From age two up to my early teens we lived round the corner from Mr and Mrs J and their three lads, a family who were notorious in the area. Mrs J did not dress like the other mums, whose style choices tended towards vaguely shapeless dresses, comfy shoes and headscarves – this was the … More Milkman by Anna Burns
One summer holiday, as a ‘project’, I decided to research my family. Not my family tree, you understand, but my family. I was ten, I think; eleven at most. I devised a list of fifteen questions and then interviewed all my immediate family members, parents, brother, sister, cousin, aunts, uncle, granddad. (As children go I … More Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
My father hated DIY whatever its shape and size. He had an old, brown canvas bag of tools that lived on the floor of the shed and only he was allowed to open. It hardly ever saw the light of day. Occasionally, though, there’d be something needing doing that mum didn’t want to tackle, putting … More The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney
‘I did not know that a person could hold up a wall made of imaginary bricks and mortar against the horrors and cruel, dark tricks of time that assail us, and be the author therefore of themselves.’ So writes Roseanne McNulty, a centenarian patient in Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, as she secretly puts pen to … More The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
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