Patrick McCabe has been announced as the 2026 IPUT Writer-in-Residence at Wilton Park in Dublin, as selected by a committee chaired by Colm Tóibín.
Located in an elegant refurbished Georgian apartment at Wilton Park, the residency is in an area with rich literary connections, known as Baggotonia. The apartment includes a writer’s study and has views across the park to the Grand Canal, taking in the well-known statue of Patrick Kavanagh. It is adjacent to Mary Lavin Place, the first public square named in honour of an Irish woman writer.
McCabe has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His novels Breakfast on Pluto and The Butcher Boy were both made into films directed by Neil Jordan. In September, Picador will publish his novels Poguemahone and Goldengrove in paperback.
Following in the footsteps of Patrick Kavanagh, fellow Monaghan native McCabe has moved to Dublin to take up his residency this month. The inaugural residency was awarded last year to Naoise Dolan, giving her the chance to return to live in her home city for the first time since graduating from Trinity College in 2016.
The IPUT Writer-in-Residence includes a generous stipend, making it one of the most valuable literary awards in Ireland, worth approximately €70,000. It is given on an annual basis to a published writer, enabling them to live and make work in Dublin and contribute to the life of the city, a Unesco World City of Literature. The residency is selected by a committee chaired by Tóibín, including publicist Cormac Kinsella and members of IPUT.
“We are delighted to announce Patrick McCabe as our second writer-in-residence,” said Niall Gaffney, CEO of IPUT Real Estate. “As an avid reader of his novels, I am curious to see how the neighbourhood of Wilton Park and Mary Lavin Place may inspire his work in the future.
“We created the residency because we believe cities are only great when there is space for arts and culture to thrive. We have been proud to host events with our inaugural resident, Naoise Dolan, at both the International Literary Festival Dublin and the Dublin Book Festival.”
McCabe said: “This remarkable residency will mark for me a return to a part of the city of Dublin with which I am well acquainted – having completed the greater part of my novel The Dead School there, many moons ago. From both my native Monaghan and Dublin, I am well aware of the spectral presences of Patrick Kavanagh and of Mary Lavin, for I too once haunted the shelves of Parson’s legendary bookshop. It’s a great part of the city and I cannot wait to encounter its drifting, immortal literary spirits.”
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The Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien has announced the 2026 Kate O’Brien award shortlist. The €5,000 prize, sponsored by Bill and Denise Whelan, will be presented as part of the 42nd annual festival, which takes place from February 27th to March 1st.
The four shortlisted titles are: Water in the Desert, Fire in the Night by Gethan Dick (Tramp Press); Assembling Ailish by Sharon Guard (Poolbeg); The Wardrobe Department by Elaine Garvey (Canongate); and Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin (Manilla Press).
The shortlisted writers will discuss and read from their books at the festival on Sunday, March 1st at 11.15am in the Belltable, Limerick. The event provides a wonderful opportunity for readers and writers to listen to, ask questions of and meet new writers at the beginning of their careers.
The judges are committee members Marie Hackett and Vivienne McKechnie; writer and children’s book buyer for Kenny’s Bookshop Grainne O’Brien; director of Narrative 4 James Lawlor; and Mary Clayton, professor of Old and Middle English.
Festival highlights include events with Miriam O’Callaghan, David Park, Eoin McNamee, Éilís Ni Dhuibhne in conversation with Sarah Gilmartin, Grainne O’Brien and reflections on the life and work of Maeve Kelly, with more events to be announced. Details here.
In The Irish Times tomorrow, Rob Doyle tells me about his latest novel, Cameo. Tanya Sweeney talks to Róisín Ingle about her debut novel, Esther is Now Following You. And there is a Q&A with Myles Dungan about his debut crime novel and his passion for history.
Reviews include Karlin Lillington on Off the Scales by Aimee Donnellan; Conor O’Clery on The Successor: Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin and the Decline of Modern Russia by Mikhail Fishman; Julian Girdham on Pulse by Cynan Jones; Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction; Pat Carty on The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle; Emily Goulding on Blank Canvas by Grace Murray; Oliver Farry on Happy Land: Finding My Inner Finn. Forty Years in the ‘World’s Happiest Country’ by Tim Bird; Claire Connolly on Thomas Moore and the Transatlantic, 1800–1840 The Local, the Global and the Mobile by Julia M. Wright; Andrew Lynch on Solidarity and Pressure: The Story of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement by Connal Parr; Frank McDonald on America At Home: The Architecture and Politics of the US Embassy in Dublin by Cormac Murray; Kristen Poli on Television by Lauren Rothery; Colm McKenna on The Undead by Svetlana Satchkova; and Daniel Geary on Paul Heideman’s Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos.
This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is Irish Novel of the Year, Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell, for just €5.99 – a €6 saving.
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Going to Zossen, the debut novel by Russian-Irish journalist A.V. Pankov, is to be published on February 3rd. It will be launched at 6.30pm on Friday, February 20th in The Winding Stair bookshop, 40 Ormond Quay Lower, Dublin.
