New Island Books

A selection of twenty-five of the finest stories shortlisted for the Hennessy Awards between 2005 and 2015.

A brilliant portrayal of those unarmed Irish ships that sailed alone through hazardous waters; of young romance and a boy encountering a world where every experience is intense and dangerous, this is Bolger's most spellbinding novel, and the work of a master storyteller who is one of Ireland's best-known novelists, playwrights and poets.

In his first collection of short stories, Dermot Bolger peers under the veneer of our lives, exploring the secrets that bind families together, or tear them apart, creating worlds where people find that nothing is truly certain. There are always truths just beyond reach that would make sense of their lives, if they only know how to unlock them.

Every night during a year spent in lockdown, Dermot Bolger set out on long walks through deserted streets, armed only with a pen and paper. Bolger follows in the footsteps of the great Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, using walks through his native city to allow his imagination free rein to revisit pivotal moments in his own life and speculatively meditate on the lives of others in a series of remarkable poems.

Following a car crash, for several seconds Dublin photographer Sean Blake is clinically dead but finds his progress towards the afterworld blocked by a haunting face he only partially recognises.

The Eloquence of the Dead is the second of the Joe Swallow books and is a fast-paced and gripping crime thriller from the pen of a truly talented writer.

The first book in a pacey and evocative detective series set in Victorian Dublin.

Joe Swallow series.

A history of the early years of the Irish police force.

Maeve Brennan adds her voice to those of Joyce and Beckett in her depiction of a certain Dublin in time.