THRILLED by the latest (and, sadly, final) collection of Hubert Butler's essays, In the Land of Nod, I went back to the earlier volumes. This involved an imaginative return to Butler's Kilkenny, specifically to the banks of his beloved Nore, where he finally settled in 1941 after decades of travelling and teaching in various parts of Europe.
As it happened, I found myself physically taking the same journey last weekend in the company of Tom Lyng, author of the scholarly Castlecomer Connections, which was published in 1984. He and Hubert Butler went back a long way to 1944, when Butler activated the long dormant Kilkenny Archaeological Society and Tom Lyng was one of the founder members.
He well remembers the furore that was caused a couple of years later by a talk Butler gave on Radio Eireann. Having just returned from Yugoslavia, where he had been researching wartime newspapers, Butler spoke about the 1941 campaign to convert over two million Orthodox Croatians to Catholicism, and though he left out some details that might be uncomfortable to Catholic Ireland and its hatred of Communism, he had decided that the basic story must be told, on the grounds that "if you suppress a fact because it is awkward, you will next be asked to contradict it".
This quotation comes from the 1956 essay "The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue" (reprinted in Escape From the Anthill), where he recounts local reaction to the fallout from his Radio Eireann talk the County Council expelled him from one of its sub-committees and he was forced to resign from the Archaeological Society "although my friends put up a fight."
Tom Lyng was one of those friends, and his affection and admiration for Butler have never dimmed. You can see why if you open any page of Butler's essays, which are brimming with humanity and deeply felt insights, and written with the elegant clarity of a master. We should all be grateful to Antony Farrell of Lilliput Press for making this legacy of a remarkable man available to us.
M0ST publishers don't organise book launches in the foothills of the Dublin mountains - or if they do, l don't normally attend them. However, that's where Columba Press decided to host the launch of The Church in a New Ireland, and as editor Sean MacReamoinn is an old friend (as well as being a neighbour of old), I found myself sipping wine, contemplating the Three Rock and wondering why I hadn't climbed it in years.
Given the inconvenience of the venue (Stillorgan Industrial Park, to be precise), I expected to be the only person there, but that was obviously to underestimate both Sean and Columba Press - l haven't been at as crowded a reception in ages.
Many of those attending this ecumenical gathering were clerics, including Doctrine and Life editor Bernard Treacy, editor in chief of Dominican Publications Austin Flannery, Radharc's Joseph Dunn (author of another new Columba title, No Vipers in the Vatican), Mater Dei Institute president Dermot Lane, and the ubiquitous Tom Stack. Also there (among many others) were Garret FitzGerald and TCD Gaelic lecturer Terence McCaughey.
And the reason for the venue? Well, Columba Press, which is run by Sean O'Boyle, has just moved its offices and warehouse there, whence it will be distributing, not just its own titles, but also the entire Mercier list. As Mercier also includes Marino, Handy Sex Hints for Irish Girls will be rubbing shoulders in the warehouse with theological treatises. I hope neither of them corrupts the other.
The Church in a New Ireland is the second slim volume in a series called Columba Explorations, which sets out to address issues of current interest to anyone concerned with religion in this country. The four essays in the latest book make for lively reading, and another volume is planned for the autumn.
I first knew of Mike Harding as an amiable stand up comic. That I was in the days before alternative comedy (or alternative to comedy, as I prefer to call it) became the norm, and in the years since then Mike has been a poet, playwright, photographer and musician and, not least, a notable hill walker.
He has already written books on walking in the Himalayas, the Dales and the Pennines, and now he gives us Footloose in the West of Ireland, published next week by Michael Joseph. This, I'm glad to say, has none of the Paddywhackery you often find in books about Ireland born into an Irish family in Manchester, the author has been a frequent visitor to this country over the years, knows what he's talking about and communicates it in chattily pleasing prose. He may quote H.V. Morton ("I was bound on perhaps the most stupid and thankless of tasks that a man can set himself l was going to add another book to that mountain of books about Ireland"), but he's being modest. And the photographs, which are by himself, are superb.
To coincide with its publication, he's embarking on a mini tour of the country, and if you want to hear him talking about hiss rambles in Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal, he'll be in Hodges Figgis next Wednesday at 7pm, in Eason's of Galway on Thursday at 6.45pm, and in Belfast's Linen Hall Library on Friday at 6pm.