25 Of The Most Captivating Books Set In Ireland
Ireland is also known as the Emerald Isle, and it has amazing aesthetics in terms of atmosphere for a story. Whether you are looking for an Irish classic or a new release set in northern Ireland, rural Ireland, or a small Dublin suburb, this list has 25 of the most captivating books set in Ireland!
This post is all about books set in Ireland – to include some classic books from Irish authors as well as some contemporary writers that may turn out to be the next James Joyce that you can discover with their very first novel!
We have many genres represented, so whether you are looking for something about summer holidays off the coast of Ireland, or someone fleeing New York to escape to a small Irish town, we know this list will help you find your new favorite books.
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All Time Great Books Set In Ireland
These are books you will regularly see not only on lists of great books set in Ireland, but great books, period.
There can only be one in the very top spot, and it can ONLY be this one. We will accept no argument to the contrary.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.
We look forward to reading all the books included in the new releases listed below, but even so, we feel safe in saying there will be no book on this list that is better than The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne.
It is freaking AMAZING. It is not just one of our favorite books, but truly one of the best books we have ever read. Just read the first chapter! You will be hooked, we promise.
Ok now that we have that out of the way, here are some other popular books set in Ireland that you may have heard of.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children. He is gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery.
In the Woods by Tana French is book one of the Irish novels called the Dublin Murder Squad series. These is a great thriller wrapped in the mystery of Ireland. There are a total of six books in this series, found in this box set. We have each also linked in our Books From The Blog storefront.
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
We listened to the audiobook of The Guest list and definitely recommend it in that format. The story involves a circle of friends so the cast was great and the accents will put you in the Irish frame of mine.
Lucy Foley has really had a lot of success with her novels lately, and we saw that this book along with The Hunting Party and The Paris Apartment are all available in a box set! You can find that and more on our Books From The Blog storefront.
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney is another popular author who has had several books released lately. She writes about the small things in everyday living that most people can relate to.
Her most popular may be Normal People, but she has a whole box set that you can check out. Check out her box set here.
It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny—the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents...Eve—the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny—they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains...except their own.
It widened at Dublin, at the university where Benny and Eve met beautiful Nan Mahlon and Jack Foley, a doctor's handsome son. But heartbreak and betrayal would bring the worlds of Knockglen and Dublin into explosive collision. Long-hidden lies would emerge to test the meaning of love and the strength of ties held within the fragile gold bands of a...Circle Of Friends.
No self respecting list of Irish books or authors can go without a mention of Maeve Binchy. She was a prolific writer before her death, publishing novels, non-fiction books, & short stories.
Determined to reevaluate her life, Jude Murray flees America to take refuge in Faerie Hill Cottage, immersing herself in the study of Irish folklore and discovering hope for the future of the magical past.
Finally back home in Ireland after years of traveling, Aidan Gallagher possesses an uncommon understanding of his country’s haunting myths. Although he’s devoted to managing the family pub, a hint of wildness still glints in his eyes—and in Jude, he sees a woman who can both soothe his heart and stir his blood. And he begins to share the legends of the land with her—while they create a passionate history of their own.
Likewise with Maeve Binchy, it’s hard to make a list of books set in Ireland without including the Norah Roberts Irish trilogy, for those that like romance books.
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, 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. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.
Emma Donoghue was first known to us by her incredible book, ROOM. She was actually born in Dublin and in addition to The Pull of the Stars, she has a new book out that also falls into this category. Check out Haven, set in 7th century Ireland.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story.
When you think of Irish memoirs, you think of Pulitzer Prize winning Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. He may be considered the most famous Irish author based just on this one book.
The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child—a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. The seductive mother; the imperious father; the twins—Chloe, fiery and forthright, and Myles, silent and expressionless—in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled, each of them a part of the “barely bearable raw immediacy” of his childhood memories.
Booker Prize winner John Banville has several books as well as short story collections that will certainly immerse you in Irish culture. We feature here the book that won the Booker prize, The Sea. He does have a new book out that also fits this list. Check out The Singularities.
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing.
If Flann O’Brien isn’t the most Irish name we have ever heard, we don’t know what is. Two birds is definitely one of the more hilarious Irish classics.
The Hottest Newcomers and New Releases
We wanted to feature some new releases or new authors, so here are 15 Books Set In Ireland that were released in the past year or so.
They cover a range of genres, so if you are looking for a coming-of-age story about Irish teenagers, or books steeped in Irish history, or quaint stories about small town life, or even ones about crime and financial collapse, peruse through this book list and see which ones appeal to you!
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires.
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
It is the winter following the summer they met. A couple, Bell and Sigh, move into a remote house in the Irish countryside with their dogs.
