Irish books you need to read at least once in your lifetime

Some of the best Irish books of all time

The default answer is James Joyce's Ulysses, and there's no denying the book's legacy, but there are so many other remarkable Irish books that deserve as much praise, especially from the last couple of years. I fully believe that these books will be classics one day.

In my personal opinion, these are the Irish books you really need to read at some stage in your life.

Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

I truly believe that Louise O'Neill is one of the greatest authors to ever grace Ireland in our lifetime. There's something so impactful about her books that makes the story stay with you long after you finish reading. She has so many remarkable novels, including my personal favourite, After the Silence, but Asking For It is her most important book.

Asking For It is one of the most groundbreaking Irish novels of our time. 

In a small town where everyone knows everyone, Emma O'Donovan is different. She is the special one - beautiful, popular, powerful. And she works hard to keep it that way.

Until that night...

Now, she's an embarrassment. Now, she's just a slut. Now, she is nothing.

And those pictures - those pictures that everyone has seen - mean she can never forget.

Buy here.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Nobody will be surprised to see Normal People feature on this list, but there's no denying it is one of the most celebrated and loved Irish novels of the 21st century.

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life-changing begins.

Buy here.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 

I was late to the game with this book, but it has lingered ever since I finished it. Claire Keegan's writing is so subtly impactful and haunting that you won't be able to forget about this book.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

Buy here.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is a master of his craft, but Brooklyn will always be my favourite book of his. There's something so moving about, something that tugs at my heartstrings, and makes me feel so unbearably proud to be Irish. I also believe the movie version is one of the best book-to-screen adaptations of all time, thanks to Saoirse Ronan. 

The novel follows a young Irish woman, Eilis Lacey, as she leaves Ireland for New York in the early 1950s.  Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home - and homesick. And just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland. There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma - a devastating choice between duty and one great love.

Buy it here.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

I truly believe that this is the best Irish novel of the last 20 years, and not enough people have read it. You're simply doing yourself a disservice if you've not read The Pull of the Stars yet.

Dublin, 1918. In a country doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.

Buy here.