We’ll need our humour and a balanced reading of our history this Easter to negotiate a path through the treacherous waters of commemoration. Let’s hope we can also make room for the voices of the children of the centenary of the Rising, writes Clodagh Finn.

Anthony Beevor has written another history of another decisive WWII battle — the last throw of the dice for the Nazis, the Battle of the Bulge. Richard Fitzpatrick enjoyed it.

Stephen Sandford Irish Academic Press, €24.95 

Randall Hansen,

British Private John Parr set off on his reconnaissance bike on the lookout for German troops amid the rolling farmland and woods south of Brussels in August 1914.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and British prime minister David Cameron are to visit First World War graves and memorials on the site of the Western Front.

ON Tuesday of last week in City Hall, Cork, I attended the launch of the book ‘A Great Sacrifice – Cork Servicemen who Died in the Great War’.