Move Over, Joyce, Yeats & Co. — Here Are The New Irish Writers

Ireland trots out its literary and artistic heritage at any opportunity, and the country’s writers are as much a tourist draw as its historic castles, quaint villages and rolling green fields. Just last week a prospective new arrival wondered which Irish writers she should be reading. The Guardian’s Book Clinic (written, it should be noted, by an Englishman) suggested Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, and Heaney. They’re all brilliant, of course. They’re also all men and all dead, and arguably their work doesn’t reflect Ireland in 2018. Since Heaney’s death in 2013, the country has undergone massive social change and is currently in the midst of a devastating housing crisis that has produced scenes last witnessedduring the dark days of the Famine.

[Young Skins: Stories by Colin Barrett]

The Guardian article provoked a predictable backlash from the Irish twitterati, and soon enough a corrective from critic Sinead Gleeson appeared. Among the writers who more properly hold a mirror to today’s Ireland are Eimear McBride, Lisa McInerney, Kevin Barry, Sally Rooney, Colin Barrett, Liz Nugent, Lucy Caldwell, and Mike McCormack. For what it’s worth, 2Paragraphs would add Nuala O’Connor, David Park, Donal Ryan, and new Irish Fiction Laureate, Sebastian Barry. Eager readers will of course always welcome book recommendations. Coincidentally, Vulture just unveiled its Premature Attempt at the 21st Century Canon.

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