Everyone is always welcome to attend even if you didn’t have time to read or finish the book it’s fun to hear other’s thoughts. For contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com

The Group will meet on on Thursday April 18th at 7pm. We will be discussing the book,  A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell. This book is a true crime story set in Dublin in the early 1980’s. We meet in the room at the top of the stairs and all are welcome.

 

Previous titles read by the Irish Literature Group.

The Group will meet on Thursday, March  21st at 7pm to discuss the book ‘Surrender’ by Bono. The book is a memoir written by Bono where he describes how he and his band evolved from a high school band to world fame. He also talks about his personal growth from musician to activist.

 

This month the  group will meet Thursday, February 15th at 7pm to discuss Trespassers by Louise Kennedy. The book is historical fiction with a little romance. It is set in Belfast during the height of the troubles.

 

The Irish Literature Group will meet January 18th to discuss My Fathers House by Joseph O’Connor. During this meeting we will hold our annual book exchange. Bring any wrapped book that you have enjoyed. A list of the books we have read is available at the sign in desk. Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com.

No Meeting in December

We meet on Thursday, November 16th at 7pm. We will be discussing the book Strumpet City by James Plunkett. The story takes place in Dublin in the years leading up to World War 1 and is about a strike that occurred in Dublin. Thanks to one of our members, Mary Coe the book is available on Libby. All are welcome. For Info Contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com

The Group will meet on Thursday, October 19th at 7 pm. We will  discuss The Great Unexpected by Dan Mooney. The book is described as being both funny and emotional.

Contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com

The Group will Thursday 9/21 at 7 pm to discuss Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan. The story is set in Tipperary and follows four generations of women.

 

The Irish Literature Group will meet on Thursday May 18that 7pm. we will be discussing the novel The Coroner’s Daughter by Andrew Hughes

 

 

The Irish Literature Group will meet on Thursday, April 20th at 7p.m. We will be discussing The Drowning Sea by Sarah Stewart Taylor. All are welcome. contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com.

 

 

The Literature Group meets on Thursday, March 23rd at 7pm to discuss the book, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? By Seamus O Reilly. The book is a memoir about a boy whose mother died and his life growing up with ten siblings in Northern Ireland during the troubles. The reviews say that it is very funny and only a little sad. All are welcome. contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com.

 

The Literature Group meets on Thursday, February 16 at 7 pm. We will be discussing The Witch Elm by Tana French. All are welcome even if you haven’t had time to read the book its often fun to hear about a new book. contact: Mary Ellen Keresey maryellenkeresey@gmail.com.

 

 

 

The group will  meet on Thursday, January 19th at 7 pm to discuss Holding by Graham Norton. All are welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

The Literature Group will meet on Thursday, December 15th at 7 p.m.. We will be getting into the Christmas Spirit by discussing  An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor. All are welcome to join even if you haven’t had time to read the book it often fun to hear about a new book.

 

 

 

The Irish Literature Group will meet on Thursday, November 17th. Please note that this month we will meet on Thursday instead of Wednesday.
We will be discussing Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.
We will be meeting in the library.

 

 

The Literature Group will meet on Wednesday, October 19, at 7pm in the GAC library to discuss The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge by Julie Kavanagh. Come and enjoy a discussion even if you haven’t read the book

 

 

 

The Literature Group will meet on September 21 at 7pm. We will be discussing ‘The Lost Girls of Ireland‘ by Susanne O’Leary. All are welcome to attend. For more information please contact Mary Ellen Keresey @ maryellenkeresey@gmail.com.

 

 

 

The Literature Group will meet at 7 pm on Monday, Feb 28th, via Zoom, we will discuss This Side Of Brightness by Colum McCann. Hailed as a “haunting novel,” it follows the story of Nathan Walker, a black man who comes to New York City at the turn of the century to become a sandhog -a person who digs the tunnels that carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. A parallel plotline follows Treefrog, a homeless man who in the 1980’s makes his home in the rafters of one of those tunnels. The book forms a tale of family, race and redemption that is as old and fabulous as New York City itself. All are welcome to attend. For Zoom link contact ClareBurnett@optonline.net.

October 20th at 6pm to discuss Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. The novel is a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award winner. Drawing on O’Farrell’s long-term fascination with the little known story behind Shakespeare’s play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child. We will meet outside in the back yard of the club, weather permitting All are welcome! For questions, please contact Clare Burnett at clareburnett@optonline.net

 

The Literature Group will meet on Wednesday, September 22nd at 7 p.m. to discuss Donal Ryan’s Strange Flowers. Five years after she went missing, a beloved daughter, Moll Gladney, returns to rural Tipperary with a secret in a novel that explores all forms of love. The New York Times says it is written with a quiet lyricism that puts Ryan at the top-most branch of the flourishing tree of contemporary Irish fiction. We will meet in the backyard of the Club, weather permitting. All are welcome! For questions, please contact Clare Burnett @optonline.net.

