Today is the 20th anniversary of John McGahern's death. Tonight on Arena, Catriona Crowe, Pat Collins & I will be discussing John's work and legacy. Pat directed the documentary John McGahern A Private Life and the adaptation of That They May Face The Rising Sun. @rteradio1.bsky.social/online 7pm.

Alltar (Imbolc), from a fallen Hawthorn tree Spioraid Gealaí / Moon Spirits (Samhain) Céad agus a hOcht Rún (One Hundred and Eight Intentions, 108 forms carved from the trunk of one fallen bog oak Tír Breac / Speckled Land by Anna MacLeod is at The Dock until May www.thedock.ie/exhibitions/...

The Power of Light What a great event in @thedockarts for the 20th anniversary of the death of John McGahern With @sineadgleeson.bsky.social @mylesdungan.bsky.social ,wonderful reading by Jane Brennan ,chaired by Vincent Woods,presented by the Iron Mountain Literature Festival #booksky

Here's a playlist to go with my book. Best to imagine the band in it as some sort of weird nightmare hodgepodge of all of these excellent songs: open.spotify.com/playlist/5Dg...

Let’s do this Ireland… 🇮🇪⚽️ #COYBIG

One of the greatest Irish novels, unpacking the obligations of family & documenting an Ireland of stifling morality, thankfully long gone. McGahern excels at small-town claustrophobia and there is no better chronicler of Leitrim's green lanes. Honoured to write this foreword. @faberbooks.bsky.social

Great readings from Adrian Duncan and Christodoulos Makris at the launch of Issue 3 of @fallowmedia.bsky.social. Great work by Ian and @maijasofia.bsky.social. Looking forward to the rest of the pieces (and to Adrian’s new novel, out this summer) @serpents-tail.bsky.social

As a kid, I spent a lot of time as a patient in a children's hospital. It's lonely, boring and frightening. So every scrap of human contact was welcome. This is such a bad, dehumanising idea. www.independent.ie/irish-news/c...

The full series of Leonard and Hungry Paul is now available on the RTE Player. Shyness is nice, as Morrissey once sang in the good old days. www.rte.ie/player/serie...

There are so many books here that mean a lot to me. Am honoured that Constellations is among them. The @irishbookawards.bsky.social are celebrating 20 years and looking for your favourite winner of the last two decades. Vote here: form.typeform.com/to/cSuK4oPu #IrishBooks #20YearsOfIBA

"I fight pain, anxiety and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art." Happy 97th birthday Yayoi Kusama. (she's also in the next book) L: Kusama with Untitled (Pumpkin Sculpture) R: Infinity Mirror Room-Phalli’s Field, (see my profile pic)

If you've read @graemethomson.bsky.social's excellent bio of Kate Bush, you'll know what a great music biographer he is. Look foreword to his book on Talk Talk. Pre-order links below @newmodernbooks.bsky.social Any excuse to listen to this again... www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFH5...

Egon Schiele had a such a distinct style of capturing the rawness of bodies. It makes sense that he spent time in a hospital drawing patients, and this piece makes a comparison between artists and doctors and how both perceive the body. archive.ph/XDk8K

”Irish solidarity is no coincidence, as it was on Irish soil that the British developed their colonial project. So much of the exploitation later imposed across the world was honed in the plantations of Ireland.”

Thanks to David for this, and to @emmadonoghue.bsky.social in the Guardian's Bookmarks newsletter at the weekend. I read thousands of Irish short stories researching this book and it was still difficult to narrow it down to 100.

For the day that's in it, I've seen 'Top of the Morning' mentioned in a post by an institution. No one, ever, ever says this in Ireland. Ever. #StPatricksDay ☘️

Happy St. Patrick's Day. ☘️ Garden Garden (1962) by Irish painter Norah McGuinness (1901-1980). You can see it at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin - and it features in my next book. Great to hear there's a McGuinness show opening later this year at Drogheda’s Highlanes Gallery.

For St. Patrick's Day, @foylesforbooks.bsky.social asked Irish writers to recommend Irish books they love. Some great recommendations, inc. @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social on Molly Keane - everyone please read Good Behaviour. In shocking news, I picked Maeve Brennan. www.foyles.co.uk/further-read...

An utterly unique, visually spectacular and 100% joyful show from David Byrne last night. Go see it if he’s playing near you (he’s returns to Dublin’s St Anne’s Park in June).

For IWD, saw Cecilia Vicuña's excellent show at @immaireland.bsky.social with my daughter, and a stunning @lisaoneillmusic.bsky.social show with a pal at Pavilion (including a pin-drop cover of Three Babies by Sinéad O'Connor). The Vicuña show runs until July. Buy Lisa's album: lisaoneill.ie/home/

Also at The Dock: on Friday March 27th, a celebration of John McGahern, on the 20th anniversary of his death. @mylesdungan.bsky.social, Jane Brennan and I will be discussing his work with Vincent Woods. Tickets: www.thedock.ie/whats-on/the... (More McGahern news soon... @faberbooks.bsky.social)

Last year, I took part in a pilot writing residency at The Dock in Leitrim, working on a book I kept calling my "tiny weird non-fiction project". This short residency is now being rolled out and seeking applications. Honoured they used the title. Apply/spread the word. www.thedock.ie/artists/open...

The + body (well, desirable), The - body (sick, surgically sundered). In one dark corridor, moved and jolted by photos of her youth (playful, sexy) with ones of post-surgery & aging. Tracy Emin’s A Second Life at Tate Modern is an eloquent capturing of the wound, and how it influences the work.

Diana Copperwhite's stunning new show, The Only Thing is the Everything, opens this Thursday at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in Dublin 8. As a long-time admirer of her work, it was an honour to write a text to accompany this exhibition. www.kevinkavanagh.ie/artists/33-d...

