In the dystopian novel “Prophet Song”, the protagonist, Eilish Stack, fights to protect her family in an Ireland ruled by a totalitarian regime that uses emergency powers to suspend civil rights. Her husband is arrested, her son is called up to serve in the army, and when civil war breaks out, Eilish and her remaining children are caught up in the fighting, trapped in their home in Dublin.
When Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in New Ross, County Wexford, makes a delivery to the local convent and “training school for girls” during Christmastime in 1985, he has strong suspicions that the nuns are abusing the young women in their care, although he lacks strong evidence. Yet, taking action is challenging, as the church controls almost every aspect of life in the small town, and the other residents seem content to turn a blind eye, preferring not to know what might be happening within the convent.
Marianne and Connell are two teenagers from contrasting social backgrounds who attend the same secondary school in the small town of Carricklea in County Sligo, Ireland. They become friends and lovers but keep their relationship secret from their friends and families. Later, when they both attend Trinity College in Dublin, they rekindle their friendship and end up having an on-off-on love affair.
On All Souls’ Day, the spirit of the late Marcus Conway returns to his home, sitting at his old kitchen table and reflecting on his past life as a husband, father, and civil engineer, and on the changes in Irish society that he witnessed over his lifetime.
Paul Murray’s boarding school novel “Skippy Dies” tells the story of a 14-year-old boy nicknamed “Skippy”, who dies during a doughnut-eating contest. The novel explores the events leading up to his death, including Skippy’s infatuation with Lori, a girl from the school across the road, and the impact of his death on the students and teaching staff. Set in Seabrook College, a fictional boarding school in Dublin inspired by the author’s own school in Blackrock, a suburb of Dublin, “Skippy Dies” offers a poignant and comical portrayal of adolescent life.
“The Dream of the Celt” recounts the life of Sir Roger Casement, who was knighted by the British Crown for his humanitarian efforts, but during the First World War turned against the British, becoming a fighter for Irish independence. The novel focuses on three phases of Casement’s life: his denunciation of the atrocities against the people in the Congo Free State ruled by Belgian King Leopold II; his exposure of the genocidal treatment of people in Peru’s Putumayo region by a multinational rubber company; and his involvement in the Irish independence movement, including his participation in the 1916 Easter Rising, his naive and ill-fated collaboration with the Germans during the First World War, and his subsequent execution by the British for treason.
Eilis Lacey is a shy young woman from Enniscorthy in Ireland, who moves to Brooklyn in the 1950s in search of a better life. She struggles to adapt to her new surroundings but gradually begins to find her place in America. However, when she temporarily returns to Ireland, she faces a difficult choice: will she return to Brooklyn and her Italian lover, or stay in Enniscorthy to care for her mother and perhaps open herself to a romance with an Irishman?
Roseanne is approaching her 100th birthday when she writes down her experiences as a young woman in Sligo, which she hides beneath the floorboards of her room in a mental hospital. The second strand of the narrative is the “commonplace book” of Dr Grene, the hospital’s chief psychiatrist, who attempts to trace Roseanne’s history and discovers some hidden secrets about her past.
Liam Hegarty’s family gathers in Dublin for his funeral after he has drowned himself in the sea. His sister, Veronica, who was always closest to him, tries to make sense of his suicide. She delves into her memories and the family’s history to uncover what happened in Liam’s childhood that shaped him into the loving yet troubled alcoholic man he became.
It is 1847, and the Star of the Sea sets sail from Cobh (County Cork, Ireland) bound for New York. The ship is filled with Irish refugees attempting to escape an Ireland devasted by the Famine. Among the passengers are Lord Meredith, who has evicted many poor farming families from their homes, his maid, a journalist, and a mysterious man on a mission to kill one of the other passengers. Through flashbacks, entries in the captain’s logbook, newspaper articles, letters by the passengers, and other documents, “Star of the Sea” tells the story of the hardships of life in Connemara during the Irish Famine of the 1840s.