CATHOLICISM: A GLOBAL HISTORY FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO POPE FRANCIS

JOHN T. McGREEVY W.W. Norton & Company ISBN 9781324003885 €35 Reviewed by Gerard O’Sullivan Gerard O’Sullivan is a surveyor and a non-practising barrister.  As an Irish Catholic, I grew up in an era steeped in traditional religious ritual where clerical authority was unquestioned, and witnessed in my teens the effect on Irish life of the ‘reformation’ … Read more

THE IRISH DEFENCE FORCES 1922–2022: SERVANT OF THE NATION

EOIN KINSELLA Four Courts Press in association with the Irish Defence Forces ISBN 9781801510363 €30 Reviewed by Thomas O’Loughlin Thomas O’Loughlin is Emeritus Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. ‘The history of the Defence Forces can be characterised as an ongoing search for a defined shape and mission’ (p. 249). So, in … Read more

BOOKWORM

Joe Culley @TheRealCulls Like most of us, I suspect, you think of the Irish Sea as ‘ours’. After all, it’s named for us. We happily, unconsciously, ignore the fact that Wales (never mind England) has a coastline nearly as long as ours dipping beneath it and that the Welsh might indulge some proprietary claim to … Read more