Studies An Irish Quarterly Review最新文献

{"title":"Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern ed. by Samuel K. Fisher and Brian Ó Conchubhair (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911720","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern ed. by Samuel K. Fisher and Brian Ó Conchubhair Peadar Kirby (bio) Samuel K. Fisher and Brian Ó Conchubhair (eds.), Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern (Winston-Salem NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2022), 963 pages. The title of this formidable tome comes from Seathrún Céitinn's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn in which he writes 'do bhrígh gurab i nduantaibh atá cnáimh agus smior an tseanchusa, measaim gurab oircheas dam cinneadh mar úghdardhás air' ('forasmuch as the bone and marrow of history are to be found in poems, I think it altogether fitting that I take them as my authority'). This sets a very distinctive and indeed unusual objective for this anthology: on the one hand, the editors assemble a collection of 183 poems from some 1,400 years of writing in Irish to illustrate 'the unconquerable vitality with which poets in Irish have responded to the world as they found it, confident enough to borrow from outside their own tradition and confident enough to remain within it even as they changed it'; on the other, however, they are also offering these poems as a privileged source for a view of the troubled history of our island from the inside as it was lived, reflected on and expressed by the Irish themselves. In their introduction to the second section on the bardic period (1200–1650), Peter McQuillan and Rory Rapple quote historian Brendan Bradshaw's view that bardic poetry is 'the only substantial body of contemporary documentary evidence available from inside Gaelic society'. The same could be said for most of the period from then until the early twentieth century, which emphasises just how uniquely valuable are these poems as historical sources. This takes on immense importance as so few of our historians speak Irish fluently enough to immerse themselves in the bone and marrow of the native culture and remain limited to English languages sources that are inevitably extremely limited as to the life experience accessible through them. As with so many anthologies that span distinct historical periods, this anthology is divided into sections that correspond to the main phases of the Irish historical trajectory, each written by experts in the period. Altogether there are fourteen chapters grouped into four sections. The section titles illustrate the book's range (with distinct differences in each of the two languages): Tús an Traidisiúin/The Origins, Filíocht na Scol/Classical Poetry, Ré Nua: Polaitíocht agus Guth an Phobail/A New Order: Politics and Popularization, and Sprid na Saoirse agus Saoirse na Spride/In the Age of the Local and the Global. The periodisation chosen is also interesting as the editors argue that [End Page 407] 'neat chronological boundaries create a false impression of change over time in Irish poetry, as if once a target date was hit the entire tradition transformed wholesale'. T","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts: 200 Years of Social and Artistic Change","authors":"John Turpin","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911710","url":null,"abstract":"The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts:200 Years of Social and Artistic Change John Turpin (bio) For two hundred years visitors to the annual exhibitions of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in Dublin have been attracted by the range of work on view: landscapes, seascapes, scenes of rural and urban life, portraits, still life, abstracts and subject paintings, together with various pieces in three dimensions. However, the RHA and its exhibitions were not aesthetic manifestations in isolation but were located within the complex historical fabric of Irish society. The exhibitions formed a bridge between the artists and their audience. Changes in Irish society and changes in art internationally impacted the RHA. In the twentieth century, as these factors changed significantly, art academies like the RHA acquired a reputation for conservatism and opposition to modernism, which damaged their standing and led to intellectual marginalisation. The bicentenary of the RHA offers an opportunity to review its history and set the Academy in the context of social, economic, political, and artistic change in Ireland. The role of art academies Art academies since the Renaissance were seen as modern and innovative in establishing painting and sculpture as among the liberal arts, akin to poetry, and not simply as manual artisan disciplines subject to guild restrictions. Princely rulers sponsored the establishment of academies of art to teach young artists and as manifestations of royal prestige and an enlightened vision of culture. Furthermore, the Enlightenment ideal of free trade in art in a wider market liberated artists from the restrictions of working for commissions alone. This led to the establishment in the eighteenth century of highly successful regular public art exhibitions with work for sale, as in the Paris Salon and the summer exhibitions of the Royal Academy in London, founded in 1768. Such exhibitions depended on a vibrant capitalist society with wealthy aristocratic and upper middle