CELEBRATING YOUR FAVOURITE IRISH BOOKS OF THE LAST 20 YEARS

Room

Emma Donoghue

Told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, Emma Donoghue’s Room is a devastating portrait of a boundless maternal love.

Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching cartoons on TV, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there’s a world outside . . .

Told in Jack’s voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

Room

Explore the other titles in the list

Asking For It

Louise O'Neill

Fia and the Last Snow Deer

Eilish Fisher, illustrated by Dermot Flynn

Girls Who Slay Monsters

Ellen Ryan, illustrated by Shona Shirley Macdonald

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

John Boyne

Holding

Graham Norton

Normal People

Sally Rooney

Room

Emma Donoghue

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

The Bee Sting

Paul Murray

The Importance of Being Aisling

Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen

The Secret Scripture

Sebastian Barry

The Spinning Heart

Donal Ryan

Trespasses

Louise Kennedy

Unravelling Oliver

Liz Nugent

Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun)

Manchán Magan, illustrated by Megan Luddy

We Don’t Know Ourselves

Fintan O'Toole

A Ghost in the Throat

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Country Girl

Edna O’Brien

Poor

Katriona O’Sullivan

Atlas of the Irish Revolution

John Crowley, Donál Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo

Don’t miss a chapter…

Sign up to our newsletter for campaign updates, book reveals, voting news and more as we celebrate 20 years of Irish stories.