Nine thousand years of Irish art and architecture are trapped between the glossy pages of the latest pre-Christmas coffee table extravaganza published by Thames and Hudson. Three able Irish scholars have been pressed into service. Was it necessary?

During the course of the week prior to the international match against England, one Irish paper enquired, in reference to Johnny Giles, "how long do we have to suffer this man"? It was a comment that typified much of the media's disposition to the irish player-manager and it is best placed in context by the following statistics.  By Eamon Dunphy

IF THE IRISH EXHIBITION of Living Art, which opened in May and closed in June, and which was reviewed in Magill last month, was to some extent domiinated by the need or urge among its artists to be original, then the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition is subbject to an even gloomier tyranny: that of convention.

The twenty-five foot high star came to life. From its dominating position behind the stage of the Sunset Club in Longford, outlined in red, white and two shades of green against a deep blue background, the star began a rhythmic blinking. The tiny lights embedded in the high blue ceiling added their own stardust imitations and for a few minutes it seemed as though Garret FitzGerald was about to finish his marathon constituency tour with all the taste, style and Panache of Richard Nixon. By: Gene Kerrigan.

STEPHEN COUGHLAN, T.D., Mayor of Limerick has in the last few months emerged as the George Wallace of Irish politics-personifying a parochialism and prejudice hitherto unknown at a national level-at least in recent times. Furthermore, he has become the focal point of unrest in the Labour Party which has been deeply divided on urban/rural lines since the General Election.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, in the relatively brief period of a decade, has totally changed its public liturgy, its education of priests and its pastoral organisation. It has even more significantly altered its theological understanding of itself.

THE POGROM of Limerick in 1904 was small by international standards. From 1880 to 1920 throughout Tsarist Russia hundreds of thousands of Jews were butchered, dispossessed and left impoverished, and Western Europe and the United States experienc~d an enormous influx of Jewish refugees.

DESPITE THE prospect of further American troop withdrawals from Vietnam, it seems clear that American involvement in the area will continue long beyond any settlement reached in Saigon. Recent events in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand underline the American need for strong, vehemently anti-communist regimes in IndoChinese capitals. And Thailand, rather than Vietnam, is the lynchpin to this policy.

THE RECENT HYSTERICAL out­bursts about Maoism in Ireland suggest that an influential and large group of Chinese Communists are on the brink of a power take-over­leading to this country's ensnarement inside the bamboo enclave. A cooler appraisal of the strength of Maoism here suggests a less optimistic or pes­simistic (depending on your view­point) situation.

THERE have only been two significant surveys on the beliefs and cultic practices of Catholics in Dublin initiated in the last decade. The first was commissioned by Dr. John Charles McQuaid in a working-class housing estate. The findings of this report were repressed, it is said, because of the gloomy picture it painted of current religious practice among young working-class Dubliners. The second report was conceived and drawn up by Brian Power, C.C., who until mid-1968, was a highly popular Chaplain in U.C.D.