The 17 Irish Martyrs
MARY McALEESE
(COLUMBA books, 160 PP, £14.99)
Tablet bookshop price £13.49 • tel 020 7799 4064

Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, is a figure well known to readers of The Tablet. Outspoken in her criticism of the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, she has also been vocal about misogyny in the Church. In 2020 she captured headlines when she sent Pope Francis a letter warning him that she would leave the Church if it were discovered that the Vatican had failed to act to protect members of the l’Arche communities from the sexual abuse of Jean Vanier, their founder. Given this profile, you might expect McAleese’s most recent book to be about the Church’s record of cover-up or, alternatively, based on the findings of her doctoral thesis on children’s rights and canon law. Surprisingly, however, The 17 Irish Martyrs concerns 16 Irishmen and one Irishwoman beatified by Pope John Paul II on 27 September 1992.