RTÉ Radio 1, 5 November 2017 By John Gibney The three funerals that are the subject of this compelling instalment of RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary On One series arose from two very different burials and left behind three very different graves.What they have in common is that theyall relate to the same person. Frank Stagg … Read more
Central Bank Visitor Centre, North Wall Quay, Dublin 1 www.centralbank.ie, visitorcentre@centralbank.ie By Tony Canavan The new building that is now home to the Central Bank of Ireland is an impressive structure, apparently covered in gold leaf, overlooking the River Liffey. Unlike the old building in Dame Street, this one has a more friendly aspect and … Read more
By Joe Culley Breandán Mac Suibhne, Subjects lacking words? The gray zone of the Great Famine (Cork University Press, €11.95 pb, 48pp, ISBN 9780997837476). Niamh Ann Kelly, Ultimate witnesses: the visual culture of death, burial and mourning in Famine Ireland (Cork University Press, €11.95 pb, 48pp, ISBN 9780997837469). Richard Kearney and Sheila Gallagher, Twinsome minds: … Read more
MARGARET WARD (ed.) UCD Press €35/£30 ISBN 9781910820148 Reviewed by Patrick Maum This valuable book is a picture of an activist in her own words. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington was essentially a rationalist (she loved books and disliked music), a believer in the ability of reason to bring about social improvement, whose personality had been shaped … Read more
TREVOR WHITE Penguin Ireland €17.99 ISBN 9781844884247 Reviewed by Frank MacGabhann Frank MacGabhann is a lawyer and commentator working in Dublin and Barcelona. In 1911 Alfred Byrne (otherwise known to Dubliners as ‘Alfie’), a diminutive publican and former bicycle mechanic with little education, was elected to Dublin Corporation (not Dublin City Council, as the author … Read more