A Day at a Time
by Mary Kenny, New Island Books, £13.99
Mary Kenny is a veteran journalist who describes her career as the “modest success of remaining in work for over 50 years”. She is also an author and, of course, a popular Catholic Herald columnist. In these “Thoughts and Reflections through the Seasons”, as the subtitle puts it, she has assembled a miscellany of reflections, anecdotes and stories that demonstrate her unique stance, one that is humorous, tolerant, trenchant and sage.
Her subjects are wide-ranging, showing her insatiable curiosity and appetite for life. They include thoughts on Irish history, favourite poems, saints’ lives, existential philosophers and personal admissions. Each extract is barely a page long, designed to be dipped into rather than read sequentially. However, such is Mary’s beguiling voice that I read the book in one sitting.
