A poet navigates the troubled waters of life
Uncertain Passage, by Paddy Bushe (Dedalus Press, €12.50pb / €20 hb) Paddy Bushe’s latest book, Uncertain Passage, is a triumph. His poems, like the blackbird in his eponymous haiku, are “So ordinary / Yet still incomparably / The sweetest of all.” Like the goldfinch of another haiku, his wise words illuminate us. A poet […]
Couriers of the faith in modern Britain
Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, why so many became Catholic in the 20th Century, by Melanie McDonagh (Yale University Press, £25.00 / €28.99) Melanie McDonagh is an Arklow woman, educated at Cambridge after school in Ireland, who has had a stellar career in London journalism. Among other accomplishments as a columnist, she has carved […]
Irish lawyers and their clients as seen by the Academy
Confluences of Law and History. Irish Legal History Society Discourses and Other Papers, 2011-21, ed. by Niamh Howlin & Felix M. Larkin (Four Courts Press, €55.00 / £50.00) Usually, edited collections of historical essays are thematic and derive from papers presented at a conference. However, the papers presented in this edited collection received their original […]