Irish Literature
Literature marks the soul and the heart of a country. As John Montague wrote as his epigram to Poetry in the shop, "Poetry is the whiskey of the soul, prose is the stout... let them both pour out." The problem is, as Seamus Heaney wryly remarked looking at our shelves of Irish Poetry, "There's an awful lot of it in it". The great pleasure in all of this is discovering what the Ballinasloe farmer enthused about when defining the latter: "Poetry is the art of saying something we know already in a new and exciting way". Discovering Ireland's heart and soul through her literature is a warm and delightful journey and, whether it is through fiction, prose, poetry or drama, we are delighted to find the books that will make the journey pleasurable.
For specific Irish writers, please go to our Irish Writers section.
For Irish poetry, please go to our Irish Poetry section.