The author, Simon Smith, is a filmmaker who has recorded stories from around the world, and that background is seen in the writing as he fills in little details and concentrates on the lives, likes and troubles of the main characters. Continue reading
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Remembering Hugh O’Flaherty
With honours from the US, Britain and Israel, he is almost forgotten in Ireland, sixty years after he died. Continue reading
The Windsor framework: oven-ready fudge
The Windsor Framework replaces the Boris Johnson Protocol. What does it involve? Continue reading
Three New Irish Women Writers
One from Sligo, one from Galway, one from Dublin, three modern Irish women writers Continue reading
A United Ireland
A Political Feature by Gerry O’Shea The census figures for Northern Ireland released last September show Catholics, broadly understood, at 45.7%, and Protestants or people brought up in the Reformation culture at 43.5%. Ten years earlier, the figures were 48.45% Protestant and 45.1% Catholic. The statelet that was officially designed in 1920 to have a permanent … Continue reading
Novel of the Year 2022
TRESPASSES. By Louise Kennedy. Bloomsbury. 311 pp. €19.99 Review by Frank O’Shea This is the book that won the 2022 Irish Book of the Year and it is easy to imagine how the judges came to that decision. It is different in a number of ways, not least the modern style of omitting quotation marks … Continue reading
RECAPTURING THE IRISH SPIRIT AT EUREKA
‘ … the aftermath of the Eureka Stockade brought this nation a major step closer to a democratic system …’ Continue reading
The McCarthy who kept the Normans out of Munster
Kevin McCarthy has made his surname known in America. Here is one of his ancestors. Continue reading
The Story of Early Melbourne
The story of one of Melbourne’s early pioneers. Continue reading
Maggie O’Farrell’s Latest
‘I call that piece a wonder now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.’ Continue reading