Reviews Archives - The Phoenix Magazine

Reviews

BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU – SALLY ROONEY

September 23, 2021
WHILE SALLY Rooney’s two previous books, Conversations With Friends and Normal People, weren’t to everybody’s taste, it was impossible to argue with the phenomenal... Read more »

KIN – RTÉ ONE

September 23, 2021
WITH A recent Broadcasting Authority-commissioned report warning of an “existential crisis” in RTÉ, the cash-strapped national broadcaster’s hyping of gangland drama Kin – including a Late Late... Read more »

IMPERFECTION – BY ERIN AND JUDITH

September 9, 2021
WHILE GOLDHAWK is no gastroenterologist, it is incumbent upon him to warn potential listeners about the elevated risk of barfing up their lunch while... Read more »

THE ECHO CHAMBER – JOHN BOYNE

September 9, 2021
HAVING GENTLY satirised the publishing industry in his 2018 novel, A Ladder to the Sky, John Boyne now casts an eye on the aggressive... Read more »

Reconstruction from ‘The Ballymurphy Massacre’

THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE – RTÉ ONE

August 12, 2021
THIS AUDACIOUS documentary, directed by award-winning film maker Callum Macrae with no little elan and produced in association with Channel 4, is powerful stuff.... Read more »

THE GARDEN – PAUL PERRY

August 12, 2021
DUBLIN-BASED Paul Perry’s first solo novel is a modern-day morality tale of obsession, outsiders and uncertainty about the future. The orchid farm setting with... Read more »

POSTER BOYS

July 29, 2021
PUBLIC MONEY, even lots of it, is no guarantee of quality, as Goldhawk has noted in countless reviews of Irish films in recent years.... Read more »

DIVING FOR PEARLS – JAMIE O’CONNELL

July 29, 2021
THIS DEBUT novel is set about a decade ago, mainly in Dubai, where the dead body of a young Emirati woman, Hiyam Husayin, is... Read more »

IRELAND’S RICH LIST 2021 – RTÉ ONE

July 15, 2021
IF THE ‘rich list’ is the answer, what on earth is the question? Goldhawk found himself repeatedly wondering this over the course of a... Read more »

THIS EDEN – ED O’LOUGHLIN

July 15, 2021
ED O’LOUGLIN’S latest novel is a contemporary thriller packed with cinematic hairsbreadth escapades, crosses, double crosses and careering plot twists. The story is set... Read more »

MIND FULL – DERMOT WHELAN

July 1, 2021
RADIO PRESENTER turned wellness ‘guru’ Dermot Whelan displayed his impressive marketing skills last month when advising his social media followers to “de-stress your dad!”... Read more »

AGENTS OF INFLUENCE – AARON EDWARDS

July 1, 2021
THE BOOK’S front cover singles out the infamous Freddie Scappaticci in glorious technicolour. Everyone else in black and white. He is barely mentioned in... Read more »

MY THERAPIST GHOSTED ME – VOGUE WILLIAMS / JOANNE MCNALLY

May 20, 2021
IF WATCHING her shilling laundry capsules during every second TV ad break isn’t enough Vogue Williams for fans, a new podcast has now launched.... Read more »

WHITE CITY – KEVIN POWER

May 20, 2021
IT HAS been 13 years since the publication of Kevin Power’s debut novel, Bad Day in Blackrock (subsequently filmed as What Richard Did). The... Read more »

GUNPLOT – RTÉ ONE

May 6, 2021
RTÉ HAS come to its ambitious Gunplot project bearing a horrendous burden of quisling-like reverence for the great political princes of the state. A... Read more »

RO’CK OF AGES – ROSS O’CARROLL KELLY

May 6, 2021
LAST MONTH, Paul Howard did a very clever thing. He beat his critics to the punch. In an article in the Irish Times, he... Read more »

THE MARIO ROSENSTOCK PODCAST

April 22, 2021
LAST AUTUMN saw the cancellation of Mario Rosenstock’s Today FM show, Mario’s Sunday Roast, due to – in the comic’s own words – “circumstances... Read more »

THE ART OF FALLING – DANIELLE McLOUGHLIN

April 22, 2021
ONE OF Danielle McLoughlin’s writing strengths comes from her powerful depictions of everyday life, often with undertones of sinister uncertainty. This was evident in... Read more »