class collectors. The fusion in the Royal Academy in London of a representative body for professional artists and a shop window for sales and marketing reflected the commercial ideology [End Page 311] of Georgian England. It was the same model for the foundation of the RHA in 1823, despite the very different and less favourable social, economic and political conditions in Ireland. Regular public art exhibitions in Dublin with work for sale were established by the Society of Artists in Ireland in 1764. The Society of Artists was a private organisation that lasted for twenty years. It exhibited in the octagonal gallery it had constructed in South William Street, Dublin, which still exists – now the home of the Irish Georgian Society. These exhibitions ended when the artists lost control of the building as they were unable to complete payments for its construction. This indicated that Ireland was not comparable to London, as it lacked sufficient patronage from a widely based ","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Confronting the Past for the Sake of the Future","authors":"Séamus Murphy","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911715","url":null,"abstract":"Confronting the Past for the Sake of the Future1 Séamus Murphy SJ (bio) The 1998 Good Friday or Belfast Agreement outlined structures of power-sharing in Northern Ireland and supporting roles for the British and Irish governments. It also contained something new in Irish history, namely, a commitment by unionist and nationalist representatives to the following principles: • recognition of the 'legacy of suffering' arising from intercommunal political violence; • dedication to the 'achievement of reconciliation and mutual trust'; • commitment to 'partnership, equality and mutual respect as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, between North and South, and between these islands'; • 'absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means' of addressing political differences; • acknowledgement of 'the substantial differences between our continuing and equally legitimate political aspirations'; • recognition of the right of 'people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish, or British, or both, as they may so choose.'2 The signatories knew that the Agreement was not a conclusion but a beginning, since it meant working towards major cultural change. Can this change be grafted onto our respective identities? Can we change the pattern of history? The uses of history Hannah Arendt, the Jewish political thinker who survived the Nazis and wrote on totalitarianism, held that certain parts of history needed not just to be understood but also to be confronted.3 Nietzsche said people need history for three purposes:4 (1) to preserve knowledge of the past (the historian's role); (2) to provide inspiring heroes [End Page 362] and founders, meaning and identity (the leader's role); and (3) to confront history's dark side (wars and oppression), resisting fatalism5 about seemingly eternal ethnic conflicts, and giving voice to history's silenced and erased victims (the critic's role). Without falsifying it (1), the historical narrative should be reconstructed and re-membered so as to be life-giving for the needs of the age (2, 3). In 2007 then-President McAleese expressed a hope for a changed attitude to our history: 'Where previously our history has been characterised by a plundering of the past for things to separate and differentiate us from one another, our future now holds the optimistic possibility that Ireland will become a better place where we will … revisit the past and find there elements of kinship long neglected, of connections deliberately overlooked.'6 While academic history deals with the past, memory concerns the present. We – not just historians – choose our historical heroes, choose the historical victims to redeem from erasure, and choose whether our choices will be exclusive and bitter or inclusive and forgiving. The 1998 principles' inclusivity challenges us to confront our history and convert our memories. The Decade of Centenaries The recent 'Decade of Centenaries' commemorations marked the eve","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Maria Edgeworth: Distinguishing the Irish Anglican Ascendancy from the English","authors":"David Clare","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911712","url":null,"abstract":"Maria Edgeworth:Distinguishing the Irish Anglican Ascendancy from the English David Clare (bio) In his 1922 novel Ulysses, James Joyce included a fictionalised depiction of the time he spent living in a Martello Tower in Sandycove, County Dublin, but he turned his real-life roommate –Samuel Chenevix Trench, a member of the Irish Anglican Ascendancy – into the Stage English character Haines. In 1983, when UTV, RTÉ, and Channel Four co-operated in creating the Irish R.M. television series, based on short stories by Edith Somerville and Martin Ross, they elected to cast the English actor Peter Bowles as Major Yeates and to change the Major from an upper middle class Irish Anglican to an Englishman. (In the original stories, Yeates's Irish 'blood' and nationality are referenced repeatedly.)1 Likewise, in Irish theatre and film, there is a long history of getting English actors to play Irish Anglican parts, without getting them to adopt even a hint of Irishness in their embodying of the parts (e.g., adopting