Caoimhe Fox talks to Jan Carson about her acclaimed novel The Fire Starters. ‘The Smoke seems to have passed’ announced the waitress delivering coffee to our outdoor table on Drury Street. A plume...
The American detective created by Irish writer John Connolly will be twenty this year. The publication of A Book of Bones (Hodder & Stoughton) marks the seventeenth in the series but it will also be twenty years...

No sex for export

A copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover used by the judge of the novel’s landmark 1960 obscenity trial, with all the rude bits carefully and dutifully marked up by his wife, has been temporarily stopped from leaving the...
A new upmarket restaurant and bar, recently opened at London’s exclusive Embassy Gardens on the South Bank, is inspired by the classic Disney film Darby O’Gill and the Little People (reviewed in Books Ireland, Sept./Oct. 2015). Darby’s...
The Kerry Group Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week prize went to David Park, for the exceptional Travelling in a Strange Land (Bloomsbury). Park beat off stiff competition from John Boyne (for Ladder to the...
Echoes 2019 Will Celebrate Community in Contemporary Writing in Ireland! Dalkey Castle & Heritage Centre is delighted to announce that ECHOES will return from the 4th –  6th October 2019.  ECHOES proudly celebrates the life and...
In a startling OECD study, it was found that up to 6% of Irish university graduates are functionally illiterate—meaning their reading and writing skills are ‘inadequate to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills...
Irish-language Literature Adviser appointed Peter Sirr has recently been engaged as the Arts Council’s Irish-language Literature Adviser. As a Dublin native, poet, critic, prose writer and dramatist, Peter Sirr has a wealth of artistic knowledge and will be...

All change at Eason

As reported here before, Eason is pressing ahead with some major changes in its business model. In a move to reduce its share capital and continue to move its business online, Eason...
The European Parliament recently voted in favour of changing the European Union’s copyright rules. MEPs voted by 348 votes to 274 in favour of rules that will force internet organisations such as YouTube and Google to...