Dublin

She’s leaving home: Breakdown, by Cathy Sweeney, reviewed

13 January 2024 9:00 am

One ordinary November day in Dublin, without forethought or planning, a woman walks out on her husband and two teenage children and never comes back

Ireland’s most notorious murderer still casts a disturbing spell

8 July 2023 9:00 am

After months of conversations with Ireland’s most notorious murderer, Mark O’Connell got both more and less than he bargained for, says Frances Wilson

What have we been missing?

1 July 2023 9:00 am

Ge’s short stories set in China are her most adventurous, ranging from politics in the time of Confucius to sex in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake

An actor’s recipe for insanity

2 July 2022 9:00 am

I’m on the road, a very proper place for an actor to be. Never mind all those jokes about some…

At last, a book about James Joyce that makes you laugh

2 July 2022 9:00 am

I do not think I am alone in confessing that I had read critical works on James Joyce before I…

Momentous decisions: Ruth & Pen, by Emilie Pine, reviewed

30 April 2022 9:00 am

Emilie Pine writes about the big things and the little things: friendship, love, fertility, grief; waking, showering, catching the bus.…

Irish quartet: Beautiful World, Where Are You?, by Sally Rooney, reviewed

11 September 2021 9:00 am

The millennial generation of Irish novelists lays great store by loving relationships. One of the encomia on the cover of…

To appreciate Finnegans Wake you must hear its sounds and rhythms

7 August 2021 9:00 am

‘How good you are in explosition!’ The first ever unabridged recording of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is a monumental achievement…

Dublin double act: Love, by Roddy Doyle, reviewed

17 October 2020 9:00 am

Far be it from me to utter a word against the patron saint of Dublin pubs, Roddy Doyle. Granted he’s…

A dark emerald set in the Irish laureate’s fictional tiara: Actress, by Anne Enright, reviewed

15 February 2020 9:00 am

Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…

Shadows of the past are ominously present in a trio of memorable first novels

10 March 2018 9:00 am

The Shangri-Las’ song ‘Past, Present and Future’ divides a life into three, Beethoven-underpinned phases: before, during and after. Each section…

A choice of first novels

5 August 2017 9:00 am

Remember Douglas Coupland? Remember Tama Janowitz? Remember Lisa St Aubin de Terán? Banana Yoshimoto? Françoise Sagan? The voice of your…

The Easter Rising’s road to hell — paved with good intentions

9 April 2016 9:00 am

While reading this book in a London café, I was politely buttonholed by an Irishman: ‘Sorry to disturb you, but…

Catherine Tate’s talents are wasted on this meandering musical about nuclear fallout

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Miss Atomic Bomb celebrates the sub-culture that grew up around nuclear tests in 1950s America. The citizens of Nevada would…

Irish Citizen Army soldiers on rooftops in Dublin before the Easter Rising of 1916

The holy relics of the Easter Rising: from hallowed flags to rebel biscuits

19 March 2016 9:00 am

The reverence for those involved in the Easter Rising is evident in an exhibition devoted to its centenary, says Harry Mount

Phil Lynott performs with Thin Lizzy (Photo: Getty)

Phil Lynott, from Dublin teenager to rock'n'roll burnout

27 February 2016 9:00 am

It’s often said that there are only seven basic plots in literature. When it comes to biographies of rock stars…

Ireland’s new spirit of gentle maturity

2 January 2016 9:00 am

A gentle spirit has survived Ireland’s many changes

The micro-businesses that give me hope for Belfast

21 November 2015 9:00 am

At Stormont on Saturday, we observed a minute’s silence for the dead of Paris. Our conference group of Brits and…

Guinness and oysters — or beef and Haut-Brion — in deepest Ireland

21 November 2015 9:00 am

We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly…

Domhnall Gleeson as Jim Farrell and Saoirse Ronan as Eilis in ‘Brooklyn’

Colm Toibin on priests, loss and the half-said thing

24 October 2015 9:00 am

Jenny McCartney talks to unstoppable literary force Colm Tóibín about loss, priests and half-said things

Dublin: a small town wrapped in a great city

Theatre, gossip and Guinness: the craic of Dublin

5 September 2015 9:00 am

What a delight it is to toy with a wooden newspaper-holder rather than a smartphone, tucked away in the cosy…

A broad farce about banking’s dirty secrets in post-Celtic-Tiger Dublin

1 August 2015 9:00 am

It’s not Paul Murray’s settings or themes — decadent aristocrats, clerical sex abuse, the financial crisis — that mark him…

The Irish Times: read by the smug denizens of Dublin 4 and responsible for the Celtic Tiger property bubble

21 March 2015 9:00 am

The most successful newspapers have a distinct personality of their own with which their readers connect. In Britain, the Daily…

The theatrical Constance Markewicz founded the military boy scouts, who would later staff the IRA

When Irish nationalism meant sexual adventure

18 October 2014 9:00 am

One of the easiest mistakes to make about history is to assume that the past is like the recent past,…

English tea-chests are thrown into Boston harbour, 16 December 1773

A Labour MP defends the Empire – and only quotes Lenin twice

14 June 2014 8:00 am

In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is —  you might…