Six Brilliant Reads: Irish Authors

Irish literature has blossomed over recent decades. In honour of St Patrick’s Day, here are six Irish authors whose books offer an unforgettable but also entertaining reading experience.

Anne Enright has often been up for book awards, her novel The Gathering winning the Booker Prize in 2007. She writes with intelligence and wit, always a winning combination, with a gift for scratching beneath the surface of family relationships and finding buried secrets. The Gathering is a terrific read, but you might also like Actress, in which the daughter of a theatre legend retraces her mother’s life, or The Green Road, where a family return to their mother’s house for one last Christmas when she announces she is selling the house they grew up in.

There may not be so many laughs in the fiction of Sebastian Barry, but the writing is exquisite. His novels tend to be historical including Days Without End and A Thousand Moons following the story of a young man fleeing the Irish famine to join the U.S. Army. Surprising friendships amid the Indian Wars and the American Civil War evolve. Old God’s Time describes the internal conflict of a retired Dublin policeman who makes a difficult decision, and which picked up a few award nominations. His new book, The Newer World, due out later this year, is returns to the characters of the American books.

Emma Donoghue’s novels cover a wide variety of themes, often inspired by true stories - from the establishment of an early monastery on a barren island (Haven), to the effects of the 1918 flu epidemic on a maternity ward in a Dublin hospital (The Pull of the Stars). Donoghue’s novels have also made it to the screen, including Room - the astonishing novel of a woman kept secluded from the world in a secret room, and the son she bore her captor, the five-year-old who tells their story. We’ve also seen The Wonder, about a nurse sent to a small Irish village to investigate a young girl who “miraculously” survives without food, but instead on the Holy Spirit. This Irish author’s a gifted storyteller indeed.

You wouldn’t believe Niall Williams finds writing “simply so difficult”, as many readers find his books such a joy to read. We’re in the Irish village of Faha for This Is Happiness when electricity is due to arrive. How this affects ordinary lives, in particular young Noel and their new lodger, Christy, is the subject of a moving coming-of-age story. Another author who has made it to the screen, you may have seen Four Letters of Love at the movies, which was a bit of a weepie starring Helena Bonham Carter, Pierce Brosnan and Gabriel Byrne. William’s last book Time of the Child (2024) is set in 1962, in Faha again, a kind of Christmas nativity with a real baby left in the care of the village doctor and his daughter.

You’ll remember Louise Kennedy for Trespasses, the story of the affair between Cushla, a young teacher in Northern Ireland, and Michael, the Protestant barrister she meets in her family’s pub. It’s the time of the Troubles, and Cushla’s young students are surprisingly matter of fact about the daily discussions of violence in their neighbourhood. A moving and visceral story, Trespasses has been recently televised in Britain. Kennedy’s short story collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac is also worth a look for quick reads that carry a punch. Her new book Stations is due for release later this year.

Colm Toibin is the author who has given us Brooklyn and more recently Long Island, which make up the story of Ellis Lacey, who tries to make a new life for herself, emigrating from Ireland to New York in the 1950s. The second book jumps forward to the 1970s, with Ellis in her forties and having to make a terrible decision about her marriage. Both books have made stunning movies, but Toibin has written other books well worth exploring. Among them are two following the lives of famous authors: The Master, which won several award nominations, is the story of Henry James, and The Magician, which delves into the complex life of Thomas Mann. His novel House of Names is a retelling of the Greek myth of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and their children. For lovers of his short stories, his new collection, The News from Dublin is due for release at the end of March.

Happy reading!

Posted by JAM

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