Tomorrow we release the final episode of Backlisted for the foreseeable future.* After ten years, it's a very odd feeling. I am looking forward to spending more time with my books and fewer times on social media. * Boats against the current, we beat on via Patreon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQK...

This excellent anthology about Maeve Brennan's work launches tonight with a sold-out event featuring Roddy Doyle, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and editor @mollyh.bsky.social. My essay is on Brennan's New York, psychogeography, cities & aloneless. @newislandbooks.bsky.social www.newisland.ie/shop/p/an-as...

Cannot wait to read the forthcoming novel by @louisekennedy.bsky.social. Set between Ireland and England, starting in 1982, it tells the story of Róisín and Red. Out in September @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/uk/stations-...

Paula Modersohn-Becker was #BOTD in 1876. Self-Portrait on the Sixth Wedding Anniversary is considered the first nude self-portrait of pregnancy by a woman. PMB is not pregnant here, but was a year later. She died two weeks after the birth of her daughter from a DVT, aged 31.  *also in the next book

As well as Kiki Smith, it’s also the birthday of Russian Cubist & Constructivist painter and costume designer Aleksandra Ekster, born in 1882.

Baffled at anyone who is still using the platform (and trying to justify it).

Born, 2002, by Kiki Smith - born on this day in 1954

“They are in the grip of the paradise they are building. This piece is one of the reasons @alexanderchee.bsky.social is one of my favourite writers/people/cocktail makers. On visibility & desire as a mixed Asian & white queer man (as Shane is) in Heated Rivalry open.substack.com/pub/querent/...

Despite the arts space’s best efforts, The Complex announces its closure today, in the latest space loss for Dublin arts and culture, as government ministers fail to act to save it. We are culturally rich yet politically inept. So it goes ad infinitum nialler9.com/the-complex-...

I met with performance artist Tehching Hsieh in New York, to discuss his extraordinary performance art (he's in the next book, and influenced Nell's practice in Hagstone). The Dia show includes the time-clock he punched every hour, every day for a year. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

We read 129 books, narrowed it down to four, and our winner in the fiction category for the Nero Book Awards is Benjamin Wood's Seascraper. An utterly immersive read, steeped in atmosphere, and a brilliant examination of how circumstance can hem someone in. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

A great Irish short story collection Top 10 by @laurenmurphyjourno.bsky.social. Honoured that The Art of the Glimpse is included. @headofzeus.bsky.social www.rte.ie/culture/2026...

New newsletter about sculptor Barbara Hepworth, born today in 1903. In 1943, she outlined to art historian Herbert Read why she was overlooked for Touring Exhibitions: “1) Being a woman. Being abstract. Being young. Being a wife and mother, etc..” momentsofrecognition.substack.com/p/on-artisti...

Delighted that my next novel Richard Heart Julianne will be coming out on the mighty @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social next year. Hope you enjoy it. I loved writing it.

​Portrait of Madame Matisse (The Green Line) 1905​, by Henri Matisse #BOTD in 1869​. One critic thought it encouraged the viewer to se​e “a strange and terrible aspect”​ in Amélie​ - it was painted a time when their marriage was said to be in trouble​. (Writing about this painting in the next book).

I'm alive because of regular platelet donors like these. There are only 2,000 donors in Ireland, and platelets are vital for neo-natal units, cancer treatment and post-surgery. As 2026 resolutions go, becoming a donor is a good one. More info at giveblood.ie/platelets www.rte.ie/news/2025/12...

“A third told me that he’d heard publishers have soured on any nonfiction that isn’t “Hollywood friendly” – ie made-for-TV memoirs.” Great to hear as a writer who has just finished writing a un-Hollywood non-fiction book. It’s a hard industry and no mistake… www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

The great Surrealist painter and anti-fascist activist Remedios Varo was #BOTD in 1908. Nicknamed one of the “three witches” of Surrealism with Kati Horner (who took this photo) and Leonora Carrington – Varo is pictured wearing one of Carrington’s masks. L: Creation of the Birds (1957).

Last night, after Colm Tóibín's excellent T.S Eliot lecture at the @abbeytheatre.bsky.social, @faberbooks.bsky.social gave out copies of Edna's O'Brien's speech, given on her 90th birthday in 2020. (She would have turned 95 today).

Hamnet is exceptional, the central performances are extraordinary. The portrayal of grief - its accumulations, the incomprehension - is so well done (the whole audience wept). The pace of what we consume is breakneck, but Zhao’s direction slows everything down to make us reflect on what’s important.

Tutti-Frutti, 1966, by Helen Frankenthaler, #BOTD in New York in 1928 (she features in the next book) This painting was also used on the NYRB Classics cover of Renata Adler's Speedboat www.nyrb.com/products/spe...

Gaza Through Their Eyes opens at Dublin's City Hall tomorrow, featuring the work of photojournalists who have been documenting the reality of life in the Gaza strip since October 2023. Runs until December 20th, free admission. @unrwa.org

So apart from being very talented my brother David is very brave. While his film Eternity was being wrapped up he had a very serious diagnosis and he has written about it here time.com/7339094/eter...

O Holy Night is over on my Bandcamp. All proceeds from sales of this will go to DEPAUL IRELAND in aid of their Home For Christmas campaign. Dedicated to Mama Bear. Thanks in advance of shares and coins in the fountain . x . thehedgeschools.bandcamp.com/track/o-holy...

Too bad that the world of writing and journalism might be losing @patrickfreyne.bsky.social to Hollywood. This is very funny (go see his brother David’s film Eternity) www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

this is why i'm sceptical about ireland's emphasis on individual artist bursaries and artists basic income... it means we can pay rent but its ultimately just more money that goes into landlords pockets, it's not enough, artists need infrastructure and cities need spaces like this, for everyone