Irish Literature - Free Library Land Online - Classics

The Lost Soldier's Song

Thu, 24 Mar 1994 22:21:31 +0200

McGinley foregoes his usual murder mystery genre; instead, he presents an historical novel set during the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921.
The story opens and closes with Declan Osborne in jail, being interrogated by British officers. In between, we learn of the sequence of events that has led him there. Set in Ireland at the time of the Black and Tans, Declan is a young man who sets out to join the cause full of doomed idealism.

Shakespeare 2012 - Part II

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 08:33:21 +0300

William Shakespeare finds himself brought forward in time from 1612 to 2012. He explores London and tries to come to terms with the challenges of his new situation.William Shakespeare is back! According to ancient Mayan prophecies, 2012 is a portentous year for humanity. On the evening of 20th June, the hallowed midsummer night, William Shakespeare finds himself mysteriously transported from London in 1612 to London in 2012. Whilst exploring this shocking, strange new world, Shakespeare unwittingly becomes the only person who can prevent a cataclysmic disaster hitting the UK on the 21st December 2012, the day the Mayans predicted the end of time. Can the Bard save Britain ...?This is the second of five instalments.

Shakespeare 2012 - Part III

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:56:00 +0300

William Shakespeare finds himself brought forward in time from 1612 to 2012. He explores London and tries to come to terms with the challenges of his new situation.William Shakespeare is back!According to ancient Mayan prophecies, 2012 is a portentous year for humanity. On the evening of 20th June, the hallowed midsummer night, William Shakespeare finds himself mysteriously transported from London in 1612 to London in 2012.Whilst exploring this shocking, strange new world, Shakespeare unwittingly becomes the only person who can prevent a cataclysmic disaster hitting the UK on the 21st December 2012, the day the Mayans predicted the end of time.Can the Bard save Britain ...?This is the third of five instalments.

Bishop's Delight

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 20:21:31 +0200

Bishop's Delight, set in the confident Ireland of the Celtic Tiger, meditates on the difficulty of separating truth from lies in the frenzy that is the media. When long-serving and charismatic Taoiseach Jim Maguire vanishes while fishing off the Connemara coastline, two rival journalists, Kevin Woody and Tony Sweetman, compete to establish the truth and question the sinister forces that may be at work surrounding Maguire's disappearance. As Woody and Sweetman negotiate their troublesome personal lives while making every effort to keep the story of Maguire's disappearance alive for another day, the uneasy conflict between the old Ireland of stable belief and the new Ireland of questioning uncertainty is exposed.

Shakespeare 2012 - Part I

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:24:49 +0300

William Shakespeare finds himself brought forward in time from 1612 to 2012. He explores London and tries to come to terms with the challenges of his new situation.William Shakespeare is back!According to ancient Mayan prophecies, 2012 is a portentous year for humanity. On the evening of 20th June, the hallowed midsummer night, William Shakespeare finds himself mysteriously transported from London in 1612 to London in 2012.Whilst exploring this shocking, strange new world, Shakespeare unwittingly becomes the only person who can prevent a cataclysmic disaster hitting the UK on the 21st December 2012, the day the Mayans predicted the end of time.Can the Bard save Britain ...?This is the first of five instalments.

Cold Spring

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:21:30 +0200

"He got down on his hands and knees and reached in under the bed where he kept his toolbox. Careful not to make a sound, he searched desperately for a weapon of defence. Then the bedroom door creaked behind him and he knew he was no longer alone in the room..."When one of the few remaining villagers in Leaca is murdered, suspicion falls on the one resident Englishman and outsider, Nick Ambrose.As tensions rise and old forms of law threaten to impose summary justice, the easy and rich fabric of life that has sustained the town for so many years unravels and tears with shocking results.Set in rural western Ireland in 1948, McGinley's novel is a gripping and powerful exploration of community, violence and Irish ways.Review:'Its unrelenting suspense hardly allowed me to put the book aside. You read it as crime fiction but, of course, the fact that the "whodunnit" is not the central question makes the story really interesting. There is so much in it, not only the ethical questions,...

