In @nytopinion.nytimes.com There’s no perfect parallel between the ongoing war in Gaza and the Northern Irish Troubles, Megan Stack writes, “but it’s worth recalling that Northern Ireland’s conflict was also dismissed as unresolvable.”

quote of the week just dropped

The power of translation cannot be underestimated, mostly for good but also ill - Scientology uses translators of relatively small languages to spread their cult, a recent translation into Irish turned a neutral 'gay' into 'f*gg*t' - another reason to celebrate careful, respectful, human translation

One thing about Banville is that he always gives good Banville. Lots to enjoy here – @martindoyle.bsky.social holding his own in this shadow boxing interview/quip-a-thon. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Banville’s fiction is peppered with words, such as contemnor, which readers must look up. What does it mean? “I can’t remember,” he says. However, “I found a wonderful word the other day, invaginate. It doesn’t mean what you think. It simply means to form a sheath” www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Discussing Dirty Linen on France 24 ahead of my evrnt with Neil Hegarty at the @centreculturelirlandais on Thursday as part of my month’s residency. If you’re in Paris , come along www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/...

Nice interview with Yang Hao. I reviewed her fascinating new novel, Diablo's Boys, in the Irish Times last week. Translated by Nicky Harman and Michael Day. ‘Dublin should be a joyful city but there is a certain sadness floating in the air’ www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Wonderful few days in Mexico City hosted by UNAM/La Cátedra Extraordinaria Eavan Boland-Anne Enright de Estudios Irlandeses - thanks to Hannah McCarthy for this great write up also featuring my @ucc.ie colleague Nuala Finnegan

I interviewed the brilliant Brenda Fricker about her harrowing new memoir. Very glad to have met her www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Power is the rock on which truth founders. The mainstream media, with a few exceptions, is a single-issue lobby group, whose purpose is to assert the rights of capital. Here's what I've learnt about the industry in 40 years in journalism. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Best Irish Books of 2025: your Culture Night (and Christmas) guide to children’s literature. Elaina Ryan of Children’s Books Ireland on its latest guide to the best of Irish writing www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

‘It’s a phenomenon - we’re very privileged’: Contemporary Irish women writers celebrated at symposium in Mexico. Irish studies programme in Mexico has introduced students to writers such as Sally Rooney and Claire Keegan, writes Hannah McCarthy www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

For Irish women writers, James Joyce was never a shadow but a light, writes Annalisa Mastronardi. Many Irish women writers have engaged with Joyce - both challenging and building on his legacy in their fiction. In studying them, I was also studying myself www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Roddy Doyle: ‘I got a phone call from one of the New Yorker’s famous fact-checkers’ . Doyle, Anne Enright, Colin Barrett and Belinda McKeon reflect on their relationship with the magazine ahead of an Abbey Theatre celebration. Plus panel listing all Irish in mag www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Failures to amend an archaic 18th-century constitution is feeding polarisation and paralysis, historian argues. Review by Prof Dan Geary

Conor Gearty obituary - The Guardian www.theguardian.com/law/2025/sep...

Lucy Caldwell: ‘People often misunderstand the appeal of a short story’. The Belfast writer, a judge of the BBC Short Story Award and a former winner, celebrates the undervalued art of the short story www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Ed Burke: ‘Gotcha’ claims about Heather Humphreys’s husband have no place in a shared island

My @irishtimes.com fiction in translation column is now online for subscribers. Fiction from Romania, Italy, Haiti, China and Gaza. Fiction in translation: Yang Hao an exciting new voice in Chinese – and Irish – literature www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

First time seeing this - the line “I wear the sun like a shawl on my neck and arms.” is sublime.

Anna Fitzgerald wins John McGahern Book Prize. Girl in the Making author discusses with Prof Frank Shovlin her coming-of-age debut novel selected by judge Colm Tóibín www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

The Irish football team is a banana skin, wrapped inside a whoopee cushion trapped inside a trombone slide.

Simon Harris and his family have faced credible death threats in recent days. This morning Elon Musk piles in by falsely claiming Harris is stopping McGregor from running for president.

