Irish Books
Episodes
Cracked Lens over a Cold Case: Sebastian Barry's Old God's Time
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Foster, an expert in war narratives at Monash University, helps Chris examine a quirky veteran: the hero of Old God's Time fought in the Malayan...
Placing the Pieces of Grief and Love: Sally Rooney's Intermezzo
22 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Chris's guest to discuss Intermezzo is Madeleine Callaghan (Maddy), Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Maddy exp...
Excavating the Hidden Self: Adrian Duncan's The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lucy Collins of University College Dublin explains that Duncan refuses what we expect of a novel. The ideas of visual art matter more here than the pl...
Back from Brooklyn: Colm Tóibín's Long Island
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
25 years after the events of Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey has integrated to American life successfully, but faces a crisis in consequence of her husband's in...
Grime, Passion, and Addiction: Eimear McBride's The City Changes its Face
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Frances Devlin-Glass, Director of the annual James Joyce celebration Bloomsday Melbourne, sees Joyce's Modernism at work in McBride's novel. ...
Losing All Life's Certainties: Paul Lynch's Prophet Song
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lynch’s Booker-winner is divisive. While Chris Murray wonders whether the characters in Prophet Song could be fleshed out, and the story of a fa...
Disaster on Rails: Emma Donoghue’s "Paris Express"
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Irish Books, Christopher Murray is joined by historian Dianne Hall to unpack Emma Donoghue’s gripping novel "The Paris Expres...
Irish Books Season 1
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hear in-depth discussions of recent Irish books that are worth reading, across a range of genres. Expert guests get to the heart of books you know and...