Mick Wallace’s son a chip off the old block when it comes to Italian restaurants
Plus: Keith Duffy in a falling out over knees, Enda Kenny artfully backs a winner, and it turns out RTÉ and Sinn Féin can feel at home with each other after all
Colm Tóibín
Fintan O’Toole on his career: ‘You had to learn to live with the fact that some people despised you’
The Irish Times columnist has made a new documentary about his life for RTÉ. Here he looks back on a career that he began as the Michelangelo of Tipp-Ex
Clare Daly finds a Dublin Central political address once linked to her ally Mick Wallace
Plus: no sign of the next laureate for fiction; the less-than-diverse membership of Aosdána; and Niall Blaney’s poor attendance record
Author Georgi Gospodinov: ‘The past is not a good place to live in. And the dealers of the past roam among us’
The Bulgarian author on the dangers of nostalgia, his 2023 Booker-winning novel Time Shelter, and Irish writers he admires
Donal Ryan wins An Post Irish Novel of the Year Award for Heart, Be at Peace
Sally Rooney, Graham Norton, Johnny Sexton, Jane Casey and Paul Howard also among winners at this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards
Irish Book Awards 2024 shortlist: Sally Rooney, Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, David McWilliams and more
Winners of the 19th year of the An Post book awards will be announced at a ceremony in December
Ireland’s first public space named after a woman writer is opened
Mary Lavin Place links Dublin’s Lad Lane – where the author and short story writer lived – to newly restored Wilton Park
Colm Tóibín on poet Paul Durcan turning 80: ‘Beside the wildness, there is tenderness’
Durcan’s poems are risk-taking explorations of where tragedy and comedy meet in contemporary Ireland. A selection of his finest work is gathered in a book
Sally Rooney’s novel Intermezzo is fastest-selling book in Republic this year
Normal People author’s title sold almost 12,000 copies in first five days on market
TikTok autumn trends: From Sade aesthetic and Filipino food to new BookTok favourites and more
Filipino cuisine is taking over in food while romance tropes such as #grumpysunshine dominate BookTok
The best books of 2024 so far: writers and critics choose their favourite reads
Colm Tóibín’s Long Island, Lucy Caldwell’s Openings, Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits and Niamh Mulvey’s The Amendments are among the novels with multiple selections
‘A place in the country’: Getaway where Colm Tóibín and Maeve Binchy were entertained on the market for €435,000
Laois home of late Irish Times literary editor Caroline Walsh and writer and professor James Ryan
Fifteen great audiobooks for your summer holidays and beyond
From Ann Patchett read by Meryl Streep to Anne Enright read by the author, there are plenty of books to curl up with this summer
Long Island by Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn sequel brings Eilis back to Enniscorthy
Novel picks up the story 20 years later, with a stranger delivering some surprising news
Colm Tóibín: ‘Writing a sequel to Brooklyn? The risk is cheapness’
The writer on finding the confidence to trace the journey of his character Eilis in follow-up novel Long Island
The events to see, the shows to book, and the ones to catch before they end
May 18th-24th: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
The Guide: Girls Aloud, Eric Clapton, Muldoon’s Picnic and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
May 11th-17th, 2024: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
Author Andrew Hughes on his new novel, writing the mind of a teenager and Killua Castle
Hughes’s new book, Emma, Disappeared, follows James Lyster, whose life begins to unravel after the disappearance of a high-achieving university graduate
Distant Summers: Remembering Philip Casey - A very fond farewell to the poet and novelist
Paula Meehan, Sebastian Barry, Colm Tóibín and others share fond memories of the writer
Fiction to look out for in 2024: Returning favourites, a fearsome degenerate, and Ireland’s trailblazing all-woman rock band
New novels by Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín and Marian Keyes are among the works in the pipeline, along with eagerly anticipated debuts by Ferdia Lennon and Scott McKendry
Sebastian Barry: ‘I have the sort of odd brain that is always creeping up on a new book’
Irish author on prizes, translations and being the second Laureate of Irish Fiction
How attitudes to Israel are shifting – and hardening – in the wider German population
Merkel suggested Israel’s security was Germany’s Staatsräson (raison d’etre) but how far, and how unconditional, is that support in these challenging times?
AI and Irish writers: ‘I fear my life, in a strange way, is also being appropriated’
Irish authors whose works are in a data set used to train AI share their views
The Booker Prize boost: ‘It certainly changed the way people look at me’
Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright and Irish booksellers on the real difference the prestigious award makes as two Irish writers hit shortlist
Making Brooklyn in Enniscorthy: ‘Saoirse Ronan was lovely. She had a cup of tea in my kitchen’
While the Irish scenes in the novel are set in Enniscorthy, it is extremely rare that the movie of a novel will be filmed in the actual streets and buildings depicted in the original story, as happened with Brooklyn
Untameable: This should be a bogwater-dull documentary. Instead it’s gripping
Television: The tone is elevated, as you would expect from a film about bogs from a text by Colm Tóibín, and focusing on Seamus Heaney
‘It’s a good brassy broad of a part’: Maria Callas’s Juilliard masterclasses get an Irish staging
The star’s New York classes inspired Terrence McNally to write his Tony-winning play. Caitríona Ní Mhurchú brings the soprano to life in a new Dublin staging
A town divided: What’s going on at Listowel Writers’ Week?
Sadness and anger from some committee members at being ‘very arbitrarily dismissed’, while others say some volunteers ‘deemed more important than others’
Listowel Writers’ Week subject of growing row over proposal to disband volunteer committee
Committee to be replaced by professional curator following report members have yet to see
A Guest at the Feast by Colm Tóibín: Forensic, moving and wry collection of essays
Book review: Religion, homosexuality, illness, literature, art and morality are recurring themes
Press Up co-founder puts architect-designed Lad Lane home on the market for €1.775m
Matt Ryan’s Dublin 2 house was reimagined to capitalise on its canalside location, a few doors down from where Ryan’s mother, the late Caroline Walsh, grew up
Maureen Dowd: Washington DC and James Joyce? Both incomprehensible
I bought a copy of Ulysses in Dublin long ago but had never mustered will to read it
The best way to deliver future RNA medicines? Bubble-wrapped
Prof Caitriona O’Driscoll, chair of pharmaceutics, UCC school of pharmacy
A chorus of crises: Wexford, opera and the festival
Karina Daly’s fascinating book is lean on links with RTÉ, Arts Council and Mazars
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