NOT every life warrants a film of seven hours and 46 minutes, but not every life was as dramatic as Richard Wagner’s. The British film director, Tony Palmer, cast Richard Burton in the title role of the epic biopic, Wagner, which was shot over seven months and released in 1983. It will be screened, with two breaks, as part of this year’s Cork Film Festival.

THE frightening scenes in English cities are rooted in many years of decay in God-given values in society.

THE statement by Gary W Adams of Dallas, USA (Irish heroes of WW II deserve to be pardoned, July 2) that soldiers who had deserted the Irish Army had been “court-martialled” for fighting against the Nazis and Japan during WW II, is incorrect.

The one time I ever met her at Hillsborough Castle, she seemed refreshingly human, a very dignified — if surprisingly petite — lady with a wide open smile. I noted wryly the number of devout nationalists who at least nodded, if not quite bowed, when introduced to her.

The Kaiser’s Holocaust

HOW utterly naive is TP O’Mahony in joining writers (some of them vehemently anti-Catholic) in attacking Pope Pius XII for not condemning the Nazis for their oppression of the Jewish people (Irish Examiner, September 12).

GEORGE W Bush, with his usual knack for unconscious irony, last week described an ‘Islamo-fascist’ conspiracy to destroy freedom, democracy and ‘our way of life’.

IRAN ended all voluntary cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog yesterday but said it was open to a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, softening its earlier response to being reported to the UN Security Council over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms.

Pope John Paul II, who died today aged 84, will be remembered as one of the greatest communicators and most influential figures of modern times.

THE furore over Britain’s Prince Harry wearing a Nazi armband brought hypocrisy, tendentious social commentary, political doublethink and historical myopia to new levels of absurdity.

PEOPLE must reflect on the role ordinary individuals played in the Nazi killing machine as ceremonies take place to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, President Mary McAleese said yesterday.

The United Nations broke with years of protocol and commemorated the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, directly linking its own founding with the end of the Holocaust, in some of the strongest language ever.

Prince Harry’s Nazi fancy-dress uniform complete with swastika armband sparked international outrage tonight amid calls for him to apologise in public for his “shameful” antics.