Broadcaster David Hanly died last week and those of a certain age would remember his distinctive voice and his ability to paint a picture on radio.
Columba books publisher Garry O’Sullivan recalls how Hanly’s picture painting ability worked very well for the newly published Glenstal Book of Prayer. “I remember distinctly his interview on Morning Ireland, I think it was near the end of the show, with Glenstal monk Simon Sleeman. It was summer time and Hanly, a Limerick man waxed lyrical about playing as a boy in the fields around Glenstal Abbey and he managed to convey sunshine and childhood abandon under the walls of this holy and mysterious monastery. It just painted a beautiful picture and the book took off.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic Glenstal monk Simon Sleeman said he would “Very much like to acknowledge that and the power of Morning Ireland at that time and just the power of media to promote a book.”
Fr Sleeman has said previously: “There was nobody more surprised than I was by the success of the Glenstal Book of Prayer nearly a quarter of a century ago. I was flicking through the Ampleforth Prayer Book in our tiny monastery shop when Fr Peter Gilfedder, then in charge, chided me, “It’s time we had our own prayer book, and isn’t it time you did something useful?”
I took the bait, and a committee went to work to produce the Glenstal Book of Prayer in jig time. It arrived in July 2001, which is apparently the worst month for publishing a book. Yet within a week it was keeping company with John Grisham on the Bestseller List. In another week it had passed him out, reaching the top. The phone was constantly ringing, multiple interviews with radio stations followed and when ABC Australia (their equivalent of the BBC) arrived on our doorstep – drawn by a best-selling prayer book in Ireland – I knew something dramatic had happened!”
