The Arts Council Podcast

The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 27: ‘Molly Fox’s Birthday’ by Deirdre Madden by The Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 26 'The Bee Sting' by Paul Murray by The Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 25: ‘Youth’ by Kevin Curran by The Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 24: 'Soldier Sailor' by Claire Kilroy by The Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The December Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Mike McCormack about his novel 'This Plague of Souls'. Mike McCormack comes from the west of Ireland and is the author of two collections of short stories Getting it in the Head and Forensic Songs, and three novels Crowe’s Requiem, Notes from a Coma and Solar Bones.

On 3 November at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace Bellaghy, Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín delivered his second annual lecture entitled A Dream on Wings: Poetry and the Underworld. It featured poetry readings by Cathy Belton and musical performance by Martin Hayes. Colm Tóibín’s lecture charts poetry written about the underworld and traces a line going from Ovid through to

The November Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Aingeala Flannery about her book 'The Amusements'. Aingeala Flannery’s first collection of linked stories is set in the seaside town of Tramore. ‘The people in this book are not real but the town of Tramore is,’ Flannery has written. ‘It took up residence in m

The October Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Joseph O'Connor about his novel 'My Father's House'.

The September Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Wendy Erskine about her short story collection 'Dance Move'. The Guardian writes of Wendy Erskine’s collection of stories: ‘She identifies what is most fruitful about her characters’ predicaments – the emotional core, the most resonant ironies – and traces

“Ben, the protagonist of White City, is, John Self writes in the Guardian, the ‘son of a disgraced Dublin banker, languishing in rehab and writing an account of his wrong turns as therapy.’ As Ben gets involved in a dodgy property deal in Serbia, Power creates a world of Irish people on the make with the hapless Ben at its centre. Ben, the Irish Times writes, ‘is Power’s