The Devil's Diary

Thu, 24 Mar 1988 22:21:29 +0300

The Devil's Diary is Patrick McGinley's greatest tribute to his master Flann O'Brien, in this dark humoured portrayal of a harrowing Irish landscape in which lunacy reigns.
Idealistic love and death, sibling rivalry and obsessive lust are themes familiar to McGinley's work, focusing here on Arty Brennan, who built factories, a supermarket and a noisy motel, trading a spiritually enriching culture for a "hippiedrome" of second-rate 20th century glitter.

Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 15:17:05 +0300

Goosefoot

Sun, 24 Mar 2019 22:21:30 +0200

Patrick McGinley is able to do what few novelists can: write stories and characters that are drenched in place (specifically, rural Ireland), and yet totally devoid of cheap sentimentality. His landscapes have the edgy, ludicrous beauty of a dream - unstable and prone to capsize into nightmare.

The Trick of the Ga Bolga

Sun, 24 Mar 2019 22:21:33 +0200

Set against World War II, this is a tragi-comic tale of an Englishman who tries to start a potato farm in rural Ireland, and is mistaken for a hero by the locals - with bizarre consequences, escalating to accidental death, suicide, and murder.
"McGinley's story is by turns funny and ferocious. His characters live. His dialogue rings true. His world is as real as the book in your hand" - The Washington Post

Foggage

Wed, 16 Nov 1983 07:34:33 +0300

Kevin Hurley and his earthy twin sister Maureen - who share a remote Irish farmhouse with their bedridden, aged father -have been secret but unashamed lovers for thirty years, ever since their mother's agonizing death from cancer. But now, at 40, Maureen is pregnant, refusing either to go away or to have an abortion. So, to prevent the neighbors from drawing scandalous conclusions, Kevin must find Maureen a partner.

As I Rode by Granard Moat

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 15:06:56 +0200

Rescued from memory by Ireland's leading short-story writer and raconteur, this anthology weaves a rich tapestry of songs, ballads and poetry reaching across three centuries and drawn from the lanes and highways of thirty-two counties. Contents include poetry by W.B.Yeats, A.E., F.R.Higgins, Louis MacNeice, Patrick Kavanagh, Francis Ledwidge and Oliver St John Gogarty; and songs of love, rebellion and in praise of nature including 'The Yellow Bittern', 'The Bold Fenian Men', 'Ringletted Youth of my Love', 'Galway Races' and 'My Love is Like the Sun'. 'Kiely is a great storyteller, a very gifted novelist, an extraordinary writer of short stories, and a very good broadcaster. He is a writer whose work has been consistent and abundant; ... the best writer about places around Ireland that I have read' - Brendan Kennelly 'There could not possibly be a better companion on a walk around Ireland than Ben Kiely.' - In Time's Eye, The Irish Times

Portobello Notebook

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 04:04:57 +0200

This collection of stories is set in Portobello, on the edge of Dublin city centre, just inside the canal. The stories reflect on characters on the edge of life, personalities that do not quite fit in: Michael, the country boy who drowns himself; Harry, the old Jewish dealer living alone; Liam, the crude but jovial emigrant returning to Ireland for a visit. Through the author's eyes, and through the eyes of his other characters, we follow his progress from the first story, 'Settling In', to the final one, 'Mr Pock'. Old friends are met, in loss or renewal, making or trying to make fresh starts, or looking back though the glass of time. Disappointment, happiness, uncertainty lead to the realization that this place has become – what the author had always thought was elsewhere – his home. Written over the past thirty years, these earnest and deeply human anecdotes form a greater story – of one man's life in one place.

The Red Men

Sun, 19 Nov 1989 08:54:00 +0300

Patrick McGinley's sixth novel, true to his distinctive style, is set in the austere and haunting landscape and shoreline of the author's native county, Donegal, Ireland. Love and death appear as the inescapable enigmas of being in the world. The Red Men is rich in vocabulary, in the particularities of daily life, and in various surprising areas of arcane lore.