They arrive at their new home on a clear January day and look up to appraise the view. A mountain gently and unspectacularly ascends from the Atlantic. They make a promise to climb the mountain, but—over the course of the next seven years—it remains unclimbed. We move through the seasons with Bell and Sigh as they come to understand more about the small world around them, and as their interest in the wider world recedes.
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast, teaching at a parochial school and moonlighting at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a Protestant barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment, Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.
She was the perfect wife, with the perfect life. You would kill to have it.
Ciara Dunphy has it all—a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home. Her circle of friends in their small Irish village go to her for tips about mothering, style, and influencer success—a picture-perfect life is easy money on Instagram. Then Ciara is found murdered in her own pristine home, and the house of cards she’d worked so hard to build comes crumbling down. Everyone seems to have something to gain from Ciara’s death, so if they don’t want the blame, it may be the perfect time to air their enemies’ dirty laundry.
While growing up in West Belfast, Sean does everything he's supposed to do. He works hard, he studies, and he - mostly - stays out of trouble. The thirty-year conflict is over, he's told, and his future is lit with promise.
But when Sean returns home from university, he finds much of the same-the same friends doing the same gear in the same clubs; the same lost brothers and mad fathers; the same closed doors; the same silences. There are no jobs, Sean's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on, and no one will give him the time of day. One night, he assaults a stranger at a party, and everything begins to come undone.
A witty and warm debut novel from a young Irish writer. A story of family, grief, and the ways we come together when all seems lost.
Molly Black has disappeared. She's been a bit flighty since her parents died, but this time – or so says her hastily written note – she's gone for good.
That's why the whole Black clan – from Granny perched on the printer all the way through to Killian on Zoom from Sydney – is huddled together in the Dublin suburbs, arguing over what to do.
As a doctoral student at Trinity College Dublin, Darren Walton is trying to decode an elaborate conspiracy he stumbled across as an undergraduate. To do so he must locate an alternate Ireland named Camland, the existence of which is proven when he discovers a literary journal whose contents mirror his own past. With proof of his wild theories, Darren is sure academic fame is imminent. But for this he is willing to sacrifice not just his sanity and physical safety, but also his relationships with the ones who love him most.
It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn’t much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn’t know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.
Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish history, contributing to the eventual collapse of a government.
Juno Loves Legs is the story of two teens labeled as delinquents. Juno and "Legs" grow up on the same housing estate in Dublin, where spirited, intelligent Juno is ostracized for her poverty and Legs is persecuted for his sexuality; they find safety only in each other.
Set against the backdrop of Dublin in the 1980s, a place of political, social and religious change, the friends yearn for an unbound life and together they begin to fight to take up the space of who they truly are. As their defiance reverberates through their lives, the children are further alienated from their surrounding society through acts of bravery and cowardice, both their own and others’. Finding themselves as outsiders, they are feared, coveted and watched, but rarely truly seen.
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?
Tensions are at an all-time high in an upscale Dublin restaurant as its employees grapple with the fallout from a shocking scandal involving its head chef. The waitress, the chef, and the chef’s wife may all lovingly describe the food, but they agree on little else as their 3 voices reveal a story of power and complicity, and the courage it takes to face the truth.
When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to the summer she spent waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant when she was a young college student— the plush splendor of the dining rooms, the wild parties after service, the sizzling tension of the kitchens. But Hannah also remembers how the attention from Daniel soon morphed from kindness into something darker.
Jamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.
Two days after the winter solstice in 2019, Kerri and her partner moved to a remote cottage in the heart of Ireland. They were looking for a home, somewhere to settle into a stable life. Then the pandemic arrived and their secluded abode became a place of enforced isolation. What was meant to be the beginning of an enriching new chapter was instead marked by uncertainty and fear. The seasons still passed, the swallows returned, the rhythms of the natural world went on, but in many ways 2020 was unlike any year we had seen before. And for Kerri there would be one more change: a baby, longed for but utterly, beautifully unexpected.
If you are looking for great stories to fill a nice warm evening, or want to transport yourself to the bright lights of Dublin from wherever you may live, we hope this post gave you some great books set in Ireland to add to your reading list! What did we miss? What is your favorite novel set in Ireland?
If you are looking forward to spending St. Patrick’s day curled up with a story set in Ireland and want to look the part, check out our post of St. Patrick’s outfit ideas to embrace the season!
For the scrapbookers, we have some inspiration for you to create scrapbook pages or junk journal layouts with our post on Irish culture ideas & inspiration.
If you are looking for more book recommendations, check out our book section of the blog. We have posts for Stephen King Fans, Sarah J. Maas fans, YA books for adults, book reviews and more!
Happy Reading!
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