I've been busy reading over the last while because I've been asked by @dublincitylibs.bsky.social to give a talk about books to brighten up the winter evenings! 📚 💕 I'll be in Raheny Library on Wed 10th and Cabra Library on Thurs 11th Dec at 6.30pm Please share 🙏 www.dublincity.ie/events/books...

In 2019 IT TOOK 26 focus groups, over 50 shamrocks and “less than €2 million” for Aer Lingus to concoct its new image. I suspect rebranding Dublin Airport in 2025 would cost a lot more . . . . #why (info from @thejournal.ie )

Irish Book Awards 2025: Roisín O’Donnell, Claire Gleeson and Manchán Magan among winners. Jacqueline Connolly, Andrew Porter, Cecelia Ahern, Andrea Mara, Elaine Feeney, Joseph O’Connor and Michael D Higgins also honoured www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

The Loved Ones by Wendell Berry in @newyorker.com

Memoirs, myths and Midnight’s Children: Salman Rushdie’s 10 best books – ranked! By @john-self.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

This 1,200-Page Poetry Book Affirms Seamus Heaney’s Towering Genius www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/b...

Delighted for John Banville. ‘Christine Falls’ announced as One Dublin One Book for April @dubcitycouncil.bsky.social @dublincityoflit.bsky.social @dublincitylibs.bsky.social @faberbooks.bsky.social

Very very proud of these two authors, as well as the Littke Island team that delivered these books so beautifully. Awards like this are for the authors and the writing – but at the same time, if you don’t have great editorial, design and marketing behind a book, it won’t get picked for prizes.

At Uisneach, the sacred centre of Ireland, 2,500 people gather to scatter Manchán Magan’s ashes

New episode of Get Around To It alert! This week we only have the amazing Joan As Police Woman and Irish artist Isabel Nolan telling us what they got around to lately - icons! Plus we chat Lily Allen, Mr Scorsese, Down Cemetery Road, David Kitt... and so much more podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/p...

Colm Tóbín took on the task of exploring what makes a good love story. Drawing on the works of Nina Simone, Derek Mahon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and more, he suggests that while we may not all have 'one true love', most of us have at least one 'what if?' www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Limited edition artworks! By Lauren O’Hara! From her new book OSCAR WILDE’S STORIES FOR CHILDREN! And you can have some! From Irish bookshops! Read more to find out more! #kidlit #illustration #speirgorm

Who’s a fan of Colm Tóibín?

Colm Tóibín on the appeal of the novella. Available for the first time in a beautiful standalone edition, “A Long Winter,” is set in the mountains of Catalonia in Spain—includes a new afterword from the author. On sale 11/11: https://bit.ly/3L1sDgC

Catholic correspondent for the Irish Times, Breda O'Brien has a headline today about Catherine O'Connolly's 'vibes-based politics' which is bad apparently if you're a socialist, but not if your vibes tell you a piece of bread is literally God's flesh.

Amazing show by @steveearle.bsky.social last night at The Helix 👏👏

It's 2 years since the launch of my chapbook Traces in Pearse St Library - such a special evening with family, friends, neighbours & work colleagues all cheering me on😍 It still amazes me that I published a book and I am very proud of it! If you're thinking of doing it yourself I'd recommend it.

My Anne Enright interview: “I am fed up saying I have a problem with authority, and that is why I do not write realism. Naturalistic fiction is a lie – and a dull one at that. This is me changing the narrative from your ‘broken’ to my ‘honest’ or even ‘smart’.” www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Thanks to Write by the Sea for sending on these photos from the sold-out event in St Peter's Church in Kilmore Quay. I really enjoyed chatting to @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social and Donal Ryan about their brilliant novels The Benefactors and Heart, Be at Peace. If you haven't read them check them out!

‘Really shocking’: Independent Dublin bookstore @booksupstairs.bsky.social damaged in arson attack www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/20...

Excellent tribute to the man and his work by @unamullally.bsky.social In Manchán Magan, Ireland had a writer whose words could light up the synapses www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Really sad to hear the news of Manchán Magan’s death. He was a beautiful man and a great writer. We didn’t know each other well but met regularly & warmly over the years in radio stations, green rooms and the occasional field. Huge sympathy to his family and friends. RIP

2/2 He was always in awe of everyone and everything, and never realised that he himself was a wonder of the world. Goodbye to an adventurer and a friend . . . .

