Other publications by Fr. Brendan Hoban include:
- Personally Speaking (1995),https://www.killaladiocese.org/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=category
232 pages, Western People, Reflective pieces, Out of print.
After fifteen years as a weekly columnist with the Western People, Personally Speaking was a selection of sixty-plus articles under headings like Changing Times, Family, Parish Life, Priests and People.
- The Lisnagoola Chronicles (1995)
172 pages, Columba Press, Out of print.
Based on a column of the same name contributed to Intercom magazine for many years, The Lisnagoola Chronicles presents a series of humorous light-shafts into the prism of a clerical world. It is a wry and satiric commentary on the changing face of religion, viewed through the foibles and eccentricities of the clerical world – from the crusty old Canon to the curmudgeonly curate, from the avid liturgist visiting his enthusiasm on a reluctant congregation to the festina lente afficionado letting it all happen, from the wise owl to the young fool.
The Lisnagoola Chronicles is a humourous and sometimes acerbic track through the changes ushered in by Vatican II, the joys and frustrations of the clerical life, the inconvenient gap between who priests are and what they are sometimes perceived to be.
- Sermons for Special Occasions (2000);
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
58 Sermons, 181 pages, A5. Out of print.
- A Touch of the Heart (2000)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
149 pages, A5. Out of print. Memoir. A second edition is planned.
I have tried to write these words before but the experience of my mother’s death was too recent, the emotion was too strong to allow me to get past more than a few sentences. But now it is Spring again, a second Spring since my mother’s death and I feel brave enough to try to put words on a page.
The daffodil outside my window encourages me. It is an elegant flower, my favourite, and its life and colour and promise bring a dash of brightness and cheer as Winter begins to pay its reluctant homage to Spring.
Ostergloken is the German word for daffodils. It means Easter Bells, and it fits, giving those elegant precursors of hope and promise a religious meaning. New life in Spring, new life at Easter. And my thoughts are full of Easter and the hope it brings as I set out to write about my mother’s death.
- Change or Decay: Irish Catholicism in Crisis (2004)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
173 pages, A5. Available from Banley House at €9.95. Postage free.
Change and Decay is a forthright analysis of the realities of Irish Catholic Church life. It proposes imaginative responses to the challenges and problems facing Catholicism in Ireland today.
- Pieces of my Mind (2007)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
74 reflective pieces based on columns contributed to the Western People.
233 pages, A5. Available from Banley House at €9.95. Postage free.
- A Melancholy Truth:
the Travels and Travails of Fr Charles Bourke, c. 1765-1820 (2008)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
239 pages. Available from Banley House at €9.95. Postage free.
Charles Bourke was born in Ballycastle, Co Mayo in the 1760s. He was educated at the Irish College, Salamanca, Spain and ordained for the diocese of Killala in 1792. In response to an appeal by King Philip II of Spain he volunteered for service in Spanish Louisiana, becoming the first parish priest of Baton Rouge.
After an investigation into his conduct by the bishop of New Orleans he returned home to Killala in 1800. In 1811, with his bishop’s permission, he joined Lord Selkirk’s expedition as chaplain to a proposed colony of Irish Catholics and Scottish Presbyterians in Red River, an unexplored territory in what is now Manitoba, Minnesota and North Dakota. He never made it to Red River and was sent home the following year, where he became involved in an effort to block the appointment of a Tuam priest, Peter Waldron, as bishop of Killala.
After Waldron was appointed, Bourke continued to oppose him and, in 1817, published a scathing attack on Waldron and his fellow priests in a pamphlet, Popish Episcopal Tyranny Exposed. Bourke was suspended and excommunicated and appealed to Pope Pius VII for redress.
A Melancholy Truth tells the story of the extraordinary life of Fr Charles Bourke.
- Times and Seasons (2009)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
60 reflective pieces based on columns contributed to the Western People.
194 pages, A5. Available from Banley House at €9.95. Postage free.
- Kilmoremoy Parish (2009)
A4, 303 pages, 450 colour photographs. Price €35
Published by Kilmoremoy Parish Council.
Available from The Parish Office, Pastoral Centre, Cathedral Grounds, Ballina, Co. Mayo. 096 70555
- Turbulent Diocese, The Killala Troubles, 1798-1848 (2011)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
60 reflective pieces based on columns contributed to the Western People.
541 pages. Available from Banley House at €49.95. Postage free.
Turbulent Diocese tells the story of an eventful half-century in the history of Killala diocese from the rebellion of 1798 to the Great Famine. At the hart of this extraordinarily vibrant period was the episcopate of Francis O’Finan, the fault-line his unexpected appointment opened up and the dissensions that divided bishops, priests and people. Turbulent Diocese analyses the issues that contributed to the dissensions that sundered the diocese, the personalities that fuelled them and the efforts made to resolve them. The period, 1798-1848, was a remarkable half-century in the history of Killala diocese, with exceptional people who lived quite extraordinary lives.
- Where do we go from here? The crisis in Irish Catholicism (2012)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
145 pages. Available from Banley House at €9.95. Postage free.
With vocations in free-fall, practice in continuing decline and the authority of the Catholic Church diminished, Where Do We Go From Here? argues that we need to acknowledge where we are, recognise our strengths and revisit the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which still offer a belated springtime for a Church in deep crisis.
- The Diocese of Killala, An Illustrated History (2012);
A4, 126 pages, 170 colour photographs, Price €20
Published by Booklink Cardolux Ltd.
Available from The Parish Office, Past1oral Centre, Cathedral Grounds, Ballina, Co. Mayo. 096 70555
- Trouble & Strife, Fifty Killala Priests 1600-2000,
Readings in Killala Diocesan History, Vol. I. (2012).
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
684 pages. Available from Banley House at €35 Postage free.
- Who will break the bread for us? Disappearing Priests (2013)
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055
158 pages. Available from Banley House at €9.95 Postage free.
For the first time in many centuries we are facing the collapse of a scaffolding of worship that was sustained even during centuries of persecution.
Who will break the bread for us? is a question that fears the Eucharistic famine that is about to prevail in Ireland as parishes without Mass lose their focus and their faith. In simple terms the issue of priest-vocations is now quantifiable. Our priests are disappearing and we need to do something about it.
- Tracing the Stem, Killala Bishops,
Readings in Killala Diocesan History, Vol. II, (2015);
Banley House, 40 Ormond Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Tel. 086 6065055 email : banleyhouse@eircom.net
794 pages. Available from Banley House at €40 Postage free.