the 'Protestant accent', also known as the 'Trinity accent', long common among middle- and upper-class people from Church of Ireland backgrounds). Prominent examples include the performances by Dame Maggie Smith as Lady Naylor and Keeley Hawes as Lois Farquar in the 1999 film version of Elizabeth Bowen's 1929 novel The Last September and by Tom Courtenay as Christopher Gore in the Gate Theatre's 2005 premiere production of Brian Friel's The Home Place.2 On a related note, James S. Donnelly, Jr has noted the longstanding and lingering tendency among Irish nationalists of referring to the colonial landowners – even Irish-born ones – as 'English landlords'.3 And, over recent decades, populist historians, prominent commentators in the media, and even published academics have also routinely referred to Ireland as having been owned by 'English landlords' during the colonial era (that is, prior to the redistribution of land that accompanied the various Land Acts passed by the British parliament between 1870 and 1909).4 All of this suggests the widespread belief that an English person and a member of the Irish Anglican Ascendancy are essentially the same thing. This, however, flies in the face of the efforts of [End Page 333] talented women writers from the Ascendancy, who for centuries laboured to distinguish Irish Anglicans from the English in their fiction. This tradition goes back to Maria Edgeworth, who in all five of her Irish novels emphasises that members of the Ascendancy are much closer in character to Irish Gaelic Catholics than they are to the English. Castle Rackrent: The Irishness of the Irish Anglican Ascendancy In Edgeworth's first novel, Castle Rackrent, from 1800, the Irish Anglican landlords suffer from all the vices and virtues normally ascribed to the Irish Catholic tenantry in English literature. Sir Patrick is plagued by drink, Sir Murtagh by a love of lawsuits,5 Sir Kit by gambling, and Sir Condy by a love of politics. All four of ","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Seamus Heaney and Education: Student and Teacher","authors":"Bríd McGuinness","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911713","url":null,"abstract":"Seamus Heaney and Education:Student and Teacher Bríd McGuinness (bio) While a visiting professor at Harvard University, Seamus Heaney was commissioned by Phi Beta Kappa Society to write a poem for their 1984 Literary Exercises, a yearly commencement event held in celebration of learning. In 'Alphabets', the resulting poem, Heaney decided to write about 'making the first letters at primary school'.1 The poem indeed starts with a young Seamus learning shapes and symbols, before moving on to unfamiliar surroundings at St Columb's College, Derry. In its third and final section, Heaney has come full circle, lecturing on academia's most prestigious stages. Heaney was constantly aware of dualities throughout his life, and this concern can be seen in each section of 'Alphabets'. Mindful that his education breaks new ground for the family, Heaney knows he cannot simply follow in his father's farming footsteps but must find a middle ground to dig, a social bilingualism. 'Terminus' which appears in his 1987 collection The Haw Lantern alongside 'Alphabets', outlined competing forces at play: Two buckets were easier carried than one.I grew up in between. My left hand placed the standard iron weight.My right tilted a last grain in the balance.2 As Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, Heaney would once again address the concept of balance in his celebrated lecture series entitled 'The Redress of Poetry'. It is in his childhood home in County Derry, however, where we will first examine his relationship with education. Early education A shadow his father makes with joined handsAnd thumbs and fingers nibbles on the wallLike a rabbit's head. He understands [End Page 345] He will understand more when he goes to school.3 Seamus Heaney was born and raised at Mossbawn, the family farm, near Castledawson in April 1939. The first of nine children born to Patrick and Margaret Heaney, he remembered his childhood home fondly, recalling the 'one-storey, longish, lowish, thatched and whitewashed' three-roomed cottage in which he spent his early life. Books were present but held an air of detachment: the world of print was like the world of proper and official behaviour among strangers … it was like having to talk to the doctor or the priest.'4 Like with all children, his first forays into communication came from engagement with others, and in 'Alphabets' he writes of his father making shadow puppets on a wall. Later, he would sit close to the family wireless so as to hear bursts of foreign languages. He told the Swedish Academy that by encountering 'the gutturals and sibilants of European speech, I had already begun a journey into the wideness of the world'.5 Heaney chooses to introduce an awkwardness into this first verse of 'Alphabets' by writing, 'He understands/He will understand more when he goes to school.'6 His father can only teach so much; greater gains will happen outside of the family home. Anahorish Primary School gave Heaney his first experience of formal ed","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cardinal Owen McCann, Angola and Mozambique: Greater Ireland Meets Greater Portugal","authors":"Alexandra