Author Maggie O’Farrell: I had a teacher at school who took the register, called my name and said to me, ‘Are your family in the IRA?’
The novelist Maggie O’Farrell on leaving Ireland, growing up in Britain, life as a child with a stammer and her new book
Gambling Man by Lionel Barber: A lively account of the rollercoaster life of SoftBank’s billionaire founder
My Animals and Other Animals by Bill Bailey: Tales of the comedian’s feathered, furred and scaled friends
Poem of the Week: Gó gan Ghá/Unnecessary Lie
The Scribes of March: in praise of writers’ groups
A Benedict Kiely Reader: Drink to the Bird and Selected Essays review - Words on the importance of place
Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year: Celebrity ‘manifesting’ influences 2024 choice
Believe Nothing Until it is Officially Denied: Claud Cockburn and the Invention of Guerrilla Journalism - A manic press career
Book Club
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Motivations of the Irish who served in the first World War were complicated
By Ronan McGreevy and Dr Emer Purcell
Children’s author Sibéal Pounder: ‘I was bullied at school. It made me analyse people in a forensic way’
By Martin Doyle
Booker winner Samantha Harvey: ‘My grandad bought land in Donegal. He was afraid of nuclear war, and thought Ireland would be exempt’
By John Self
Wise Women by Sharon Blackie and Angharad Wynne: Elder female archetypes liberated from ancient European stories
By Adrienne Murphy
The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future – Does China have an appetite to take its ultimate prize by force?
By Oliver Farry
Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey: A powerful exposé of ‘law enforcement misconduct and chicanery’
By Brian Cliff
Mad, Isn’t It? by Emma Doran and Country Fail by Killian Sundermann: Two comedy books that offer genuine comic relief
By Brigid O'Dea
