a matter of grave contention. One of the main sources for Stephen Collins’ book is the diary of…
Lydia: A Story by Paula Gooder (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99 / €19.99) A couple of weeks ago, over a Saturday lunch, we were discussing with a friend in her large rural garden, the question of those recent novels which mix history and fiction. The case in point was Colm Tobin’s book on Thomas Mann. I…
For opera aficionados at home and abroad October means only one thing – Wexford Festival. The brainchild of local general practitioner and music lover Dr Tom Walsh (1911-1988), and on the go since 1951, the now expanded event brings three neglected operas to the town’s Theatre Royal under artistic director Rosetta Cucchio. With its policy…
It’s awful when it happens but last week’s news and current affairs programming was dominated by funerals. For the media it was a week of fallout from the Creeslough explosions, for the families it will be a lifetime. Local priest Fr John Joe Duffy has had “a week like no other”, as Mary Wilson described…
The tenure of Dr Sean Rainbird at the National Gallery ended in September. During his reign he was active in bringing to the Merrion Square Gallery a series of European derived exhibitions which were of immense interest, lively Continental experiences for visitors to enjoy. The Board of the Gallery announced back in August that the…
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan