Great Irish Reportage

Alongside its world-famous tradition of great fiction, Ireland has a less well known but thrilling tradition of reportage: journalism, dispatches and eyewitness accounts. From Elizabeth Bowen to Colm Tóibín, from Flann O'Brien to Maeve Binchy, some of Ireland's greatest writers have produced first-rate journalism. And from R. M. Smyllie and Conor Cruise O'Brien to Eamon Dunphy and Olivia O'Leary, Ireland has also produced a remarkable number of journalists who can really write. Now, for the first time, the best of Irish reportage - some of it legendary, some of it unjustly forgotten - is gathered into a single volume. Whether it's Kate O'Brien on the reinterment of W. B. Yeats or Emily O'Reilly on the election to Westminster of Gerry Adams, whether it's Hubert Butler on the Fetherd-on-Sea boycott or Joseph O'Connor's hilarious dispatch from the 1994 World Cup, the pieces in Great Irish Reportage illuminate Irish life in a way that no other form of writing can.