Irish Literature We Recommend All Year Long
St. Patrick’s Day came and went, but our feelings about Irish literature are entirely year-round — so here we are. A short, genuinely wonderful list of Irish writers (and one American who wrote one of the best books about Ireland you’ll ever read) who will rearrange how you think and feel.
Here are some of my recommendations:
Claire Keegan is writing some of the most devastating short fiction alive right now. Small Things Like These is barely 120 pages and will stay with you for years. That’s not a promise we make lightly.
Bonus pairing: we love reading this alongside The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck. Something about the quiet moral weight of both — just trust us.
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is the nonfiction entry point we recommend constantly. Keefe is American, but this is his masterwork on the Troubles in Northern Ireland — centering the 1972 disappearance of Jean McConville — and it reads like the best thriller you’ve ever picked up, except every word of it is true.
Edna O’Brien — if you’ve never read her, The Country Girls is where to start. Controversial on publication. Banned. Burned. So of course, we recommend it wholeheartedly.
Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is a challenging read in more than one sense. The prose is raw and formally daring; the emotional terrain is brutal and intimate. It asks something of you, and gives back considerably more.
Donal Ryan is one of those writers who makes you wonder why everyone isn’t talking about him all the time. His debut, The Spinning Heart , is the place to start — and the new paperback edition is available now for pre-order.