Maclennan","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911717","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911717","url":null,"abstract":"Cardinal Owen McCann, Angola and Mozambique:Greater Ireland Meets Greater Portugal Alexandra Maclennan (bio) The first Mass in Southern Africa was celebrated by the Portuguese at Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth, shortly after they arrived with Bartholomeu Dias in 1487. That there was a Catholic faith for the Dutch settlers to outlaw when they arrived in the Cape Peninsula in 1652 is indicative of its survival long after the Portuguese had left at the turn of the sixteenth century, and that in spite of the lack of continuity of pastoral presence and access to the sacraments. And again, in the nineteenth century, when the Irish but Lisbon-educated Dominican Patrick Griffith was sent to the Cape Colony to become the first Irish vicar apostolic in Southern Africa in 1838, and he set out to travel the length and breadth of the territory, and he found scattered Catholic families across the territory. More Irish religious (Dominicans and Marist Brothers) were brought in to staff the new Eastern Vicariate (Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown), and thus began a long succession of Irish bishops in South Africa that lasted well into the twentieth century. In the history of South African Catholicism, Owen McCann is remembered as the first archbishop of Cape Town, when the hierarchy was established in 1951, and especially as the first South African cardinal. He was second-generation Irish, being born in Cape Town in 1907 to an Irish father and Australian mother. McCann is less well known than the other giant of Greater Irish South African Catholicism, Archbishop of Durban Denis Hurley, because he was less vocal in his activism, he was not seen in the streets, and was more cautious and conciliatory with the apartheid governments – with good reason and in the hope of securing goodwill and advances in justice. However, at a spiritual, pastoral, and political level, his engagement with Portugal and Greater Portugal, and in particular here with Angola and Mozambique, gives new meaning to his stance and sheds light on his leadership through superimposed situations of racial segregation in South Africa and destabilising military interference in neighbouring countries. [End Page 383] Owen McCann and the 'Portuguese experiment' During World War Two, Fr Owen McCann was secretary to Bishop Francis Hennemann, Vicar Apostolic of Cape Town. His ministry involved saying Mass for the Italian prisoners of war (POW) working in farms across the Cape Province. He conveyed messages between families in South Africa and soldiers in Europe, and he also edited the Southern Cross, South Africa's weekly Catholic newspaper, and the official voice of the Catholic Church in the country. In his editorials, he wrote about his concerns and hopes for postwar South Africa. On 22 December 1943, his editorial was titled 'Salazar of Portugal'. In it, he observes with admiration that in the 1920s a society for the study of the encyclicals of Leo XIII, called the Academic Centre for Christian Democracy, was ","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Frances Biggs and the Windows of Gonzaga College, Dublin","authors":"Declan O'Keeffe","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911711","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911711","url":null,"abstract":"Frances Biggs and the Windows of Gonzaga College, Dublin Declan O'Keeffe (bio) Gonzaga College SJ, named after St Aloysius Gonzaga, one of St Ignatius's initial companions, was founded in 1950 in the leafy suburb of Ranelagh, Dublin 6. For the first fifteen years it did not have a chapel, as other things took priority, and religious services took place in the concert hall, which required moving furniture in and out on every occasion. When Fr John Hughes SJ took over as rector in 1959, the first priority of his office was to provide a chapel. In May of 1962 a working committee was established and parents were persuaded to part with £100 each, spread over ten years. In the account of William Lee SJ, '[t]he quality of that cut-granite, copper-roofed building dictated to a large extent the quality of the new school Chapel. The fact that Mr Andrew Devane was architect for both buildings ensured that the standard was maintained … The sculptor Mr Michael Biggs was commissioned to do the altar, the ambo, and the tabernacle pillar … The stained glass window at the apex of the triangular building was the work of Mrs Frances Biggs.'1 It was a gift of Devane. 'It had always been the intention of the architect that all the windows of the Chapel should have stained glass', but the finances would not stretch to this at the time. The matter was revisited in 1979, and again Frances Biggs was approached. She produced a set of detailed cartoons, as the design for stained glass is known, and a price was named. It was still expensive, but the scheme had a friend in the Rector, Fr Cormac Gallagher SJ, who argued that religion wasn't just a luxury of the school but was a core value. The deal was done, and a whole new dimension was added to the Chapel. Some of the new stained glass had been inserted by the end of October 1979, and the windows were completed in the following year. Far from darkening the interior, it brightened it immeasurably and added to the sense of prayer. There are eleven main windows and eight smaller