THE 2 JOHNNIES PODCAST

April 8, 2021
SINCE ACHIEVING wide popularity with a series of viral music videos in 2017, comedy duo the 2 Johnnies have had a trajectory similar to... Read more »

WE ARE NOT IN THE WORLD – CONOR O’CALLAGHAN

April 8, 2021
IN THIS follow-up to his 2016 debut, Nothing on Earth, Conor O’Callaghan focuses mostly on one man’s fractured relationships with his family. This curious... Read more »

THE BALLAD OF LORD EDWARD AND CITIZEN SMALL – NEIL JORDAN

March 25, 2021
THE BOOM in historical fiction continues with this new account of the odd friendship between Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his African-American manservant, Tony Small.... Read more »

NO ONE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE EXCEPT FOR YOU – LAURA WHITMORE

March 25, 2021
READERS HOPING that Laura Whitmore’s debut might give them an inside track into her life as a TV and radio presenter may be in... Read more »

BLOODLANDS – BBC ONE

March 11, 2021
SET IN contemporary Northern Ireland, the four-part thriller stars James Nesbitt as PSNI detective Tom Brannick. Produced by Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio,... Read more »

CRIME WORLD – NICOLA TALLANT

February 25, 2021
WITH TRUE crime podcasts all the rage, now might be an opportune time for somebody to do a mystery series on what happened to... Read more »

HOME OF THE YEAR – RTÉ ONE

February 25, 2021
NOW IN its seventh series, Home of the Year is back with seasoned presenter Hugh Wallace taking centre stage as always. The “design legend”... Read more »

DAVY’S TOUGHEST TEAM – RTÉ ONE

February 11, 2021
IN ADDITION to being one of the most high-profile sports managers in the country, the past seven years have seen Davy Fitzgerald develop an... Read more »

NAKED: TEN TRUTHS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE – CAROLINE FORAN

February 11, 2021
THE LUCRATIVE literary genre of personal development continues to flourish – particularly during the current lockdowns, as stressed-out readers search for answers about coping... Read more »

LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL – (RÓNÁN HESSION)

January 28, 2021
THE NEW One Dublin One Book offering this year is the debut novel by musician Hession (aka Mumblin’ Deaf Ro), which was first published... Read more »

GET MY SH!T TOGETHER – RTÉ PLAYER

January 28, 2021
ALONGSIDE COVID, a silent epidemic has been quietly building in recent times – that of half-arsed lockdown programming on the RTÉ Player. Following on from... Read more »

NO HIDING (ROB KEARNEY) & FUEL (SEAN O’BRIEN)

January 14, 2021
THERE IS a bitter irony that one of the accusations against Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team in his final year was that it had become... Read more »

UNDERNOSE FARM – HARRY CROSBIE (THE LILLIPUT PRESS)

December 16, 2020
THE PAST year of lockdown has seen a surge in autobiographical fiction. This slim hardback book (90 pages) of short stories about Dublin life... Read more »

THE LATE LATE TOY SHOW – RTÉ ONE

December 3, 2020
FOR MOST of the past year, broadcasters have been desperately looking for inventive ways of filling the schedules – and cheering people up. Predictably,... Read more »

SNOW – JOHN BANVILLE (FABER)

November 19, 2020
OVER RECENT years, John Banville has written a relatively commercially successful series of hard-boiled noir thrillers under the name of Benjamin Black. This latest... Read more »

IN BED WITH THE BLUESHIRTS SHANE ROSS (ATLANTIC BOOKS)

November 5, 2020
POLITICAL REMINISCENCES in Ireland are invariably boring, free of interesting information and full of self-justification presented with no context (or purpose). But this book... Read more »

LODGING WITH LUCY – VIRGIN ONE

October 22, 2020
THE CATEGORY that Lodging With Lucy belongs in is truly the preserve of the damned: a reality series deemed surplus to requirements by RTE.... Read more »

BURNING HERESIES – KEVIN MYERS (MERRION PRESS)

October 8, 2020
WHEN IS a victim not a victim? Apparently not when they’re single mothers whose children are described as “bastards”. Or a Traveller derided as... Read more »