Irish Writing Blog

  Julian Gough is better known – where he is known at all – as a writer of sharply satirical, often odd, short stories and novels for adults. Gough, who spent much of his childhood in Nenagh...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/from-apple-antagonist-to-childrens-literary-star-the-new-career-tangent-of-julian-gough/

A short blog to draw attention to an interview with Paul Murray in the Guardian last weekend, to mark the arrival of his third novel The Mark and the Void. The book, which revolves around a ficti...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/comic-writing-is-the-real-truth/

Sometimes it feels as if Michael Harding was born at the age of 58, middle-aged and fully-formed. A performer, an actor, a novelist, a memoirist and a playwright, he has come to inhabit that grea...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/hay-festival-kells-michael-harding/

With confirmation that John Banville will be part of the writing team for a major new crime series slated to screen next year, and the Booker Prize winner seemingly increasingly besotted by the l...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/the-question-of-john-banvilles-legacy/

Jason Arthur, the Publishing Director of a group of Penguin Random House imprints, has described the current Irish literary scene as “experiencing a renaissance”. Arthur’s comments came ami...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/so-are-we-really-in-the-middle-of-an-irish-literary-renaissance/

The annual Francis MacManus Short Story Competition has been open to entries since February, and the closing date for the 2015 prize is the fast-approaching Friday, May 1st. Unlike many prizes of...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/rte-francis-macmanus-short-story-competition/

For all the dark sides and murky corners of the Internet, there’s something intangibly fantastic about its interconnectivity. While Twitter and Facebook, with their social weight and smartphone...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/the-classics-club-irish-edition/

Okay, so I’m six years late to this, but as I’ve grown older (I’m 38 this year) some self-awareness has slowly dawned: it takes me time to do things. I didn’t leave home or learn to drive...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/blog-thoughts-brooklyn-by-colm-toibin/

I’d love to see more of this in literature: a poetry reading tour. Paul Durcan, described as “Ireland’s most playful poet” in an Irish Times interview last week, has embarked on an almost...

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/the-paul-durcan-poetry-reading-tour/

I rarely reblog, but happy to make an exception for this excellent post about RTE’ current project, Ireland’s Best Loved Poem.

https://irishwritingblog.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/irelands-best-loved-poem/