pieces without pictures, designed to admit more light on the altar. Again from Fr Lee: 'Six of them depict the days of creation and are very dramatic. Others depict the Last Supper, scenes from the Nativity story, and [End Page 325] the Resurrection. The large windows over the interior entrance are devoted to scenes from the life of St Ignatius Loyola, and the works of the Society of Jesus, especially missionary work. It was a large undertaking, and Mrs Frances Biggs has placed generations of school boys in her debt.'2 Frances Biggs: A musician in glass Frances Biggs (née Dooley) was born into a musical family and played in the RTÉ symphony orchestra for forty years. She married the sculptor Michael Biggs, who may have encouraged her artistic talent. She attended evening classes at the National College of Art (NCA) from 1955–62. In addition to stained glass she regularly painted colourful abstract compositions, usually in gouache, and in later years de","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Enduring Relevance of Catholic Social Teaching","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911718","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911718","url":null,"abstract":"The Enduring Relevance of Catholic Social Teaching Mark Bell (bio) Anna Rowlands, Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times (T&T Clark 2022), xvi + 315 pages. Anthony M Annett, Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy (Georgetown University Press 2022), xix + 315 pages. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) in the modern era is most frequently traced from the late nineteenth century. It is often associated with a series of papal encyclicals and other major teaching documents that, in diverse ways, apply the beliefs, values and principles of Christian faith to issues that arise in our collective life in society, such as work, the environment, migration or international relations. The teaching of the Catholic Church is accompanied and influenced by a wider milieu of theological reflection on social ethics, as well as the insights and expertise of those involved in social action, such as Catholic-inspired civil society organisations. Memorably, Pope Paul VI captured this interplay of ideas and practice when he described CST as offering 'principles of reflection, norms of judgment and directives for action'.1 Notwithstanding the extensive analysis and critique of CST that has accumulated over time, it continues to generate fresh engagement. In part, this flows from its enduring ethical orientations that continue to prove relevant amidst shifting social realities. It can also be argued that Pope Francis has done much to advance CST. He has contributed to its documentary heritage, perhaps most notably through his treatment of the natural environment in his encyclical Laudato Si'. More broadly, he has forged better relations with those of other faiths and those of no faith at all. To some extent, this creates renewed space for CST to be admitted to public deliberation, notwithstanding the secularism of many Western democracies. Set against this backdrop, Anna Rowlands and Anthony Annett provide welcome and timely contributions. As discussed below, Anna Rowlands has authored a magnificently reflective academic analysis of this subject. In contrast, Anthony Annett's engaging book is aimed at an applied audience in the world of policymakers, social activists and interested individuals. In their diverse ways, both books enrich our understanding of CST. [End Page 394] Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times There are already a considerable number of books that aim to provide an overview of CST. On the one hand, there are commentaries that seek to provide detailed analysis of the principal Church texts. On the other hand, there are books that explore the evolution, methods, and key themes of CST. Given this rather crowded field, Anna Rowlands' book is remarkably original and insightful. It draws upon an impressively broad range of sources, both historical and contemporary. These are woven together with carefully crafted language that displays a meticulous quality of scholarship. ","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Defeat of Satan: Karl Barth's Three Agent Account of Salvation by Declan Kelly (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911719","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Defeat of Satan: Karl Barth's Three Agent Account of Salvation by Declan Kelly Dr Patrick Mitchel (bio) Declan Kelly, The Defeat of Satan: Karl Barth's Three Agent Account of Salvation (London: T&T Clark, 2022), 162 pages. The Defeat of Satan is a fine third addition to T&T Clark's Explorations in Reformed Theology series. In it Declan Kelly, a PhD graduate from the University of Aberdeen who hails from Galway, guides the reader through the daunting landscape of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics with the assurance of someone familiar with the complex topography of the Swiss theologian's thought. Kelly's destination is a place less visited within Barthian studies, namely the apocalyptic conflict evident within Barth's doctrine of salvation as a 'three-agent' cosmological drama between God, humanity and Satan and all his works. As such, Kelly's book makes a distinctive contribution to the wider 'apocalyptic turn' within Pauline studies and systematic theology. Advocates of