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In this episode we go to one of our favourite places in Dublin, Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dawson Street, to interview Cathy Galvin on the occasion of the launch of her collection of poems from Bloodaxe, Ethnology, A Love Song for Connemara. We also meet and hear poet John F. Deane, who spoke about Cathy’s book and read some of his own recently published Carcanet collection, Jonah and Me, a Poetry Society Recommendation.

from Bloodaxe:

Ethnology draws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin's Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on the margins of Europe.
Drawing on classic forms within literary and oral traditions, Ethnology becomes a love song for Connemara, witness to vivid encounters: between the living and the dead and between the poets, folklorists and ethnologists who have written about the West of Ireland for their own agendas.
In her first full-length book of poetry, fragility and strength are finely balanced, focused on the ruins of an island cottage built by her great-grandfather. Here, Cathy Galvin locates humour and joy as well as mourning. The poems give a vivid, original voice to the tradition of keening, of honouring the loss of those we love.

from Carcanet

John F. Deane's new book follows the publication of his career-spanning New and Selected Poems, which was published on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 2023 and shows no relaxation in his descriptive and lyric powers.
Ireland's foremost living religious poet, the new book includes a sequence, 'Of Human Flesh', which takes Easter's rituals as its occasion, and dwells on its continuing purchase and meaning as the poet remembers others and walks a landscape where, sometimes, as he puts it, the spiritual and material worlds come together:

'all here fits
together, oxbow and pillow-stone, holon and fractal,
stunning, admonishing, this morphogenic field.'

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, 'Thou Shalt Not Carry' from The Hare's Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.

Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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We’re back for the first episode of 2026. This week we’re back in Books Upstairs in Dublin to interview Hugo Hamilton about his latest novel, Conversation with the Sea.

Fleeing his failed marriage in Berlin, Lukas Dorn revisits the West of Ireland, the place of his honeymoon two decades earlier. While his former wife is being cancelled at work and his daughter is arrested at a street protest, he tries to make sense of his broken life with a journal as his sole companion.

His inherited memory of the Nazi Holocaust comes face to face with the present when he meets a refugee from a recent warzone. As Lukas communes with the elements in this wild coastal place, he is forced into a confrontation with the past that will carry him to the edge of existence.

Conversation with the Sea speaks with heart-rending tenderness to the present moment, as it explores truth, illusion and the deadly silencing of war in a captivating tale of love in a time of displacement.

Truly a book for our time' PAUL LYNCH

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF 'THE SPECKLED PEOPLE'

'Told with Hamilton's signature purity of tone, an epic story about how love and history intersect.' ANNE ENRIGHT

'I don't think I've ever read a book as wise, or as moving. I will treasure it forever.' DONAL RYAN

'Hypnotic, passionate, urgent … Hamilton cuts a clean line to the truth of our mindless moment.' PAUL LYNCH

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, 'Thou Shalt Not Carry' from The Hare's Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.

Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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Mince pie and Christmas cracker laden, today’s breakfast table is very festive indeed as we celebrate the best of books and cultural events in 2025. To help us celebrate we’ve gathered at our table four writers who have each been asked to choose just one book, either fiction or non fiction that they’ve especially admired this year and one cultural event – film, exhibition, music or anything else – that they have enjoyed over the last twelve months. The four writers are Sarah Gilmartin, Neil Hegarty, Caitriona Lally and Philip Davison.

Books recommended: Anne Enright: Attention: Writing on Life, Art and the World
Gerbrand Bakker: The Hairdresser’s Son; Ben Macintyre: The Spy and the Traitor ;
Sarah Moss: Ghost Wall; Helen Garner: Collected Diaries 1978-1998: How to end a story and Tim MacGabhann: The Black Pool: A Memoir of Forgetting.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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This morning we welcome poet and critic Ciarán O’Rourke to our breakfast table here in Dublin 8. Ciarán has published two collections of poems with Irish Pages Press, The Buried Breath in 2018 and Phantom Gang in 2022, and he also runs the poetry website ragpickerpoetry.net. Ciarán talk about five recent books of poetry: Eiléan Ní Cuilleanáin, New Selected Poems; Catherine Ann Cullen, Storm Damages; Keith Payne, Savage Acres; Patrick Cotter, Quality Control at the Miracle Factory; Kevin Graham, Time's Guest.

Mark Granier is an award-winning Irish poet and photographer whose work has been widely published and admired for its sharp imagery, lyric precision, and subtle wit. Over the past two decades, he has brought out several acclaimed collections, including Airborne, Haunt, Fade Street, as well as Ghostlight, New and Selected Poems. His latest book, Everything You Always Wanted To Know, is perhaps his most personal and revealing to date, weaving together memory, intimacy, and the everyday with a striking visual clarity.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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On today’s episode we travel to IMMA and the Dublin Book Festival to meet and talk with İlhan Sami Çomak, a Kurdish Turkish poet who has spent almost thirty years imprisoned in Turkey. He was arrested in 1994 and charged with membership of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Part. In jail, Çomak released eight books of poetry and became one of Turkey's longest serving political prisoners. He is here in Dublin to mark the Day of the imprisoned Writer at the invitation of Irish PEN which followed an extensive international campaign for his release. Ilhan is accompanied by his interpreter Ipak Özel.

Also in this episode writer, filmmaker and lecturer Ferdia MacAnna joins us the breakfast table to talk to us about Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn, the widely acclaimed collection of short stories published by the Stinging Fly Press, and now by Granta as well.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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On this morning's episode we talk to Ger Reidy about his latest poetry collection, Clay; Liam Carson tells us about the latest edition of IMRAM, the Irish language festival and the increasing visibility of Irish, and I chat to Enda Wyley about her book, Sudden Light and about winning the Lawrence O' Shaughnessy Award for poetry.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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On today’s episode poet and critic Adam Wyeth reviews nine new poetry collections. Under the microscope are Infinity Pool by Vona Groarke; Belfast Twilight by Liam Carson; Harbour Doubts by Bebe Ahley; Over Here by Alan Gillis; Chic to be Sad by Molly Twomey; New Arcana by Jesica Traynor; The Convent of Mercy by Tom French; À la Belle Étoile: The odyssey of Jeanne by Afric McGlinchey and Scaffold by Thomas Brezing. A strong poet of coffee needed!

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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In this episode we invite Colm Tóibín to the breakfast table to discuss his new book A Ship in Full Sail: The Laureate Lectures and Other Writings. The book collects the blogs he wrote during his term as Laureate for Irish Fiction, one written each month on topics as diverse as Artificial Intelligence, reading Ulysses, the discomfort of Salman Rushdie in the wilds of County Dublin, Bob Dylan in concert, a life of Thom Gunn and the author’s role in a campaign to save the House of The Dead. Also included are essays on abiding interests – music and the visual arts. It's a wide-ranging collection full of fascinating insights into the mind of one of Ireland’s beloved writers.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

Support the show