 

The Group meets Monday, Nov 18th at 7:30 to discuss acclaimed novelist Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir “I AM, I AM, I AM”. It is an unforgettable account of a life in near-death experiences. In taut prose, O’Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminated the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself. For more information contact clareburnett@optonline.net

 

 

On Monday, October 21st at 7:30, we will meet to discuss When All Is Said by Anne Griffin. The impressively, confident debut novel revolves around five monologues from an elderly man at a bar in Rainsford, County Meath who is looking back on his life. The monologues are linked by the presence of a stolen coin. For more information, contact Clare Burnett@optonline.net.

 

 

 

Monday, May 20th at 7:30 to discuss Edna O’Brien’s The Lonely Girl, part of The Country Girls Trilogy And Epilogue. The Washington Post Book World said, “There is no writer alive who sounds quite like Edna O’Brien. Her prose has a unique mixture of darkness and light that makes it immediately identifiable.”

 

 

 

We meet on Monday, April 22 at 7:30 to discuss ‘The Way We Were’ by Sinead Moriarty. The novel is a heartbreaking family drama about love, loss and new beginnings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This month we’ll meet in March 18th at 7:30, to discuss Mink River by Brian Doyle. This stunning debut novel brings to life the fictional town of Neawanaka on the wet coast of Oregon through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people.

 

We’ll meet on Monday, February 18th @ 7:30pm in the library to discuss Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break. The novel tells the story of Stella and Gerry Gilmore and contemplates the mysteries that lie at the heart of every marriage. It is a profound examination of human love and how we live together. MacLaverty is known for his effortlessly elegant writing and tender, intimate heartrending stories. New members are most welcome! it is a short book of only 240 pages. Give it a try!

 

We will meet at 7:30 on Monday, January 21st in the library to discuss The Library At The Edge Of The World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy. Good Reads calls it a warm, feel-good novel about the importance of finding a place where you belong. The novel follows Hanna Casey as she drives her mobile library van between the villages of Ireland’s west coast. All welcome! If you have any questions, contact Clare Burnett at email ClareBurnett@optonline.net or phone 203-255-3848.

 

On Monday October 22nd @ 7:30 the group will discuss Saints For All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan.  A New York Times Critic’s Top Book of 2017 and the Washington Post called it the year’s best book about family. The novel chronicles the Rafferty family in Boston. It draws the reader into the lives of the Rafferty clan, and, in the rare miracle of fiction, makes us care about them as if they were our own family. Sullivan writes “this family has a way of forgetting what it doesn’t want to know.”   If you have any questions, contact Clare Burnett at email ClareBurnett@optonline.net or phone 203-255-3848.

 

 

On Monday, September 17th at 7:30 in the library to discuss William Trevor’s Last Stories. If you have any questions, contact Clare Burnett at email ClareBurnett@optonline.net or phone 203-255-3848.

 

On Monday, April 16th at 7:30, we will meet to discuss Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder. The novel concerns an English nurse brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle-a girl said to have survived without food for months. The nurse soon finds herself fighting to save the girl’s life. If you have any questions, please call Clare Burnett at 203-255-3848 or email ClareBurnett@optonline.net. Everyone is welcome!

 

On Monday, March 19th at 7:30 in the library to discuss In The Woods by Tana French. It is her first in a series of novels about The Dublin Murder Squad. The Washington Post calls her “the most interesting and most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years.” The New York Times calls the novel “required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting. New and returning members are most welcome! For questions, please call Clare Burnett at email ClareBurnett@optonline.net  or call 203-255-3848.

 

Monday, February 26th at 7:30 we will meet to discuss the play Translations by Brian Friel. The three-act play, written in 1980 is set in Baile Beag, a Donegal village in 19th century agricultural Ireland. Friel has said that it is “a play about language and only about language” but it deals with Add Newa wide range of issues, stretching from language and communication to Irish history and cultural imperialism.

 

Monday, January 22 at 7:30 to discuss The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott. The novel is listed among the New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2017. Beginning with a suicide and ending with a murder, it is a powerfully affecting story spanning the 20th century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve the Irish-American community in Brooklyn. New members are most welcome and former members too! Contact Clare Burnett at 203-255-3848 or ClareBurnett@optonline.net with any questions.

 

The group will meet on Monday, November 20th at 7:30pm. We’ll be reading a novella by Claire Keegan called Foster which describes a small girl being sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. The novella can be read online for free here: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/foster. If you have any questions, please email me at clareburnett@optonline.net or call me at 203-255-3848. New members are welcome!

 

The group will meet on Monday, September 18th at 7:30 in the library to discuss Edna O’Brien’s The Little Red Chairs. The New York Times says it is a “Boldly imagined and harrowing new novel that is both an exploration of the theme of Irish provincial life from the perspective of girls and women and a work of alternate history in which the devastation of a war-torn Central European country intrudes upon the primal innocence of rural Ireland.” New members are most welcome!