1/2 Yesterday, we lost one of our greatest souls. Manchan came to Borris the first year in 2012 and most years since, sharing profundity and levity, outpourings of wisdom, story, curiosity, concern and laughter.

Lovely audience for the @spitfirefilly.bsky.social talk @ Dublin Festival of History about her new book ‘Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain’ @headofzeus.bsky.social

TODAY’s events at the Dublin Festival of History www.travelextra.ie/todays-event...

Remarkably powerful interview with Brenda Fricker on BOC radio show @rteradio1.bsky.social 📻

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

Neil Jordan will be at WCLF Mon 14 July chatting to @cristinleach.bsky.social about his life, career & his memoir Amnesiac 🎟️ www.westcorkmusic.ie/events/2025/amnesiac-neil-jordan/ @irishexaminer.bsky.social @cormackinsella.bsky.social @headofzeus.bsky.social www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ar...

Borris House issues appeal for return of 19th century masonic banner which disappeared during @writingandideas.bsky.social www.rte.ie/news/regiona...

Why Pat McCabe matters - his latest novel Goldengrove reviewed by @paulduane.bsky.social www.rte.ie/culture/2025... @unboundsocials.bsky.social

Anti-Israel sentiment may have prompted taking of 200-year-old @borrishouse banner, owner believes irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/0… This banner was removed during @Writingandideas - the Kavanagh family would love it back

NEW ISSUE! NUMBER 99 | SUMMER 2025 features work by Darragh McCausland, Joe Davies, Karen O’Reilly, Clement Gelly, Juliana Adelman, Nick Holdstock, Rosita Boland. To buy/ subscribe, visit thedublinreview.com @artscouncilireland.bsky.social @cormackinsella.bsky.social @aingealaflannery.bsky.social

The folks @writingandideas.bsky.social are over here now. Why don’t you give them a follow to find out all about this year’s festival and special event over the Summer & Autumn #youwillyouwill festivalofwritingandideas.com

Very sad news tonight about Paul Durcan RIP. A great loss to Irish poetry. Here’s an old interview I did with him from the 90s.

But my favourite Paul Durcan poem is 'On Giving a Poetry Recital to an Empty Hall' Thanks to @cormackinsella.bsky.social for bringing it to my attention a few years ago.

The great Pat McCabe on the bumps and realities of the publishing world. Patrick McCabe: ‘This whole idea of making money out of novels started in the 1980s with Martin Amis and Ian McEwan’ www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Love this interview with Pat McCabe. I'm 1/3 of the way through Poguemahone (2002) and love it. It's taken me this long to get to it because a friend made it sound taxing to read and a bad review put me off. But it's easy going, very readable and zips along. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Pat McCabe on the wireless. A fascinating man. And somehow no nonsense whatsoever about him. Direct.

This week in the column, I rattle on a lot about theatre and art, hoping my editor would let me get way with it. He did. Recent reading includes new novels from Seán Hewitt and @jennymustard.bsky.social and the most recent series of essays from Ta-Nehisi Coates. In Saturday's @independent.ie or:

On introduceable older books and how to find them www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ar...

At home with William Kentridge, South Africa’s greatest living artist. On the eve of two major solo shows and as he turns 70, the artist and director opens up his family house in Johannesburg www.ft.com/content/bae7... via @financialtimes.com

FRIDAY 6th June 2025 1.15 pm the Orangery LIFE ON PLANET EARTH: 2024 @thebookerprizes winner Samantha Harvey (Orbital) in conversation with Nobel Prize-winner Abdulrazak Gurnah (Theft). With arts critic and novelist @suerains.bsky.social @vintagebooks.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

Friday 6th June 1.15pm The Rookery SECRET MIRACLE WORKERS: Biologist and mycologist @merlinsheldrake.bsky.social author of 'Entangled Lives' talks to @manchanmagan.bsky.social about how fungi and their underground networks transform our understanding of how all life works

Jorge Luis Borges and Colm Tóibín in 1982.

Grand Canal Dock was like a lake tonight #loveDublin #grandcanaldock