Going to Zossen gives a timely glimpse into the lives of young prisoners in post-Soviet Russia. As an emigrant from Russia whose family was granted asylum in Ireland in 2001, Pankov draws us into a world of uncomfortable compromise, where right and wrong are subordinated to survival.
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Mercier Press, Ireland’s oldest independent publishing house, is to bring A Man Ahead of This Time, by activist and politician Periyar EV Ramasamy, to the UK and Irish market.
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The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast has announced the appointment of Marcella LA Prince as its new Publishing Fellow. Emma Devlin and Matthew Rice, meanwhile, have been conformed as the Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows for 2026.
The annual Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellowships were established in memory of Ciaran Carson, founding director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. The Publishing Fellowship recognises the centre’s ongoing commitment to the wider literary sector, with a particular focus on publishing in all its manifestations. The fellowships are worth £10,000 a year.
Marcella LA Prince is a poet from Wisconsin in the US. She is co-editor of Hold Open the Door, a commemorative anthology from the Ireland Chair of Poetry (UCD Press, 2020). Her PhD at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s focused on the US midwest landscape in Robert Bly’s first collection, Silence in the Snowy Fields. Marcella is working towards her first collection.
Emma Devlin won the Benedict Kiely short story competition in 2019. In 2021, she was longlisted for the Galley Beggars Press short story competition and in 2023 was shortlisted for the Mairtín Crawford award. She completed her PhD in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre in 2024.
Matthew Rice completed his PhD at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s in 2025, with a focus on representations of industry in the poetry of Louis MacNeice, Derek Mahon and Leontia Flynn. His debut collection, The Last Weather Observer, was an Arts Council of Northern Ireland top ten books of the year pick in 2021. His current book, plastic, is available now from Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK/Europe) and Soft Skull Press (US).
Prof Glenn Patterson, director of the centre, said: “As graduates of the PhD programme, Marcella L.A. Prince, Emma Devlin and Matthew Rice are no strangers to the Seamus Heaney Centre, but it is with great delight, and anticipation, that we welcome them back as Fellows. We look forward very much to working with them and to all that they will bring to the life of the Centre, the School, and the city.”
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Bad Books is a new independent publishing house founded by award-winning illustrators Ashwin Chacko and Clive McFarland, with marketing strategist Charl Pretorius. Based in Northern Ireland, Bad Books champions unconventional, visually bold picture books that spark curiosity, imagination, and emotional growth.
The press asks big questions: how can Irish children’s literature embrace diversity and new voices? Which stories will inspire the next generation of readers? Bad Books celebrates the misfit, the mischievous and the heartfelt, giving authors and illustrators the freedom to craft stories that don’t fit the mould.
Launching on March 5th, Bad Books’ first title is Moon Moon Can’t Sleep, a debut picture book by Belfast-based author and illustrator Johnathan Sung. Aimed at children aged 2–6, it’s a modern bedtime story about night-time worries and finding your way back to sleep. Available for pre-order at badbookpress.com.
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The Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize, an annual competition for unpublished writers, is open to submissions from until March 16th. The judges are looking for proposals for essays that explore and expand the possibilities of the essay form, with no restrictions on theme or subject matter.
The prize awards £4,000 to the best proposal for a book-length essay (minimum 25,000 words) by a writer resident in the UK & Ireland who has yet to secure a publishing deal. The winner will also have the opportunity to spend up to two months in residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy, to work on their book. The book will then be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
The prize is judged by Joanna Biggs, Brian Dillon, Joanna Kavenna, Max Porter and Jacques Testard. Proposals should be sent to essayprize@fitzcarraldoeditions.com. For more information, visit their website.
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This year’s winners of the Nero Book Awards have been announced. They will now go on to compete for the Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year, which will be announced at a ceremony on March 4th.
The Fiction winner is Seascraper by Benjamin Wood; Non-Fiction winner is Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry; Debut Fiction winner is A Family Matter by Claire Lynch; and Children’s Fiction winner is My Soul, A Shining Tree by Jamila Gavin.
“These four books represent the highest quality of writing and craftsmanship in literature,” the prize organisers said, “offering something for all readers: a novel set in Merseyside following the life of a shanker; a personal account of the death of an ordinary yet extraordinary man; a debut novel about a family torn apart by prejudice; and a children’s novel chronicling the shared human experience of those affected by the first World War.”
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Writing Place, Writing Planet is a new collaboration between the Mary Lavin Centre for Creative Writing at UCD and iCRAG (Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences).
When literature and science blend, insightful pieces of work can emerge. Writers try to make sense of the world through creativity and prose, while geoscientists try to do so through the scientific method. Both involve research and exploration, but it is often the writers that touch the minds of many, provoking thoughts about our shared futures on this changing planet.
Writing Place, Writing Planet aims to explore place, planet, environment and the human connections with each through collaborative writer-scientist partnerships. We invite applications from emerging writers for three paid mentorships. Full details and the application procedure are available here.
