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Professor Richard Kirkland joins in conversation with Roy Foster, the Society's Vice President, on Kirkland’s new book Irish London: A Cultural History 1850–1916 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). In the years following the Irish Famine (1845–52), London became one of the cities of Ireland. The number of Irish in London swelled to over 100,000 and from this mass migration emerged a distinctive ...
As tension persists over the future of the Protocol and frustration is leading to renewed speculation of the possibility of a United Ireland we engage with four writers whose work is gathered in a landmark new anthology reflecting on the border. The New Frontier: Reflections from the Irish Border (New Island, 2021) is a landmark anthology of fiction, non-fiction ...
To mark the centenary of the birth of Belfast-born writer Brian Moore (1921-1999) Brian Moore at 100 and the Irish Literary Society have partnered to screen The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (7 December) and deliver tonight's talk with Dr Sinéad Moynihan and Lucy Caldwell. Designed to coincide with the centenary of his birth, the Exeter University project has sought ...
Sinéad Gleeson and Emilie Pine join the ILS to discuss their recent books of essays. Pine's winning last year's An Post Irish Book of the Year seemed to mark a reemergence of the essay form in Irish literature. Perhaps the flourishing of literary journals in Ireland has encouraged this, perhaps the renewed appreciation of Hubert Butler's work has been an ...
We're delighted to welcome back Jess Kidd to the Society to discuss her novel, The Night Ship. The novel is based on the extraordinary story of the Batavia, the flagship of the Dutch East India Company that in 1628 was wrecked on Morning Reef, on the Houtman Abrolhos islands off western coast of Australia. Its wrecking was followed by factions ...
New York in the late 1960s: Mae escapes a run-down an apartment, an alcoholic mother and her mother’s occasional boyfriend to a new life as a typist for Andy Warhol, transcribing conversations with his friends and associates to provide the material for an unconventional novel. A mordantly funny investigation of celebrity, obsession, womanhood and sexuality, Nothing Special (Bloomsbury) is itself ...
Mark O’Connell’s latest book, A Thread of Violence, concerns the murders committed by Malcolm Macarthur in 1982 of a nurse, Bridie Gargan, and a farmer, Dónal Dunne. It is both an utterly compelling account of one of Ireland's most notorious crimes and an interrogation of the nature of true crime writing itself. When Macarthur, the heir to a small fortune, ...
Join us for the London launch of a fascinating new work by Dr Ellen McWilliams. Resting Places: On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution could be read as a memoir or a collection of personal essays, but it is neither – literary scholar Lucy McDiarmid describes it as 'the creation of a new literary form'. Resting Places offers up an ...
The Society welcomes back Rónán Hession for the London launch of his latest novel. The author will be discussing Ghost Mountain with the author and TLS critic David Collard. There will be an audience Q&A followed by a book signing, a glass of wine is included in the ticket price. Ghost Mountain is a mountain that appears suddenly, changing the ...
We are sorry to report that we will not be joined tonight by Nuala O'Connor as planned. Our apologies, this is due to unforeseen circumstances preventing her travel. We have more than a dozen poets reading their poems and reflecting on the work of the press. We're delighted to welcome back to the Society Nuala O'Connor and Alan Hayes representing ...