Cauvery is one of the nicest people you could ever meet, and I hate that she has to write this. We need leadership and firm action now before the very worst of us succeed in dragging us all down with them

Author Arundhati Roy: ‘We are actually swimming in a sewer of moral rot’ The Booker-winning novelist on her difficult relationship with her mother, how the Beatles ‘gave her oxygen’, and how ‘everything that Trump is doing now already happened in India in 2014′ www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

My interview with Colm Tóibín: ‘All the emotion I was suppressing, that I didn’t know what to do with, was grief’. He discusses taking ketamine as therapy; loathing business news; writing method; novellas; plot vs atmosphere; point of view; the importance of sleep www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Julia Kelly: ‘My mum died swimming in the Galápagos at 71... it was a strangely beautiful end for her’. The author on her new memoir, Still; why she always expects a crisis; and her admiration for David Attenborough www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Sally Rooney up for Sky Arts Award. My newsletter: Festival of Italian and Irish Literature in Ireland; Baillie Gifford longlist; Paul Lynch honoured; John Banville celebrated; Knowth wins EAA Book Prize; Cundill History Prize; Norah Hoult plaque; tomorrow’s pages www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Julia Roberts to narrate Leonard and Hungry Paul. Books newsletter: a preview of tomorrow’s pages and a wrap of the latest news - Murder One crime writing festival, Clifden Arts Festival and Allingham Festival www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

These poetry projects I do with Leeds Irish Health and Homes give that community the chance to express important things about their lives in a form which will be remembered. They are run on a shoestring but truly valuable so huge thanks Steve and @martindoyle.bsky.social for support and publicity.

Fairytale of Forestside: The fourth circle of hell. Summer fiction: Sandra Kavanagh’s narrator Margo is tormented while out shopping in Belfast www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Feminist punk fan mail from the Maze Prison. How a loyalist prisoner became a champion of The Raincoats, a Troops Out Movement-supporting all-girl punk band. By Audrey Golden www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Perhaps, one day, schoolkids will study this squalid little chapter in British terror-panic history. When they do, I hope these two headlines from today are printed side by side, with clear annotation of which individual faced more outrage and condemnation.

Very happy to tell you that my novel Dooneen will be published next June by Fitzcarraldo Editions (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social) and New Directions (@ndbooks.bsky.social). Many thanks to Jacques and Barbara - both of whom say lovely things here - and to superagent @laurencelaluyaux.bsky.social.

Big game energy in South Africa - “I am close enough to the lioness, lying in the shade beside her mate and cub, to observe how heavily she is breathing. Our guide explains that she has eaten so much that her stomach is pressing on her lungs. My spirit animal.” www.irishtimes.com/life-style/t...

Would you like to contribute to the public consultation about the Basic Income for the Arts? 💡 Fill out this survey from Minister O’Donovan at the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport: ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/run...

Bernie McGill’s last collection This Train is For was fantastic, and justifiably won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She has donated her archive to Linenhall Library and talks about her work with @smeeho7.bsky.social on 7 Nov:

Statement in response to the killing by Israel of Al Jazeera journalists by the Irish Times chapel of the National Union of Journalists

"In 1946, to celebrate George Bernard Shaw’s 90th birthday, it published one million books in one day: 100,000 copies each of ten of his titles. (They sold out in six weeks.)" I wrote about Penguin Books, its history and its Irish writers, for the publisher's 90th birthday, in @irishtimes.com:

Summer fiction: Sackville Place by Maggie Armstrong. A new short story by Old Romantics author online and in print today www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

George Morrison RIP. My interview from 2008 when he was a fesity 85. www.irishtimes.com/culture/reel...

Pioneering filmmaker George Morrison dies aged 102

Alvy Carragher and Ali Choudhary win Eavan Boland Award 2025

Seán Rocks: Ireland has lost one of its great cultural champions. A fine tribute by Mick Heaney www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

Miami Showband massacre 50 years on: ‘The trauma lasts for ever’ – Stephen Travers. Today is the 50th anniversary of the Miami Showband murders. The Irish Times has published the chapter in Dirty Linen about it, based on my interview with survivor Stephen Travers. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

It is with profound sadness that RTÉ announces the death of radio presenter and actor Seán Rocks. Seán died last night following a brief illness at the age of 63.    Seán is survived by his beloved Catherine and sons Christian and Morgan. May he rest in peace.