apocalyptic tend to utilise a hermeneutic stressing the idea of a surprising and disruptive divine revelation (apokalypsis) that shatters previous frameworks. It is invasive work of God alone that advances his redemptive purposes in the world and enables God's people to see things as they 'really are' behind the scenes of everyday life. Resonances to Karl Barth and his dogged insistence on the once and for all revelation of God in Jesus Christ are immediately apparent and so it is understandable why Barth is often credited as a key influence in the rise of apocalyptic theology. Building on the explosive original contributions of Johannes Weiss (1892) and Albert Sweitzer (1910) and in light of Barth, a loose coalition of scholars like Ernst Käsemann, J. Christiaan Beker, J. Louis Martyn, Beverly Gaventa, Martinus de Boer, Susan Eastmann, Philip Ziegler, and Douglas Campbell have since articulated apocalyptic perspectives of Paul and wider New Testament thought. From an apocalyptic perspective, the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus are climactic events in a cosmic war between God and all the forces that oppose him. One achievement of this apocalyptic viewpoint has been to take seriously the multilayered scope of the New Testament's eschatological language concerning themes like the Devil, powers and principalities, rulers and authorities, 'elemental spirits', flesh and Spirit, the Day of the Lord, sin and death as destructive powers within this 'present evil age' (Gal 1:4), Christ's Parousia, divine wrath and judgment, and the final victory of God over all his enemies resulting in a [End Page 403] liberated creation. Kelly then is in a sense going 'back' to Barth himself to explore in depth the shape and content of his apocalyptic theology. He does so both with, and at times against, Barth, but his overall attitude is deeply appreciative of Barth as too good a biblical scholar not to take apocalyptic seriously. It is worth noting that both Z","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Imagining Kells: A Poetic Meditation on the Book of Kells","authors":"James Harpur","doi":"10.1353/stu.2023.a911709","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/stu.2023.a911709","url":null,"abstract":"Imagining Kells:A Poetic Meditation on the Book of Kells1 James Harpur (bio) In 2018 I published a book of poems, The White Silhouette, that mainly focused on Christian spirituality and mysticism. At its centre was a four-part meditative poem inspired by the Book of Kells that took me nineteen years, on and off, to complete. In this essay I hope to describe my fascination with the Book of Kells and some of the themes and questions that emerged in my poem, such as: 'Can sacred art effect a fundamental change of consciousness in the beholder?' 'How much does it help to be a believer to appreciate the Book of Kells?' 'What is the function of the Book of Kells in the twenty-first century?' When Kells was created it had an active life – monks read it aloud and held it up in procession in monastic chapels. It was an object of awe and also a crucial part of the liturgy. Is it now just an extraordinary objet d'art, sending out rays of light from its glass cage in its Long Room bunker in Trinity College Dublin, drawing to it thousands of visitors every week? What sort of experience do they have and how much of it is in the mind, the expectation? Is Kells now just a source of postcards and souvenirs, or can it make us think about our lives in a different way? My poem addresses some of these issues, and many others, including pilgrimage, the nature of 'home', and whether art is a way of reaching the divine or whether it is a distraction from the divine. All life is here My first proper awareness of the Book of Kells occurred in the 1980s, when I was editing a book about the Bible and one of the chosen illustrations was the Kells Chi Rho 'carpet page' – an illumination dominated by the Greek letters for 'Ch' and 'R, which begin the word 'Christi'.2 Like Keats when he first read Chapman's translation of Homer, I felt like 'some watcher of the skies/When a new planet swims into his ken'. It was as if a match had been dropped into a box of fireworks, or I was looking down on a laboratory of bubbling cauldrons. The letter 'Chi' itself, which resembles a curvy capital 'X', looked [End Page 293] as though it was breaking cover and springing naked from a foliage of geometry: its arms curved, its right leg extended, its left leg kicked up behind – running to incarnate itself. Everything was flowing. It was as if I had been given a time-telescope and had caught the moment of the Big Bang. To the left of Chi's longest prong, the left-hand one, there were three golden-haired angels on their sides. Towards the bottom of the page there was a small black figure, which was in fact an otter diving to snatch a fish. To the left of the otter, there were two mice having a tug of war with the consecrated host, their tails pinned by two cats, who were mounted by two mice. The point was this: Kells was saying that all life was here – from angels to rodents – and all was manifested within a tremendous current of creative energy, as if showing what the essence of life or being was;","PeriodicalId":488847,"journal":{"name":"Studies An Irish Quarterly Review","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135782187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}