I’d suspect most people’s experience of TV dramas, especially on the streaming services, includes a long list of disappointments – especially series that were started but then abandoned after one or two episodes. These thoughts were prompted by my lack of enthusiasm for the new Star Wars series Andor (Disney+). This is a prequel to…
If These Stones Could Talk: the History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland Through Twenty-One Buildings by Peter Stanford Hodder and Stoughton, €12.99/£10.99 Published two years ago in hardback, this book aimed at a popular readership now appears as a paperback and so becomes accessible to many who might have missed it. It runs from…
Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape Manchán Magan (Gill Books, €19.99) To the country folk of Ireland even smallest piece of land is important, and today as in the past can give rise to bitter conflict. Witness J. B. Keane’s classic play The Field. This attitude often carries into the city.…
The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse Chosen and introduced by Edward Short , with a foreword by Dana Gioia (Gracewing, £20.00 / €23.50) Edward Short is a writer and teacher who lives in New York City, and is already well known for his books relating to St John Henry Newman. This book sees itself…
A Gift of Joy and Hope by Pope Francis. Translated from the original Italian by Oonagh Stransky (Hodder & Stoughton, €17.99/£16.99) This title will be released on 29 September. This book by Pope Francis, his third official book, may seem to follow very quickly on the Pope’s recent pamphlet about the meaning of Christmas and the…
This month means new ‘seasons’ opening up not least the National Symphony Orchestra’s at the National Concert Hall, which began on September 9 with the orchestra in splendid form in music by Berg and Mahler. Dating from 1935, Berg’s Violin Concerto was written “in memory of an angel” – Manon Gropius, the recently deceased 19-year-old…
Sometimes you hear online about what seems to be a big story, but can’t find much if any coverage in the mainstream media. Sometimes they catch up, sometimes it never surfaces. I find the story of the oppression of the Church and other opposing voices in Nicaragua to be largely under the radar. So, it…
This now essential event is marked tomorrow with events of all kinds all over the cities, towns and counties of Ireland. For all the data about culture night, go to info@culturenight.ie. Wherever you live, whatever you care for, there will things for you in the programme. In my immediate location I am taken by the…
Estella Solomons: Still Moments, Room 31, NGI, continues to January 2023. Appreciation by Peter Costello This free exhibition, curated by Niamh MacNally, is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. This new show at the National Gallery of Ireland is a small, of select…
The Chief: the Life of Lord Northcliffe by Andrew Roberts (Simon & Schuster, £25/€29.00) In Ulysses, James Joyce refers to “Harmsworth of the farthing press”. He thereby denigrates the great achievement of Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, in creating the first mass circulation newspaper in these islands – the Daily Mail, launched in London in 1896. It was…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello