Reviews Archives - The Phoenix Magazine

Reviews

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 »

CHAMPAGNE FOOTBALL – MARK TIGHE & PAUL ROWAN

October 8, 2020
GIVEN THE recent trend for behind-the-scenes football documentaries, ex-FAI boss John Delaney could probably have solved the association’s car-crash finances simply by agreeing to... Read more »

AFTER THE SILENCE- LOUISE O’NEILL (RIVERRUN)

September 24, 2020
ALTHOUGH promoted as a “twisty page-turner” murder mystery, Louise O’Neill’s much-publicised book is steeped in zeitgeist and dominated by disturbing power struggles within abusive... Read more »

STRANGE FLOWERS – DONAL RYAN (DOUBLEDAY)

August 27, 2020
SINCE The Spinning Heart was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, Donal Ryan has been winning consistent praise for his slight but assured... Read more »

A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM – JOHN BOYNE

August 13, 2020
JOHN BOYNE’S 12th novel for adults takes place across more than 2,000 years and 50 countries. The sprawling, 430-page story addresses familiar social issues... Read more »

TV REVIEW: PRIME TIME – RTÉ 1

July 16, 2020
DAVID MCCULLAGH’S upcoming move to the Six One News is likely to prompt a much-needed shake-up at Prime Time, which in recent times has... Read more »

BRENDAN O’CONNOR – RTÉ RADIO ONE

June 18, 2020
FOR MANY years, with programmes such as Don’t Feed The Gondolas and Brendan O’Connor’s Cutting Edge, Brendan O’Connor unconvincingly attempted to position himself as... Read more »

HOLD ME NOW – JOHN MACKENNA

May 21, 2020
THIS NOSTALGIC love story, spanning several decades from the late 1980s onwards, is loosely framed against the backdrop of the Eurovision song contest and... Read more »

NORMAL PEOPLE – RTÉ ONE

May 7, 2020
IF THE Joe Duffy outrage-ometer is anything to go by, the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People predictably generated oodles of publicity for... Read more »

A THOUSAND MOONS – SEBASTIAN BARRY (FABER & FABER)

April 23, 2020
SEBASTIAN BARRY’S Costa-winning Days Without End told the story of two young soldiers in the American Civil War. In this sequel, set during the... Read more »

THE ARMS CRISIS OF 1970 – MICHAEL HENEY (APOLLO LONDON)

April 9, 2020
IRISH POLITICS experienced a seminal moment in 1970, with two dismissed former ministers, Charlie Haughey and Neil Blaney, facing trial. The charges related to... Read more »

APEIROGON – COLUM McCANN (BLOOMSBURY)

March 12, 2020
BEST KNOWN for his hugely successful Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann’s inventive fiction ranges widely and is generally international in scope. His... Read more »

ACTRESS – ANNE ENRIGHT (JONATHAN CAPE)

February 27, 2020
ANNE ENRIGHT’S surprisingly laboured seventh novel tells the story of Norah FitzMaurice, a middle-aged novelist trying to make sense of her famous mother’s life.... Read more »

THE LINE-OUT – VIRGIN MEDIA ONE

February 13, 2020
VIRGIN MEDIA has been making a lot of noise out of its exclusive (men’s) Six Nations rugby coverage and inevitably added one of those... Read more »

BLINDBOY BOATCLUB – BOULEVARD WREN AND OTHER STORIES (GILL BOOKS)

January 30, 2020
THE FIRST laugh generated by Boulevard Wren unintentionally arrives courtesy of the publishers, Gill Books, which assert that Blindboy Boatclub is “one of Ireland’s... Read more »

THE STYLE COUNSELLORS – (RTÉ 1)

January 30, 2020
THE LATEST home-produced makeover series is presented by Suzanne Jackson and Eileen Smith – described by RTÉ as “two social media sensations”. At the... Read more »

GREAT IRISH INTERIORS – RTÉ 1

January 16, 2020
AS PART of the national broadcaster’s “jam-packed” Christmas schedule (ie seasonal specials and jaded family-friendly staples), Great Irish Interiors followed the work of interior... Read more »

CHAOS IS A FRIEND OF MINE – EWAN MACKENNA

December 12, 2019
THERE IS no question that the Conor McGregor story is a classic of the sports genre: a man who once looked like he was... Read more »

THE GLOBALIST: PETER SUTHERLAND – JOHN WALSH (WILLIAM COLLINS)

November 14, 2019
Peter Sutherland was “possibly the most influential Irish person ever to have lived”, says this book, a smidge hyperbolically but with some justification. However,... Read more »

ALL IN – JAMIE HEASLIP (GILL AND MACMILLAN)

October 31, 2019
“I REALISED I had a problem in my relationship with the media and that I contributed to that, and I couldn’t just blame individual... Read more »

RECOVERING – RICHARD SADLIER (GILL BOOKS)

October 16, 2019
ELEVEN YEARS ago, The Phoenix published a ‘Young Blood’ profile of former footballer Richie Sadlier, who impressed with his ambition, confidence and ability to... Read more »

ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES AN AISLING

October 3, 2019
When the publishing phenomenon that is Aisling landed with the first Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling novel in 2017, it followed a... Read more »

WINGMAN – RTÉ ONE

May 16, 2019
THE LATEST Baz Ashmawy vehicle got off to a typically improbable start when the manic-eyed presenter assured viewers that, “with the right help, anything... Read more »

THE DIG – DIRECTED BY ANDY AND RYAN TOHILL

May 16, 2019
ANY FILM coming out of Northern Ireland and titled The Dig is, even if not overtly, a ‘Troubles’ film, likely to be viewed as... Read more »

DON’T GO – DIRECTED BY DAVID GLEESON

April 18, 2019
WATCHING David Gleeson’s Don’t Go in a near empty cinema, as Goldhawk did, a viewer’s thoughts may drift to parodies in The Simpsons of... Read more »

THE GHOST FACTORY – JENNY McCARTNEY (4th ESTATE)

April 18, 2019
WITH NO apparent end in sight to fictional accounts of the Troubles, it’s not surprising that this debut novel revisits familiar ground. The author... Read more »

DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE – VIRGIN MEDIA

April 18, 2019
This health-based series offers the same nutritional hit as a visit to McDonald’s. Viewers are left hungry for something actually worth getting their teeth... Read more »

FERTILITY SHOCK – RTÉ 1

March 21, 2019
DEARBHAIL MCDONALD is group business editor at Independent News and Media, but in recent times has been developing her brand beyond the confines of... Read more »

THE HOLE IN THE GROUND – DIRECTED BY LEE CRONIN

March 21, 2019
THERE’S NOT much wrong with Lee Cronin’s technically adept debut, The Hole in the Ground. Its problem is that, although it is streets ahead... Read more »

WHEN ALL IS SAID – ANNE GRIFFIN (SCEPTRE)

March 21, 2019
THIS DEBUT novel from the prize-winning short-story writer takes the form of a series of expansive inner monologues by a recently widowed 84-year-old farmer,... Read more »