On swanky hotels, Gráinne O’Malley’s tailor-made pirate outfits, and her own unusual hidden talent. ℘℘℘ Mary Beth Keane’s novel, Ask Again, Yes, published in May 2019, is a lyrical, moving tale spanning 40 years, about Irish American cops, family, love, alcoholism and mental illness. Told with tenderness and empathy for the human condition, it isRead more..
Mystery novelist Sheila Connolly takes our questionnaire. ℘℘℘ Sheila Connolly has published over 30 mysteries, including several New York Times bestsellers. Her series include the Orchard Mysteries, the County Cork Mysteries, and her newest, the Victorian Village Mysteries. Connolly, who is passionate about history and genealogy, has been an art historian, an investment banker, aRead more..
William Trevor’s posthumous Last Stories. ℘℘℘ How strange to read a published work knowing it to be the author’s last. Such was the feeling on opening Last Stories, a collection of short stories made available two years after William Trevor’s death. The Cork-born author leaves us a treasure of quality work, fronted by an impressive canonRead more..
Irish playwright Enda Walsh had a bit of a New York moment in January, with the joint stagings of two of his plays. In Manhattan, his 1996 play Disco Pigs is being revived for its 20th anniversary at the Irish Repertory Theater, starring Harry Potter actress Evanna Lynch and Colin Campbell as the drama’s soleRead more..
Party Face, a new comedy by Irish writer Isobel Mahon, made its Off-Broadway debut as part of the 10th annual Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival in New York in January, starring Hayley Mills, of Parent Trap and Pollyanna fame. Directed by Amanda Bearse, the play is staged at the New York City Center and runsRead more..
The story of W.B. Yeats’s tower, Lady Gregory’s autograph tree, and the grave of Irish airman Robert Gregory, whose death inspired some of Yeats’s most well-known poems. ℘℘℘ January 23, 2018, marked the 100th anniversary of the death in Italy of Ireland’s most famous aviator, Major Robert Gregory. His grave stands in a quiet cornerRead more..
Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach is a journey through time and mores. ℘℘℘ In Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan makes a radical departure in style, language, and structure from her previous novel, the post-modern and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad. This latest work, labeled “historic fiction” and set between 1934 and 1946, tells ofRead more..
Darach Ó Séaghdha has been putting the fun back into the Irish language by translating words into English in a humorous, thought-provoking way, and deftly using Twitter to expand his audience. He now continues the exercise in a new book, Motherfoclóir, in which he also reflects on the role the Irish language played in hisRead more..
This fall, a number of our most celebrated Irish American authors will launch books into heavy seas where Twitter storms and televised tantrums batter our attention, but after spending time at the Book Expo, the publishing industry’s lollapalooza in New York City this summer, I realized all will be well. I met with Jennifer Egan, Alice McDermott,Read more..
The International, a play about war and genocide in our age by Irish actor and playwright Tim Ruddy, has made an aptly timed return to the stage as the 20-year anniversary of the Bosniak genocide in Srebrenica is mourned. The recent Off-Broadway return of The International is fueled by Urbanite Theatre of Sarasota Florida, whichRead more..