Irish Essays

With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.

Arnold focuses on culturally important Irish issues as well as others.

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

MUNCHAUSEN MOM is a series of true crime case opinion essays on the case of Shanda Vander Ark, the 43-year-old woman who murdered her 15-year-old son, Timothy Ferguson, by torturing him and starving him to death. Part One – July 6, 2022 ~ The Day Timothy Ferguson Died is the first of the series. These essays offer my opinion only. As an avid true crime writer and podcaster with over seventeen years of experience in the true crime community on social media, my primary focus is on cases on the public stage ~ post-conviction ~ which involve family violence and child abuse. These essays are ...

"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of...

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, ‘Culture [...] is a study of perfection’.

Self Help was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism". Self Help sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles' death in 1904, it had sold over a quarter of a million. Self-Help elevated Smiles to celebrity status; almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru.

Winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature Named a Best Book of 2022 by Kirkus, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness Named a Best Book of July by Buzzfeed A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction 2022 Summer Read Observer Book of the Week Lammy Finalist “The most beautiful prose...

Winner of the Irish Book of the Year * A New Yorker Best Book of the Year * Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction * Shortlisted for the Nero Novel of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice From one of the most acclaimed Irish writers today, a new novel about...

Every cheese tells a story. Whether it's a fresh young goat's cheese or a big, beefy 18-month-old Cheddar, each variety holds the history of the people who first made it, from the builders of Stonehenge to medieval monks, from the Stilton-makers of the 18th century to the factory cheesemakers of the Second World War. Cheesemonger Ned Palmer takes us on a delicious journey across Britain and Ireland and through time to uncover the histories of beloved old favourites like Cheddar and Wensleydale and fresh innovations like the Irish Cashel Blue or the rambunctious Renegade Monk.

This engagingly personal chronicle by poet Gerald Dawe explores the lives and times of leading Irish writers, including W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bowen, Patrick Kavanagh, James Plunkett, John McGahern, Stewart Parker and Leontia Flynn, alongside lesser-known names from the earlier decades of the twentieth century, such as Ethna Carberry, Alice Milligan, Joseph Campbell and George Reavey. The Wrong Country also portrays the changing cultural backgrounds of the author’s contemporaries, such as Thomas Kilroy, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin, Colm Tóibín, ...

Abridged CDs * 4 CDs, 5 hours “Denis Leary snarls as naturally as most actors smile,†says one critic of the writer and comic. In Why We Suck, Leary snarls to brilliant effect. With his patented highspeed ranting and killer comic instinct, Denis Leary has become a beloved antihero...

There’s no sweeter music to a proud farmer’s ears than to hear his firstborn say he wants to be a farmer when he’s older. Todd closes his eyes and wills the pain meds to kick in so he can try to get some sleep before the sun rises. As he winces in pain, he then smiles to himself so proud to know that his legacy will live on through his children and hopefully for many generations to come. Farming is not just a business, it’s a lifestyle. And not everybody is up to it – that’s for sure. But the farming gene runs deep in Todd’s family, and he’s thankful that all three of his ...

Brilliant, dark stories of women’s lives by “a very major talent” (Joseph O’Connor, Irish Times) In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women’s lives are etched by poverty—material, emotional, sexual—but also splashed by beauty...

Having had occasion to look around for “something to read,” with long and short pieces that would not prove too deeply engaging, Leonard Wibberley—author of The Mouse that Roared as well as over 100 other novels—curated a personal selection of such choices from his writings. They are both published and unpublished works by this thoughtful and humorous man. Read all at once if one is so inclined, or savored in smaller samples, they offer selections to fit almost any mood. There is Prevarication Jones for a bit of humor, Concerning the Divinity for some personal philosophy, The ...

Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books - selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude - have been described as ‘virtuoso performances’ and ‘small masterpieces'. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche.

The international sensation that illuminates the experiences women are supposed to hide—from addiction, anger, sexual assault, and infertility to joy, sensuality, and love. WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR “Emilie Pine’s voice is razor-sharp and raw; her story is utterly...

“[Doyle] imparts a sense of poignancy and glimpses of happiness, of grief and loss and small moments of connection . . . you’re left feeling close to dazzled.” —Daphne Merkin, New York Times Book Review A brilliantly warm and witty portrait of our pandemic lives, told in ten heartrending...

Novelist and critic Colm Tóibín provides “a fascinating exploration of writers and their families” (Entertainment Weekly) and “an excellent guide through the dark terrain of unconscious desires” (The Evening Standard) in this brilliant collection of essays that explore the...

The Sound of the Shuttle is an eloquent and compelling selection of essays written over four decades by Belfast-born poet Gerald Dawe, exploring the difficult and at times neglected territory of cultural belonging and northern Protestantism. The title, taken from a letter of John Keats during a journey through the north-east in 1818, evokes the lives, now erased from history, of the thousands of workers in the linen industry, tobacco factories and shipyards of Belfast. Sketching in literary, social and political contexts to widen the frame of reference, Dawe offers fascinating insights into...