My book on failure will be out in April! In Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption, I look at how we talk about failure in public discourse, as well as across film, literature, and performance.

My last commission of the year just disappeared with a pop, so to console myself I'm rereading this. Aside from anything else, this is the best cover from all Amis's novels when they rejacketed them in a series look about 20 years ago. It's just perfect.

I've written a novel, Experts in a Dying Field. It's out on Penguin Sandycove in June. It's about about a band and a tragedy & art for art's sake & aging & loss & community & Dublin. There's a fox in it. & sheet music. The beautiful cover's by Jack Smyth. You can preorder: linktr.ee/expertsinady...

#TNAConnections Have you had a chance to explore our newest Gold Seam, Parchment Conquest (1171–1307)? 150 years ago Henry Savage Sweetman published the first of five volumes that would become foundational to the study of medieval Ireland. virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/C...

Book of the Year Eoin at his best—sentence by sentence. Courageous, stark, & uncompromising. Taking a true story, he nevertheless creates—like all great writers—his own unique version of that world, complete with its own language, which reveals the truth more clearly than reality can reveal itself.

I back this.

“Sara could commit adultery at one end and weep for her sins at the other, and enjoy both operations at once.” Me on Joyce Cary's great trilogy - Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth - where we observe the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us:

Our latest window display to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the arrival of the Pollard Collection of Children’s Books to @tcddublin.bsky.social Library. And...the full-day symposium kicking off now @tlrhub.bsky.social Find out more about the Pollard Collection here: bit.ly/449AL54

Oh hey! Thanks to Kevin Smith for a nice mention of the "ticklish deadpan" in Ghost Mountain in today's @irishtimes.com Hat tip @sarahgilmartin.bsky.social 🙏 www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Other half in IT….

very grateful for this kind endorsement for 'Irish Culture and Partition, 1920-1955' by @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social @qubhistory.bsky.social Prof Fearghal McGarry

📣 Job Vacancy 📣 Teaching Fellow in English Literature (0.5 FTE, Fixed Term – Spring Semester 2026) Mary Immaculate College, Limerick The appointee will have expertise in contemporary English Literature. Full details: www.mic.ul.ie/about-mic/va... Closing date: 2pm on Tuesday, 18 November 2025

It is the booksellers who put books into the hands of readers, who host events and signings, who champion Irish writers. Nothing we do would be possible without them. Support your local bookshops this week - ceannaigh go háitiúil, ceannaigh earraí Éireannacha ❤️

The book isn’t out until January in Ireland and March in the States, but if you’d like a copy eventually here is the pre-order discount code. I’ll share it again and have some launches planned in Bellaghy, Belfast and Dublin for late Feb/ early March. Do come along, I’d be glad to see you.

A short clip from Leonard and Hungry Paul for those who want a quick peek before tomorrow night. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

DRUID THEATRE: FIFTY YEARS by PATRICK LONERGAN 🎭 We are delighted to be publishing this fully-illustrated and authorised history of the iconic institution that is Druid Theatre, written by Patrick Lonergan with a foreword from Fintan O'Toole.

4x4-year, fully-funded PhD opportunities to work with an interdisciplinary group at Trinity College Dublin 2026-2030. One of these is to work with me on a public history and cultural heritage PhD, in collaboration with one of Dublins most interesting neighbourhoods. www.tcd.ie/graduatestud...

Crossword editor’s desk: clues for Michael Stipe and a life in puzzles

A new museum dedicated to the life of Anglo-Irish Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton has opened in his native Kildare. Among the features at the Shackleton Experience is the actual cabin in which he died in 1922. http://jrnl.ie/6840929

The Poems of Seamus Heaney review – collected works reveal his colossal achievement www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

"The books seen here are some of the many which will be housed in our new Seamus Heaney Poetry Library at No. 11 Parnell Square."

'With a marvellous cast of characters and even an ending that nods at James Joyce's 'The Dead', it's hard to know what more could be asked of this winning piece of work.' - Pat Carthy, Sunday Independent INJURY TIME by Kevin Smith is out NOW! It's a brilliant novel-

“Some writers have no ear for the music.” I interviewed Ian McEwan for the @irishtimes.com about his new novel, about whether “early school leavers make bad decisions” … and what he didn’t like about his friend Martin Amis’s writing. In print now, online soon.

Fun day in the sun with Kevin Smith signing copies of his amazing novel INJURY TIME all over Dublin! Signed copies are now available at: 📕 @booksupstairs.bsky.social 📘 Dubray Books Mary St 📗 Hodges Figgis Big ups to the booksellers for their support ✨️

Incredibly sad. A man with a most beautiful mind - a true intellectual in the best sense of the word.

The Irish language is a joy not a burden: in what other tongue is a penis a wild carrot? | Una Mullally

October Books of the Month- smart choices from @dubraybooks.bsky.social including #InjuryTime from Kevin Smith @lilliputpress.bsky.social

Congratulations Gareth, look forward to reading

My other half on book-signing tour for #InjuryTime @lilliputpress.bsky.social & delighted to make the washing-machine window @dubraybooks.bsky.social

📣 It's publication day! 🔥Burning Swamps🔥 is out with @universitypress.cambridge.org ! My book tells the forgotten history of peat in the context of Russia’s industrialization & electrification and points to the lingering presence of past extraction 1/5 #envhist #energysky

First sighting of Scribendi in the wild! A gorgeous, gorgeous book celebrating the last forty years of Irish writing ❤️

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

We have a cover! ‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ will be published by Oxford University Press on 10 September 2026. Set your watches, mark your calendars, and spread the word!

Congratulations @sineadgleeson.bsky.social and @louisekennedy.bsky.social and thank you @dubcitycouncil.bsky.social - great to see a big group of people celebrating Norah Hoult today in Terenure 💫

Injury Time by Kevin Smith: Engrossing and supremely witty

New from @lilliputpress.bsky.social 'Injury Time' by Kevin Smith This novel is a poignant, acerbic look at a man out of sync with the world around him. available to buy @omahonysbooks.bsky.social 📖 sample to look inside and share www.jellybooks.com/cloud_reader...

Fabulous launch last night for Kevin Smith’s #InjuryTime - now at number 1 @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social - thanks to everyone for coming @tlrhub.bsky.social @profdarryljones.bsky.social @etaintannam.bsky.social @klillington.bsky.social @lilliputpress.bsky.social

Excited to release the conference programme for 'Ireland and the American Revolution: 250th Anniversary Perspectives'. There are only a few tickets left, so if you would like to attend I would suggest getting one as soon as possible. Attendance is free but booking is essential.

Just arrived. Looking forward to reading this. @lilliputpress.bsky.social

Happy publication week to this gem of a book, INJURY TIME by KEVIN SMITH 🍷🎉 Injury Time is the poignant, acerbic and at times hilarious story of Fenton Conville; businessman, upper-class, lapsed-Protestant. He coasts through life with his mates and his money in a sleepy village at the edge of-

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...

Magical! @mcdiarmidlucy.bsky.social

Looking forward to this even more now…

Lough Neagh and its system of peripheral waterways on course to record worst year of algal blooms to date. While rescue plans for Ireland's largest inland waterbody stall, the fallout from this pollution crisis deepens. My story in today's @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/environment/...

SCRIBENDI by STEVE PYKE 📸 We are delighted to be publishing this landmark book which features over 100 portraits and interviews with Ireland's greatest contemporary writers, captured through the lens of one of the world's most renowned photographers, Steve Pyke ✨️